Digital Commons Network^™

A Leftist Political Surge: How An Authoritarian Past Helped Spawn A Modern Political Movement In Spain And Portugal, Jared Sykes

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Since the 2008 financial crisis ravaged the EU, Spain and Portugal struggled economically to recover, especially as forces in the EU, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) enforced bailout packages conditional on the implementation of austerity. Additionally, Spanish and Portuguese society have continuously struggled with a history of authoritarian legacies, of the Franco and Salazar dictatorships that ruled the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 50 years. As outrage continued, protest movements, most notably the Spanish 15-M Movement, fueled voter dissatisfaction. Eventually, many prominent figures from the protest movement founded or brough momentum to left-wing political forces, …

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Structure From Motion Technique For Precise Snow Depth Retrieval—Implication For Optimal Ground Control Point Deployment Strategy, Song Shu, Ok Youn Yu, Chris Schoonover, Hongxing Liu, Bo Yang

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based snow depth is mapped as the difference between snow-on and snow-off digital surface models (DSMs), which are derived using the structure from motion (SfM) technique with ground control points (GCPs). In this study, we evaluated the impacts of the quality and deployment of GCPs on the accuracy of snow depth estimates. For 15 GCPs in our study area, we surveyed each of their coordinates using an ordinary global positioning system (GPS) and a differential GPS, producing two sets of GCP measurements (hereinafter, the low-accuracy and high-accuracy sets). The two sets of GCP measurements were then incorporated …

Bacterial Contamination Levels And Brand Perception Of Sachet Water: A Case Study In Some Nigerian Urban Neighborhoods, Imokhai T. Tenebe, Eunice O. Babatunde, Chinonso C. Eddy-Ugorji, Egbe Etu E. Etu, Nkpa M. Ogarekpe, Chikodinaka V. Ekeanyanwu, Oladapo A. Diekola, Oluwarotimi S. Oladele, Obiora B. Ezeudu

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Sachet water (SW) is a major source of drinking in most Nigerian homes, thus making it a possible conveyance medium for health risks due to contamination if persist rather than for replenishment of the body. This study collected SW from three busy neighborhoods in South-West Nigeria and investigated for the presence of indicator bacteria (Escherichia coli (E. coli), Total Coliform (TC), Total Heterophilic Bacteria (THB), Staphylococcus (Staph)) and some physio-chemical parameters (total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and salinity). Multi-variable and exploratory statistical methods were applied to the results to determine correlations between bacterial contamination levels and perceived …

"They Can Murder Us Today And It Wouldn’T Be A Novelty” U.S. Expulsion Policies And The Violent Structure Of The U.S. Enforcement Matrix, Cinthia Romo Alba

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the United States implemented two migrant expulsion policies: The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a policy which forces migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to remain in Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings, and Title 42, a policy that expelled migrants back to Mexico under the guise that it was a preventative measure for spreading COVID-19. I ask: What are the experiences of asylum seekers subjected to expulsion policies, and what do their experiences tell us about the structure of the U.S. Border Enforcement System? Relying on six months of ethnographic fieldwork at the Matamoros camp …

Rethinking The "Unusual Type": Black Queer Women And The Spatial Politics Of Belonging In Twentieth Century America, Olivia N. Kerr

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Historical examinations of queer people in American history have often overlooked and disregarded Black queer women. However, archival evidence gestures towards the existence of such women who led complex lives within a white supremacist heteronormative dominant society predicated on the Othering of Black queer bodies—rendering them abject. My research explores the contours of Black women’s queerness through a historical lens. I analyze primary source materials through an archival analysis surrounding the lives of Black queer women in the twentieth century United States, prior to the Stonewall riots. Heteronormative and connotatively “queer” spaces were often hostile towards Black queer women as …

Diverse Patients’ Attitudes Towards Artificial Intelligence (Ai) In Diagnosis, Christopher Robertson, Andrew Woods, Kelly Bergstrand, Jessica Findley, Cayley Balser, Marvin J. Slepian

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy. Yet people are often reluctant to trust automated systems, and some patient populations may be particularly distrusting. We sought to determine how diverse patient populations feel about the use of AI diagnostic tools, and whether framing and informing the choice affects uptake. To construct and pretest our materials, we conducted structured interviews with a diverse set of actual patients. We then conducted a pre-registered (osf.io/9y26x), randomized, blinded survey experiment in factorial design. A survey firm provided n = 2675 responses, oversampling minoritized populations. Clinical vignettes were randomly manipulated in eight …

