Digital Commons Network^™

Higher Diffeology Theory, Emilio Minichiello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Finite dimensional smooth manifolds have been studied for hundreds of years, and a massive theory has been built around them. However, modern mathematicians and physicists are commonly dealing with objects outside the purview of classical differential geometry, such as orbifolds and loop spaces. Diffeology is a new framework for dealing with such generalized smooth spaces. This theory (whose development started in earnest in the 1980s) has started to catch on amongst the wider mathematical community, thanks to its simplicity and power, but it is not the only approach to dealing with generalized smooth spaces. Higher topos theory is another such …

Uncovering The Mimicry Of Online Review Breadth And Depth And Its Subsequent Effect On Consumer Responses, Andrea Pelaez Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Word-of-mouth (WOM) in marketing occurs when consumers discuss a company's product or service or any consumption experience with their friends, family, and others with whom they have any relationship. With the advent of social media, this phenomenon has expanded rapidly into virtual environments where consumer conversation is enabled through chats, forums, social media posts, and online reviews. In response to this rapid growth of online WOM, academics and practitioners have focused their interest on this phenomenon and its implications on consumers, firms, and society. So far, the evidence of the critical role that online WOM plays in helping consumers make …

Systematics And Comparative Genomics Of The Petaluridae (Odonata: Anisoptera), Ethan R. Tolman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Anisoptera (Insecta: Odonata), or dragonflies exhibit diverse life histories and diversification patterns, with the family Petaluridae standing out as particularly unique. Comprising only 11 extant species, all of which inhabit increasingly threatened fen habitats, Petaluridae are known for their longevity, which can exceed five years, semi-terrestrial lifestyle, and remarkable physical size, ranking among the largest insects on Earth. Despite the evolutionary peculiarities of this family, no previous genomic studies have investigated the Petaluridae. This work presents two high-quality genome sequences and a targeted enrichment dataset to explore the chromosome architecture of Petaluridae, identifies genomic adaptations associated with their distinctive …

Heterogenous Household Expectations, Consumption Choices And Trust, Justine Guillochon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study household consumption choices over the business cycle, the formation of household expectations and the trust of households in the monetary policy institutions.

Chapter 1: Using scanner data and product-level information, this chapter documents the trend and the cyclicality of the processing level of market-purchased household food consumption over the period 2007 to 2020 in the United States. I unveil a strategy, the processing effort, that households exploit to reduce the price of their basket. This strategy consists in altering their basket composition at business cycle frequencies to purchase less processed foods for …

Identification Of Mandibular And Maxillary Molars Of Old World Monkeys (Primates, Cercopithecidae) Using 3d Geometric Morphometrics, Eric John Mazelis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study is an attempt to take steps towards quantifying 3D molar shapes of the primate family Cercopithecidae to construct a framework for the automation of identifying the anatomical position and taxonomic affiliations of isolated molars. I introduce a new landmark protocol and present a proposed workflow model which can be applied in the future. For the purpose of this study, I collected and compiled the largest sample of 3D surface scans of varying wear grades of all six cercopithecid molar positions (i.e., M¹-M³ and M₁-M₃). The sample comprises 2641 specimens from …

The Reciprocal Interaction Of Musical Performance And Analysis, Gregory Hartmann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Musicians can generally be divided into one of two kinds: practitioners who compose or perform music, and thinkers who analyze or write about music (theorists, musicologists, and critics). These roles might seem to be of approximately equal importance, so the perspectives of each should be given proportionate consideration. Yet the existing music-theoretical literature consistently relegates the performer to an inferior position. When performance is discussed, it is usually done in objective terms; an analysis is presented as a rationale to judge a performance as right or wrong. My dissertation challenges this perspective and provides an alternative. By marrying rigorous, theory-based …

Empirical Essays On Corporate Financing Behaviors, Joonsung Won

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides an investigation into how external factors influence corporate financing decisions and examines the nature and extent of their impact. To address this, I explore three key external factors: the financial market, financial institutions, and regulatory environment. The chapters explore how the financial market risk perception, financial institutions, and regulatory environment affect corporate financing decisions such as capital structure, bank borrowing, and regulatory capital issuance.

Chapter 1. This chapter presents the motivation and structure of the dissertation.

Chapter 2. Using a recently developed measure of financial market risk perceptions, I show that risk perceptions affect firm-level corporate financing …

Metric Schemas And Projections In Three Colombian Folk Genres, Lina S. Tabak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores how stylistic expertise can affect metric perception, through the analysis of three Colombian folk genres—cantos de boga and currulaos from the Pacific region and joropos from the Eastern plains bordering Venezuela. Specifically, it considers the tension between metric perceptions which arise from bottom-up mechanisms for entrainment (such as projections), and those which are based on top-down mechanisms (such as schemata). This tension is at play when more and less musically enculturated listeners perceive entirely different metric structures when listening to identical music.

