Digital Commons Network^™

Subadult Cortical Bone Analysis As An Indicator Of Childhood Health Status Among The Tipu Maya Population, Jaime Thomas

Master's Theses

This thesis explores juvenile health at the contact Maya site of Tipu in western Belize. The associated cemetery was excavated and provided a large and well-preserved population. Although Tipu has been a focus of many studies, few studies have focused on subadults and none on their cortical development, which can allow insight into access to necessary nutritional resources.

Some 108 femora belonging to individuals aged birth to 13 years with femora previously sectioned at midshaft provided the sample. External dimensions taken included diaphyseal length, circumference, medial-lateral diameter and anterior-posterior diameter. Additionally, cortical thickness was measured at four points, and 95 …

Urban Agroecology For Food Sovereignty And Biodiversity: Are Urban Community Farms Or Gardens More Effective?, Heidi L. Giancola

Master's Theses

Industrial agriculture is accurately criticized for eliminating biodiversity and destroying food sovereignty. Urban agroecosystems, usually individual plots in community gardens, are promoted to restore ecological services and equity to food systems. Recently, collectively tended urban community farms have developed, with explicit social justice goals. This study directly contrasts the effectiveness of the urban community farm and garden models. Spatial analysis is used to confirm that community farms enhance geographic access for healthy food priority areas compared to gardens in the San Francisco bay area. An online survey of farm staff and gardeners from Marin to Santa Clara County resulted in …

Perception Correction: Addressing Social Stigmatization Around Bdsm And Mental Health, Erin Afana

Master's Theses

Mainstream society’s characterization of activities and subgroups as abnormal can result in a long history of being shamed and pathologized, leading to discrimination and stigmatization. BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism) is an alternative lifestyle with a variety of identities, characteristics and practices that are viewed by many as being outside of societal norms. The consequences of this can be seen in how society, in general, views BDSM participants, how the criminal justice system responds to issues involving BDSM, and how the mental health system perceives those who participate in BDSM activities. The purpose of this thesis …

A Performance Survey Of Text-Based Sentiment Analysis Methods For Automating Usability Evaluations, Kelsi Van Damme

Master's Theses

Usability testing, or user experience (UX) testing, is increasingly recognized as an important part of the user interface design process. However, evaluating usability tests can be expensive in terms of time and resources and can lack consistency between human evaluators. This makes automation an appealing expansion or alternative to conventional usability techniques.

Early usability automation focused on evaluating human behavior through quantitative metrics but the explosion of opinion mining and sentiment analysis applications in recent decades has led to exciting new possibilities for usability evaluation methods.

This paper presents a survey of modern, open-source sentiment analyzers’ usefulness in extracting and …

Lgbtq Forced Migrants' Labor Market Integration In Mexico City: Perspectives From Mexico's Government Agencies, International Organizations, And Mexican Civil Society, Rolando Diaz

Master's Theses

Mexico holds a unique position as a country of immigration, emigration, refuge, transit, and return migration. In recent decades, researchers have built awareness on the country’s received migrants’ diverse characteristics by posing questions and tackling the challenges that certain migrants face. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) forced migrants have become increasingly visible since the exodus of asylum-seekers from Central America. Many of these LGBTQ migrants flee state and non-state actors that present life-threatening conditions for the LGBTQ community. Though Mexico as a whole is going through its own evolution on LGBTQ and migrants’ rights, its capital city has …

Using Language Ideology, Social Positioning And Performativity To Assess Second Language Learning And Identity Transformation: A Qualitative Case Study Of Three Chinese Queer Immigrants In The U.S., Yih Ren

Master's Theses

This thesis aims to explore the directionality of the relationships between cultural identity, sexuality, ideology, and English learning. My study included three participants, and each represents a specific acculturating and immigrant group in the U.S., namely, international students, permanent residents (green card holders), and naturalized citizens. Language ideology and social positioning theory are employed to examine English hegemony and internalized oppression. I argue that English hegemony is ideological and reinforces further discrimination and social hierarchy; further, performativity provides a new cannon to view language production and acquisition as it shifts the emphasis from the technical processes of language acquisition to …