Governance Seams, Brett Frischmann, Paul Ohm

Faculty Publications

This Essay formalizes the concept of governance seams and develops theories for what they enable; how they arise; why they are some- times dismantled; and how, why, and when regulators might step in to protect endangered governance seams or to create new ones. Governance seams are socially constructed boundaries, borders, and interfaces that harness friction-in-design to enable governance. Governance seams mediate interactions among components of sociotechnical systems and between different parties and contexts. Delineating boundaries, borders, and interfaces as loci of transparency, coordination, and oversight supports mechanisms for deliberation, contestation, and protection, both by those within and those outside the …

New Intimacies, Louis Chavez

Theses

“New Intimacies” is a photographic study situated in environments known for gay cruising and public sex. Taking influence from Peter Hujar and the photographs he created in the cruising areas around Manhattan’s meatpacking district, I made experimental images that sought to envision the intangible and fleeting qualities of these geographic spaces. The inclusion of various photographic strategies (such as landscapes, portraits, and abstraction) implores the audience to consider the social and cultural elements that contributed to the formation of these sites as spaces of community and public intimacy. The work is also influenced by queer zines, experimental cinema, and other …

Where Neutrality Stops And Reality Begins: Why Considering Identity Is Vital To Lead And Class Counsel Selection, Melissa Mortazavi

UC Law Journal

When courts consider a choice of class or lead counsel in multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) or class action suits, they often follow the idea of a neutral partisan model. Such a model idealizes lawyer conduct as a blank conduit for client interests. In theory, lawyers should be able to bring their legal expertise absent any personal experiences, individualized identity, and morality outside of practice. But the reality is that neither lawyers nor their clients can fully divorce their identities or moral viewpoints from the legal system.

This Essay argues that an identity-blind choice of class or lead counsel, grounded in a …

Climate Change And Coastal Megacities: Adapting Through Mobility, Susan S. Ekoh, Lemir Teron, Idowu Ajibade

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Climate change poses threats to individuals, communities, and cities globally. Global conversations and scholarly debates have explored ways people adapt to the impacts of climate change including through migration and relocation. This study uses Lagos, Nigeria as a case study to examine the relationship between flooding events, migration intentions as a preferred adaptation, and the destination choices for affected residents. The study draws on a mixed-methods approach which involved a survey of 352 residents and semi-structured interviews with 21 residents. We use a capability approach to analyze mobility decisions following major or repetitive flood events. We found that the majority …

Expanding On The Solutions To Reduce Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Morbidity And Mortality For Extremely Premature Infants—Looking Out The Hospital Window And Into The Neighborhoods, Christina Jäderholm, Lynne C. Messer

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

The study from Sullivan et al1 is a valuable contribution to the literature that aims to improve health equity among very preterm infants (and their families). It is to be lauded for its attention to nonclinical factors such as area-level deprivation and racial disparities. By examining communitylevel factors such as area deprivation, this study engages both the medical and public health communities and places infant outcomes directly within the context of housing policy and lack of neighborhood investment. However, it is important that we articulate the connections between area deprivation and adverse outcomes for very preterm infants to even conceive …

Effectiveness Variation Of Different Census Outreach Activities: An Empirical Analysis From The State Of Illinois Using Machine Learning And User Interface Technologies For Participatory Data Collection, Anton Rozhkov, Ahoura Zandiatashbar, Dean Massey, Jaeyong Shin, Janet Smith, Moira Zellner

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Major social changes stem from policies that their developments heavily rely on public participation in the decennial U.S. Census. For individual states, the population counts determine representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the amount of federal funding each state receives, leading to state outreach efforts to encourage participation in the census. The present empirical study uses advanced data collection technologies based on a user interface (UI) and machine learning techniques (k-means clustering, random forest, gradient boosting) to analyze the effectiveness of the outreach activities organized by the State of Illinois. As a result, we assess various types of …

Modeling The Impacts Of Sea Level Rise In Coastal Virginia At Multiple Scales, George Murray Mcleod Iv

OES Theses and Dissertations

Relative sea level is increasing along the Mid-Atlantic coast of the United States and the rate of relative sea level rise (ΔRSL) for Coastal Virginia is approximately double the rate of global sea level rise (ΔSLRG)(1). The potential impacts posed to communities by ΔRSL are best understood by examining the spatial relationship between the upper limits of ocean-connected waters and the geographic positioning of critical natural and societal assets. This research examines this problem at three spatial scales to quantify the impacts of ΔRSL and storm flooding events on (i) structural and transportation infrastructure for the tide-influenced coastal zone of …

Information And Communications Technology Within Coastal Resilience Planning Frameworks: The Case Of Jamaica, A Small Island Developing State, Ren-Neasha R. Blake Gilmore