Taking bottom-up and top-down metric perception as a thread, this dissertation isolates three additional metric …

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, Ege Aksu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of two chapters that investigate the effect of public health policies on health outcomes.

The first chapter evaluates the impact of the extensive health care reforms enacted between 2003–2013 under the Health Transformation Program (HTP) in Turkey on maternal and infant health outcomes for the poor. By focusing on a specific insurance program (Green Card) expansion that was a part of HTP, I explore changes in infant survival, fertility, and children’s vaccination status. Before 2004, all public health insurance beneficiaries (the control group) were covered for outpatient services, including prenatal and postnatal doctor visits, gestational diabetes screenings, …

Evaluating Climate Sentiment In Sec 10-K Filings: S&P 50 Companies, Ruby Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Evaluating Climate Sentiment in SEC 10-K Filings: S&P 50 Companies investigates how climate sentiment is portrayed in corporate financial reporting, focusing on SEC 10-K filings from leading S&P 50 companies. These filings offer detailed insights into financial performance, risks, and management discussions, providing a rich dataset for analyzing corporate behaviors with sustainability and environmental concerns. This study aims to shed light on the extent to which companies address environmental issues and the implications for environmental stewardship by analyzing how these topics are portrayed in their SEC 10-K filings. Drawing inspiration from established greenwashing indicator frameworks, the study develops a climate …

Mechanistic, Biochemical, And Theoretical Studies Of Phototoxicity And Photobluing, Lloyd M. Lapoot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis consists of four chapters as detailed below:

Chapter 1 discusses the photoconversion of heptamethine to pentamethine cyanines and of pentamethine to trimethine cyanines. Here, we report mechanistic studies and initial experimental evidence for a previously unexplored 4-carbon truncation reaction that converts the simplest heptamethine cyanine to the corresponding trimethine cyanine. We propose a DFT-supported model describing a singlet oxygen (¹O₂) mediated formation of an allene hydroperoxide intermediate and subsequent 4-carbon loss through a retro-Diels-Alder process. Fluorescence and mass spectrometry measurements provide evidence for this direct conversion process. This 4-carbon truncation reaction adds to growing …

Understanding Tax Progressivity As A Mechanism Of Gender Difference In Tax Payment Patterns And Post-Tax Income, Morgan A. Richards-Melamdir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gender difference in taxation is generally understudied. However, existing scholarship, largely country case studies, suggests men pay higher tax rates where income tax progressivity is higher, due to their higher average income. Men’s higher rates should then increase gender equality in income post-tax. However, many rich countries reduced income tax progressivity starting in the 1980s-90s during “taxing for economic growth” reforms, including over half of the high income countries included in this study. These changes have previously unexplored implications for the extent to which the current (versus past) tax systems of rich countries reduce, leave unaffected, or compound gender disparities …

Best Practices For Healthcare Providers When Communicating With Individuals With Hearing Loss: A Systematic Review, Ashley Mccaig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature to gather information about strategies to use when communicating with people with hearing loss, specifically in healthcare settings or environments where face masks are frequently used. The compiled literature was used to establish the best practices for healthcare providers to use when communicating with their patients with hearing loss, especially when utilizing face masks.

Methods: A comprehensive search of the literature was conducted using the Google Scholar, PubMed, and MEDLINE Complete databases. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was used to …

Consciousness And Physicalism, Brian Mcgowan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Physicalism is a philosophy of mind which attempts to explain consciousness as resulting from physical causes. The lack of a complete and consistent mathematical theory to explain physical causation has led other philosophers of mind to propose that consciousness is a nonphysical essence, property, or substance. However, the idea that physics can be defined atomically and/or deterministically leads to explanatory problems for consciousness, as well as for the dualisms which explain consciousness under these assumptions. This thesis advances a position called “continuous physicalism” which takes all material to result from deformations in the physical medium of space, and any changes …

Black Women And Social Movements: A Narrative Analysis, Nantasha Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contributions of Black women in social justice movements are not well documented in the scholarly literature. Their roles as activists have been expunged from the history in America over centuries. This study revealed Black women’s experiences within social movement spaces. The purpose of this dissertation study was to discover the struggles, successes, and strategies of the lives of high-profile Black women activists working in contemporary spaces that are often co-inhabited by Black men and/or white women; it elevated the voices of Black women activists. The study employed a narrative analysis methodology utilizing open-ended individual interviews with three prominent Black …