Correlation Between Tooth Root Translucency, Crystallinity, And Dna Preservation In Teeth For Unidentified Human Remains (Uhr) Investigations, Paul Yount

Master's Theses

Endogenous genetic material protected by the rigid, mineralized hard tissues of bones and teeth is often targeted for forensic DNA testing in missing persons and unidentified human remains (UHR) investigations. Although standard approaches have narrowed sample selection to a few optimal skeletal elements (i.e., weight-bearing long bones, teeth), subsampling and decisions beyond this can be challenging due to the non-uniform, heterogeneous pattern of postmortem diagenesis. One particular component of skeletal microstructure — the inorganic mineral matrix [hydroxyapatite (HAp), Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2] — is purported to play a major role in DNA preservation. The potential correlation between molecular changes to skeletal microstructure and …

Recognizing Race: The Impact Of Twentieth-Century Feminist Movements On Race Relations In West Germany, Lindsey Stobaugh

Master's Theses

After World War II, many West German women had a difficult time coming to terms with the atrocities that the National Socialist leadership committed during that war, as well as their own participation in the Party. Discussions of the roles of women within twentieth-century society began to grow in West Germany as the new women’s movement (die Neue Fraenbewegung) emerged from 1960s student protests. This movement included primarily middle-class white German women. They often dismissed their participation in Party racism by framing themselves as victims of a patriarchal regime. As German women discussed these matters, they ignored the …

Mass Analysis And Raw Material Sourcing As Metrics Of Poverty Point's Socio-Political Organization, Jeffrey Lewis, Jr.

Master's Theses

Hypotheses about the socio-political organization of Poverty Point have each attempted to answer the procedures that led to the site’s construction and continued use. Mass analysis and raw material sourcing of the North Three excavation units offer an enhanced examination of the lithic activities of the Poverty Point site. These analyses provide new insight into how the site may have been utilized by those traveling to the site by assigning social values to the raw materials transported there. The results of this lithic analysis and comparison to previous investigations suggest a crucial activity that would have impacted the socio-political organization …

An Evaluation Of Activity In A Colonial Maya Cemetery Using Femoral Cross-Sectional Analysis, Casey Lejeune

Master's Theses

Cortical bone formation in the population of Tipu, a colonial visita site in Belize, was examined here to reveal factors of their activity and address the possibility of a status-based burial plan. To answer this question, this research examined the endosteal surface of the midshaft femur using digital imaging methods. The femora from 70 individuals were photographed and examined using the BoneJ plugin in ImageJ software. The cortical bone area was compared to additional variables, including sex, age, stature, pilastric index, and burial location. It was hypothesized that sex, age, and stature would correlate with cortical bone area similarly across …

The Evolutionary And Morphological Diversification Of The Subtribe Papionina, Sophie B. Labelle

Master's Theses

Analysis of variation is critical in understanding evolutionary processes. The subtribe Papionina, defined commonly as baboons and their closest relatives, is a highly morphologically diverse group of primates that is useful for the examination of the relationship between variation and evolution. The subtribe is also a valuable behavioral, ecological, and morphological analogy for hominins. This study uses landmark-based cranial geometric morphometric data and multivariate analysis to test whether the pattern of morphological diversification present in Papionina is consistent with genetic drift and/or selection. The study sample consists of six extant genera of Papionin, represented by ~500 individuals collected by Michelle …

#Younevertoldme: What Jewish American Children Learn About Palestinian Displacement During The Founding Of The State Of Israel, Nancy Sheftel-Gomes