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Coastal areas increasingly grapple with coastal hazards like hurricanes, tropical storms, sea level rise, and flooding. Proactive and agile coastal resilience solutions are necessary to reduce such risks and their associated socio-economic and environmental impacts. For these reasons, global coastal planners are pursuing climate action through multi-sector collaborations, innovative hybrid natural and manufactured solutions, and feasible mid to long-term coastal resilience strategies. While climate action is high on governments’ agenda globally, integrating information and communications technology has diffused widely within the coastal planning space in small island developing states, drawing on more technology-driven solutions. Very few empirical studies in the …

Storm Surge Risk Assessment In Coastal Communities In The Rio Grande Valley: An Application Of Gis-Based Spatial Multicriteria Decision Analysis With Analytical Hierarchy Process, Dean Kyne

Sociology Faculty Publications

Cameron County, which is located in the Rio Grande Valley, maintains records of storm surges associated with noticeable property damage, fatalities, and injuries. This study investigates storm surge inundation risk in Cameron County using storm surge hazard datasets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with American Community Survey 2019 block group datasets. Using a GIS-based spatial multicriteria decision analysis with an analytical hierarchy process method, the study estimates that storm surge water levels could be above 6.1 m (20 ft) in category 4 and 5 hurricane events, whereas about 37% of the county’s population (159,659 people) could be …

The Relationship Between Self-Rated Circumplex Traits And Other-Rated Job Performance, Michael Robert Sawdy

Theses and Dissertations

The Big Five has emerged as the dominant personality model in the researcher literature (Judge & Bono, 2000), yet there is still debate about how personality should be modeled within the Big Five framework as well as which personality traits relate most strongly to important outcomes across domains (DeYoung et al., 2007; Digman, 1997; Hofstee et al., 1992; Judge et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to compare complex personality traits as defined by the circumplex personality approach to simple, hierarchical personality traits as defined by the standard personality model approach in relation to other-rated job performance. Overall, …

Disaster Resilience In Air Traffic Control: Recovery Of Airspace Activity At U.S. Primary Airports That Experience A Catastrophic Hurricane, Victoria Thorpe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between U.S. airport characteristics, hurricane strength, and hurricane proximity and the time it takes airspace activity to recover to normal after experiencing a catastrophic hurricane. It determined the relative influence of five airport characteristics and two hurricane characteristics as predictors of time for airspace activity to recover to normal. The result is a predictive airport disaster resilience equation to estimate the expected airport recovery rate for a forecasted catastrophic hurricane. This supports expectation management for aviation practitioners. This is significant for air traffic controllers because post-hurricane airspace is unpredictable, demanding, …

Exploring Environmental Sensitivity And Significant Life Experiences Of Selected African American And Hispanic American College Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Danielle Pastor

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored Significant Life Experiences (SLEs) and the development of Environmental Sensitivity (ES) in a sample of African American and Hispanic American College Students. In the field of Environmental Education, SLEs and ES have been researched for the past 40 years. Specific factors associated with the development of ES have been identified (e.g., Chawla, 1998; Peterson, 1981; Tanner, 1980), and ES was found to be a predictor of environmental action (e.g., Marcinkowski, 2005; McBeth et al., 2014). Despite its importance, few studies have explored the development of ES among individuals who are majoring or working in an environmental field, …

Meta-Method Analysis On Therapists’ Experiences: An Inquiry Into Qualitative Psychotherapy Research Methodology, Javier L. Rizo

Graduate Masters Theses

I conducted a meta-method study to explore the methodological and reporting characteristics of qualitative studies on therapists’ experiences conducting psychotherapy. Articles were identified through a PsycINFO search, and through a review of article text their methodological and reporting features were coded and quantitatively analyzed. Consideration was given to standards of qualitative research in psychology, especially methodological integrity. Results showed increases in the number of these qualitative studies from the 2000s onwards. This rise seems to be above that in psychology, but comparable to other psychotherapy literature. Publication characteristics of this body of literature, namely journal discipline and impact score, showed …

Spirits And Spirituality: Temperance And Racial Uplift In Nineteenth-Century Nantucket, Ma, John T. Crawmer

Graduate Masters Theses

Studies of alcohol consumption have shown alcohol’s role in defining social boundaries based on class and ethnicity, but few have interrogated alcohol in the context of race. During the early-19th century, free black communities were encouraged to refrain from alcohol as part of a larger project of racial uplift. Black societies and churches perceived intemperance as not only immoral but a threat to community survival. Excavations of the Nantucket African Meeting House noted a considerable lack of alcohol bottles, but it was unclear whether temperance was equally observed at the neighboring Boston-Higginbotham House. This research uses a minimum number of …

E-Quality: An Analysis Of Digital Equity Discourse And Co-Production In The Era Of Covid-19, Kelsey E. Edmond

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The digital divide refers to the social stratification due to an unequal ability to access, adapt, and create knowledge via information and communication technologies (Andreasson, 2015). Digitally disadvantaged individuals have inadequate access to services and resources, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic instigated a new model of digital equity policymaking that leverages co-production between numerous actors. As citizens faced new financial and community constraints and governments reached administrative capacities, both the digital divide and the policymaking process evolved.