Toward Otherworlding The Teaching-Learning Of Psychology With Community College Students, Francisco Medina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation reimagines a different relationality to teaching-learning psychology in the community college classroom through a series of three separate articles. Each article draws on quasi-ethnographic, autoethnographic, and group discussions elements to wonder about the types of theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical dimensions that might make psychology courses more attuned and accountable to younger generations and the end of the world as we know it. The first article explores the metaphysical inseparability, interdependence, and co-constitution of teaching-learning, theory-making, and collective world-making in the psychology community college classroom as an invitation to the end of psychology as we know it. I argue …

Language Play And Racial Dysphemism In The Marrakchi Language Space, Spencer Fausel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to divulge the meaning and popular usage of two phonetically similar yet reportedly distinct dysphemisms spoken and understood in the Marrakchi dialect of Moroccan Arabic (Darija). Darija speakers across the North African lingua-space use the term "qlawi" to denote testicles. In Morocco, speakers utter "qlawi" to express negation or pejorative notions of being, the term commonly wielded to disparage or vituperate a frustrating person or object—drawing connections to the subaltern, the lowly, the destitute, the stupid, the possessionless, and potentially to the racialized (non)object. The word itself can stand as a syntactic substitute for “nothing” in certain …

Essays On Empirical Economics, Dorian Abreu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

CHAPTER 1: HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING AND MARKET LIQUIDITY

This paper provides evidence of the impact of High Frequency Trading (HFT) on liquidity. I use data from the NASDAQ OMX that identifies the trades of 26 HFT firms on 120 randomly selected stocks listed on the NASDAQ. I find that HFT improves overall market liquidity. However, the liquidity improvements come at the expense of the non high frequency traders. Results indicate that trades in which the HFT supply liquidity to non HFTs have a significantly wider spreads. This impact is larger for smaller cap stocks. Additionally, price impacts are largest when …

Unpacking The Contested State Of Public Housing In New York City, Kristen Hackett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years, the New York City Housing Authority has announced and pursued two key plans for public housing that they promise will address the twin problems of disinvestment and disrepair that have been deepening since the turn of the century. In tandem with these announcements and pursuits, opposition from public housing residents has swelled and led to the formation of new grassroots groups that not only reject these directions, but also advocate alternatives. This dissertation delves into the details of these plans, the contestations they've inspired, and the futures they engender, with attention to the consequences of these changes …

Desire Lines: An Annotated Screenplay, Alexandra Tydings

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores under theorized questions of power, sexuality, and gender on the film set by analyzing the role of the Intimacy Coordinator (IC), a recent arrival in that space. A film set has its own culture, built from conventions, rituals, and hierarchies. The work of the IC occurs at the nexus of some of the most entrenched and invisible of these dynamics, including gender roles, bodily autonomy, and the power to consent. The author, having worked professionally as an actress, a director, and most recently an Intimacy Coordinator in film and television, now turns to feminist and queer theory, …

When Critics Are Artists: Ekphrasis In Erotic Art Criticism, Joanna A. Ligon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag argues for an erotics of art in art criticism in place of hermeneutics. In this thesis, I examine erotics of art, a focus on form and experiencing art instead of exclusively on content, in practice. Drawing on other essays by Sontag, specifically the essay “Godard” in comparison with the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s own filmic criticism in Breathless, criticism according to an erotics of art becomes a new artwork itself. Subsequently, I present a definition of erotic through Anne Carson and Roland Barthes and juxtapose the term with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The comparison ultimately undoes …

Who Do Civilian Review Boards Serve And Protect? Applying Andre Gorz’S Non-Reformist Reform Theoretical Framework To Empirical Analysis From New York State, Jackson Diamond

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the wake of countless high-profile instances of police violence and repression against civilians in the United States, waves of reformation have washed over American police departments. Some have questioned the efficacy of these reforms, as civilians continue to suffer acts of violence at the hands of the police. One such reform measure, adopted broadly in recent years, is the creation of civilian police review boards. To analyze how this reform has affected citizens’ ability to hold their police departments accountable for their actions, I analyzed a sample of 89 municipal police departments in New York state in the year …

From “Total Destruction” To “Total Dictatorship”: The Influence Of Ernst Jünger’S Visionary Fascism, Nick Schiff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to answer one central question: How can the life and work of Ernst Jünger help illuminate the development of fascist ideas, culture, politics, and power across Europe from 1920-1945? The components of that question are: what were the core elements of Jünger’s aesthetics, morality, and politics? How did he synthesize these elements to create his influential vision of German fascism? What were Jünger’s interactions and exchanges with other European fascists, as well as influential Nazis including Carl Schmitt, Joseph Goebbels, and Adolph Hitler himself? How did Jünger’s new Fascist politics and aesthetics affect them? I argue that …