Master's Theses

#YouNeverToldMe: What Jewish American Children Learn about Palestinian Displacement during the founding of the State of Israel examines how the education of Jewish American children in Jewish educational K-12 settings about the founding of the state of Israel omits details and events about the displacement of Palestinians and how knowledge gaps limit the possibility of dialogue among Jewish and Arab/Palestinian college students, and have a negative effect on Jewish identity. Within the methodological structure of Grounded Theory young adults, former students of the researcher, answer questions concerning their memories of what they learned about the founding of the state of …

Study Of Plants Used Against Infections By California Native American Tribes, Maria J. Rojas

Master's Theses

The objectives of this research were to evaluate the antibacterial activity and to determine the chemical composition of a list of medicinal plants used by Native Americans in California. Artemisia californica, Mimulus aurantiacus, Equisetum telmateia, Equisetum hyemale, and Marah fabacea were selected from a list of plants reported as having been used for ailments related to infections by tribes located in California. The extracts obtained through steam distillation from E. telmateia, E. hyemale and M. fabacea were assayed for in vitro antibacterial activity against 16 Gram-negative and 6 Gram-positive bacteria using disk diffusion assays and measuring the diameters of inhibition …

Missing In Action: Locating The Body In Interdisciplinary Studies, Ann Lenore Moradian

Master's Theses

This research project relied on the use of interdisciplinary literature, surveys and interviews to explore the prevalence of the human body and its movement across a variety of disciplines other than movement-based practices, and also to explore perspectives of movement experts regarding the knowledge, skills, and capacities they believed might be related to their practice-based work. In other words, what do movement practitioners and movement experts know, and who cares? The materials gathered were analyzed with the aim of understanding the range of possibilities for future work, and identifying areas of potential discourse, engagement, or collaboration across disciplines. The outcomes …

Nutrition At Tipu: A Comparative Analysis Of Juvenile Health In Maya Populations, Sydnie A. Bianchi

Master's Theses

The site of Tipu in west central Belize provided a foothold for Spanish missionaries in the 17^th century. The effects of contact on adults among the 550 burials recovered in the cemetery there have been well studied, but the children have received less attention. Therefore, this study examined juvenile health through four markers: Linear Enamel Hypoplasia (LEH), a non-specific marker of health disruptions; Porotic Hyperostosis (PH), an indicator of anemia; and Periostitis, an indicator of infection. Some 131 individuals were evaluated using criteria developed by Steckel, Sciulli, and Rose (2002). The results were compared to Late Classic Copán (Storey, …

Hate Speech, Habitus, And Identity Signaling On 4chan’S Politically Incorrect Board, Jonathon Geiger

Master's Theses

Websites, such as 4chan, have provided a place for extremism and hate speech to flourish through anonymous discourse. One group that has been especially important to this growth has been the alt-right. The alt-right is a far-right white nationalist movement that is known for engaging in trolling, creating memes, and generating conspiracy theories. Past research has focused on the amounts of hate speech and characterizing content on the website. However, past studies have not looked at the experience of using the website through the combination of participant observation and content analysis. Here I show that the extensive use of hate …

Creative Expression Through The Gift Of God: The Intertwining Of Creativity And Religion Of The Poor Clares In New Orleans, Louisiana, Maureen Tierney

Master's Theses

This thesis looks at the relationship of art and creativity among the Poor Clares in New Orleans, Louisiana. Through the six sisters, the project addresses the way that religion influences the art that each sister produces. While each sister has had a different experience that drew them to religious life and their artwork, they all agree that their creativity is a gift from God, and this shapes how they engage with their art.

The literature gives an understanding to the role of the artist, and how to understand the nuance in an artist’s choice, when “why” something is produced is …

Cal Poly Pier Master Plan, Troy A. Lawson

Master's Theses

The Cal Poly Pier (Pier) Master/Facility Plan (FP) document provides the vision of the future for the Pier, a marine science research facility. The Plan facilitates project development and management of the Pier while meeting university and department research goals. Specifically, the FP document establishes goals and strategies to direct long-term development of the Pier, streamlines agency approval and permit requirements, provides context for pier management, and assists the permitting process for future development as it relates to regulatory permits and programmatic growth on the Cal Poly Pier to help meet goals of the Center for Coastal Marine Sciences (CCMS). …

Mindfulness For Stress Reduction: Qualitative Analysis Of Perceptions From College Students And Mindfulness Instructors, Beth Marie Merlo

Master's Theses

Although mindfulness interventions with college students have yield positive results, many students are not continuing to engage after the interventions. This may be because very little research has been done to investigate the health behavior beliefs of college students in regard to mindfulness for stress reduction. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the most influential components of the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM) that potentially assist with predicting college student participation in mindfulness activities for stress reduction. Interviews, informed by the IBM, were conducted with 20 current college students and 5 current mindfulness instructors working with college students. The …

Abalone Fishermen, Changing Management Practices, And The Creation Of A False Dichotomy, Tyler G. Hoyt

Master's Theses

This thesis traces the history of the abalone fisheries on the California Coast and how those fisheries have been understood and shaped by humans over time. An overarching interest that guides this effort is how indigenous populations used abalone and otters (as well as other marine resources) purposefully for millennia prior to European arrival. However, this work is not entirely focused on prehistory. Instead, it shows how a lack of understanding of this prehistory shaped the conservation efforts of the California Department of Fish and Game and its ultimate decision to close the commercial fishery in 1997. In this sense, …

Whiteness: An Ideology Of Violence And Power As Represented In Chesnutt's The Marrow Of Tradition, Schuyler's Black No More And Larsen's Passing, Keith Giles

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the representations of whiteness found in three pieces of literature. The thesis not only teases out the nuances of whiteness, but specifically analyzes the violence that whiteness inflicts upon the black body. To begin, I define what whiteness and whiteness ideology is in relation to race. After introducing the idea and functions of whiteness, I dive into the investigation by analyzing three major novels written by African American authors during the early twentieth century. While analyzing the instances of white violence in one of the three novels, the other two novels will …

The Function Of The Hukou System In Post-Revolutionary China & Its Autonomous Regions, Joseph Kramer

Master's Theses

Over the course of more than two millennia the Hukou System has shifted in scope and purpose. In dynastic times it served as a mechanism of tax acquisition. In more recent years it has functioned as a method of census and land distribution. Today it holds a duplicitous function serving as both an economic and social control mechanism. The Hukou achieves this through controlling movement through a passport like system of internal registration. In simpler terms, think of the Hukou as an internal passport regulating movement while simultaneously holding all of your biometric data which is surveilled and controlled by …

The Slow Creep Of Settler Colonialism: Exploring Water Control In Palestine, Lina Abu Akleh

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the Israeli-Palestinian water issue using a settler colonial framework. It highlights the contributions made to this field under the often used framework of hydro-hegemony to understand water issues in Israel-Palestine. Using a settler colonial framework helps to better describe the issue and highlight the slow creep of settler colonialism over the years. It also helps to see beyond the power dynamics and its relationship to domination and consent to understand the realities that Palestinians face on the ground. In addition, this thesis will help build towards exploring resistance to water control under settler colonialism. Therefore, this thesis …

Hinduism As A Political Weapon: Gender Socialization And Disempowerment Of Women In India, Aindrila Haldar

Master's Theses

There is a growing use of religion as a political tool to control Hindu women in India, contributing to a rise in gender inequality. Immediate authoritative patriarchal domains such as household and politics, continuously speak of “protecting” Hindu women by disregarding their voices and needs. Consequently, potentially creating a loss of agency among women. This research will use inductive reasoning to understand the position of Hindu women in modern Indian society. Particularly, through the understanding of the involvement of religion in the political and household sphere. Hindu women are highly influenced by the expectations of what being an ”ideal” woman …

All Hail The Market: Immigration And Economics In A Post-Cold War Western Hemisphere, Jorge Ambriz