Heteronormativity And Fair Housing: Comparing Housing Opportunities Among Cisgender And Transgender Women, Joseph E. Lara

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the American housing market, gender norms regulate access to safe and stable dwellings. When looking for a home, transgender communities, plagued by multiple vulnerabilities and politicized by conservative politicians, endure vastly different experiences than their cisgender counterparts. Despite an ongoing housing crisis, civil rights laws have widened homeownership opportunities for cisgender women, but transgender women face multiple obstacles to owning a home. How have gender norms influenced the housing market, and how have socially embedded heterosexism and cisgenderism benefited cisgender women over transgender women? This manuscript explores the cultural norms regulating the creation and access to housing, the history …

Time Ripens On The Counter: A Literary History Of The Americas, Judah Rubin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The tumultuous years of the 1970s and 1980s are generally seen as marking the ends of the New Left in the United States and the Americas at large. With shifts afoot in US policy that would see the drawdown and close of the Vietnam War, increased subversion and infiltration of Left-wing movements, these decades are often remembered as a holding pattern and, later, nadir in progressive, not to mention revolutionary, gains. The same was true, if not amplified, across the Americas where, tens of thousands were murdered, imprisoned and disappeared across the Southern Cone and into the Andes, and where …

Legislating The Taboo: Taboo Subcultures, Political Communication, And Public Policy, Rebecca S. Krisel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, titled "Legislating the Taboo: From Subculture to Public Policy," comprises three articles that collectively delve into the intersection of taboo subcultures, political communication, and public policy. While the fields of sociology and anthropology more thoroughly explore the concepts of "taboo" and "subcultures," political science has not given them due attention. This research seeks to bridge this gap by examining how taboo subcultures evolve into political constituencies with policy demands and how these demands are communicated through various mediums, including mainstream and social media.

The first article, "Virtual Dance Communities and The Right to the Internet," investigates how the …

Black Food Geographies And The Politics Of Resistance In The Brick City. An Intersectional Analysis Of Black Food Provisioning Practices, Food Access, And Racial Food Inequities In Newark, New Jersey From 1666 – 2020, Angelika Winner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work studied Black food geographies in Newark, NJ, which represent alternative food provisioning practices and strategies working within but also parallel to traditional food geographies and exist within and despite of foodscapes of domination. Black food geographies not only include the spatial agency of Black residents but also entail the structural intersectionality and organized abandonment that Black residents currently experience as well as their historical production. Thus, food access of Newark’s Black resident was analyzed with a three-pronged mixed methods research design, a supply-centered analysis from a Positivistic perspective, a political economy-centered historical analysis from a Marxist perspective, and …

Recognizing Elder Abuse In Mongolia: Experiences Of Family Physicians, Ariunsanaa Bagaajav

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Elder abuse is a globally recognized social problem with serious consequences. The most recent meta-analysis estimates the prevalence of elder abuse at 17%. Studies conducted in Asian countries suggest prevalence rates higher than the global average. Social stressors including alcoholism, unemployment, and poverty related to economic transitions, many of which apply in Mongolia, are associated with elder abuse. International studies have found that health care providers play critical roles in detecting cases of elder abuse. Due to universal access to primary care in Mongolia, family physicians are uniquely positioned to interact with potential victims of elder abuse. However, the extent …

Reconciling Macro- And Micro-Levels In The First Movement Of Brahms’S Piano Concerto In D Minor, Op. 15: A Schenkerian Reading, Alexandra Joan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the first movement of Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto no. 1, op. 15, through a Schenkerian lens. Concertos are relatively unexplored in Heinrich Schenker’s theoretical work. Surprisingly, although Schenker put Brahms on a pedestal throughout his life, he left only a few published analyses of the composer’s music.

Chapter 1 explores the kinship between Schenker and Brahms. Both conceived of the musical work as an organic entity. They also shared an approach to the tonal language based on an eighteenth-century tradition of figured bass and counterpoint. Op. 15 also exhibits an approach to musical form grounded in the …

Performing Ero Guro: Erotic-Grotesque Bodies And Normativity In Post-Wwii Japanese And Korean Theatre, Dohyun Shin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates how portrayals of erotic and grotesque bodies in post-WWII Japanese and Korean theatre responded to each nation’s image of the ideal body. Those ideal bodily images were the product of haunting modernity as well as of the following historical circumstances after Japan’s loss in WWII—the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the U.S. and Japan and the attendant protests (Japan) as well as the aftermath of Japanese colonial rule, the Korean war, and Korea’s military dictatorships. Instead of uncovering the historical legacy of the early 20^th-century cultural trend Ero Guro Nansensu (Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense) …