Master's Theses

The end of the Cold War lifted the United States to the role of the sole economic superpower, and an opportune moment to address hemispheric issues was presented to Washington policymakers. By the end of the 1980s, hemispheric forced migration was on the rise, with a large portion of those forced to flee from Central America. This moment coincided with the decade characterized by an increasingly connected world, where globalization in the form of economic linkages were being proposed in the Summit of the Americas, hemispheric meetings that began in the 1990s in hopes of addressing hemispheric issues. While the …

A Leadership Change. A Culture Shift...And A Police Riot: The Story Of How The Highest College Going High School In San Francisco Became The Lowest Graduating School In The District, Emmanuel Padilla

Master's Theses

Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, located in San Francisco’s Bayview, Hunters Point, scored the third lowest in the most recent Academic Performance Index (API) Report. Based on the median household income, the Bayview is a low-income community and according to San Francisco data, is a high crime neighborhood. The odds are against Marshall to provide exceptional service to their students, but it once did. In 2001, Marshall had the highest college-going rate in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Today, only 20% of its student body would be considered college ready. This study will look into what happened to …

The Effect Of Sex Of Firstborn Children On Attitudes Towards Intimate Partner Violence, Shuvam Rizal

Master's Theses

What are the different ways in which one’s life is influenced by the sex of their children? Is there an effect on how they view Intimate Partner Violence? If so, is there a difference in how the male parent is affected by the sex of his child than the female parent? Bodies of conflicting Social Sciences literature suggest having a daughter makes one both more and less likely to engage in Intimate Partner Violence. In this paper, I approach this question through the use of a Linear Probability Fixed-Effects model on Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) datasets, using data from the …

Food Insecurity, Race, And Adolescent Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease In Nhanes 2001-06, Kritika Shankar

Master's Theses

Abstract

Introduction: Non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver condition in the U.S and is an emerging public health concern in adolescents. Risk factors for adolescent NAFLD remain largely unexamined.

Aim: To investigate if demographic and dietary-related factors are linked with NAFLD in adolescents.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from NHANES (2001-2006) ages 12-19 (n=4714) were analyzed. NAFLD was defined as >30 u/L ALT. Food Insecurity levels (child, adult, household), race/ethnicity, sex, BMI, and the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) were tested using multivariate binary logistic regression with elevated ALT (no, yes) as the dependent variable.

Results: Risk for …

Exposure To Disability-Related Content And Attitudes Toward Persons With Disabilities Within The Uconn Mph Program: An Exploratory Study, Holly Labrecque

Master's Theses

Background: The purposes of this study include gathering a baseline assessment of 1) the extent to which UConn MPH students describe their exposure to disability content within the curriculum, and 2) how students describe their experiences encountering persons with disabilities (PWD).

Methods: A survey was completed by 36 current UConn MPH students and alumni.

Results: When asked how often disability was integrated into curriculum and class discussion, a majority of participants (n= 28) answered sometimes, rarely, or never, (77.8%), (88.9%). All students who reported having classes with students from other disciplines reported that it was valuable. Eighty-six percent indicated …

Innovation Dynamics Of Cultural Production: Evidence In Rap Lyrics, James M. Zumel Dumlao, Junjie Lei, Emeka Nwosu, Li Yu Oon, Tsai Ling Jeffrey Wong, James Rising, Jesse Anttila-Hughes

Master's Theses

Culture is a driving force in organizing the structure of societies, and is conjoined with economic development. However, quantifying the impact of culture is difficult. Culture manifests itself in cultural production, through art, performance, music, etc. Innovation and influence in cultural production industries partially determines product quality. Using techniques from the “digitized humanities”, we agnostically identify informational distance to describe the spatiotemporal dynamics of innovation and influence in Rap music lyrics. Rap emphasizes lyricism and hometown pride more than other genres of popular music, and is interesting as a globally impactful manifestation of the racially segregated labor market in the …