This inductive study explores how digital equity policymaking shifted to a co-production model (Ostrom, 1996) amid the pandemic. Using a sequential mixed-methods …

It Happened Here: The Civil Rights Movement In Utah, Jace Jones

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This plan B project is a series of lesson plans focusing on the Civil Rights Movement in Utah. These lessons are designed to give students a broad understanding of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the tools and knowledge to understand how the Civil Rights Movement manifested in Utah. To fulfill this goal these lesson plans focus on local and lesser-known history. This will allow students to gain an understanding of how the movement operated in Utah and how it relates to their own lives.

These lessons use the Stanford: Reading Like a Historian framework by the Stanford History …

Emerging To Elsewhere: The Giver And The Concept Of “Elsewhere” In Secondary Curricula, Kayleigh Capers

Honors Theses

The Giver has maintained its popularity through its timeless commentary on universal human experiences like identity, maturation, and mortality. In this thesis I have established its universality, especially in how the concept of Elsewhere expresses mortality, maturation, agency, and free will, along with discussing the importance of including the novel in secondary curricula. I have also limited the focus of popularity to its continued use in classrooms despite its controversial nature. I address common reasons for the banning and censorship of the novel and discuss how to include the controversial topics in the classrooms.

Troubled Past, Golden Opportunity: Public Memory And Memorialization At The University Of Southern Mississippi, Hannah E. Arnold

Honors Theses

This thesis argues that The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) consciously chooses to present historical narratives in its history in ways that best enhance the university’s image. Examining the narratives of M.M. Roberts and Oseola McCarty using the theoretical frameworks of public memory and collective memory study reveals that the way they are memorialized within university history include both conscious and subconscious silences that impact how they are remembered by the public. This thesis identifies gaps within these two historical narratives and shows how these gaps were influenced by factors designed to enhance the university’s public image. Overall, the public …

War In Iraq, 2003-2011: An Exhibit From The Hagel Archives, Lori Schwartz

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

I’m the Chuck Hagel and Technical Services Archivist at UNO. I manage the Hagel Archives. Hagel was a U.S. senator in 1997-2009 and SecDef in 2013-2015. Lesser known is that he was deputy administrator at the VA in 1981-82.

Topics for which the Hagel Collection has dozens of cubic feet include the War on Terror broadly, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, economic downtown of 2007-2009, and climate change. The abundance of records in these areas is because Hagel was on Foreign Relations, Banking, and Intelligence.

Steady Decline In Mean Annual Air Temperatures In The First 30 K.Y. After The Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary, Lauren K. O’Connor, Emily Dearing Crampton-Flood, Rhodri M. Jerrett, Gregory D. Price, B. David A. Naafs, Richard D. Pancost, Paul Mccormack, Aris Lempotesis-Davies, Dongen Be Van, Sabine K. Lengger

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary marks one of the five major mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic. The ways in which the climate system responded to a bolide impact and extensive volcanism at this time over different time scales are highly debated. We used the distribution of branched tetraether lipids (brGDGT) from fossil peats at two sites in Saskatchewan, Canada (paleolatitude ~55°N), to generate a high-resolution (millennial) record of mean annual air temperature (MAAT) spanning the last ~4 k.y. of the Cretaceous and the first ~30 k.y. of the Paleogene. Our study shows that MAATs ranged from 16 to 29 °C, with …

Time For Dementia: Quantitative Evaluation Of A Dementia Education Programme For Healthcare Students, S Daley, M Hebditch, C Jones, S Bremner, Et Al

Peninsula Medical School

Objectives. The future healthcare workforce needs the skills, attitudes, and empathy to better meet the needs of those with dementia. Time for Dementia (TFD) is an educational programme in which healthcare students from a range of professional groups visit a person with dementia and their family carer over a two-year period. The aim of this study was to evaluate its impact on student attitudes, knowledge and empathy towards dementia. Methods. Measures of dementia knowledge, attitudes and empathy were administered to healthcare students at five universities in the south of England before and after (24 months) they completed the TFD programme. …

Glacialwater: A Dynamic Microbial Medium, Gilda Varliero, Pedro H. Lebre, Andrew G. Fountain, Beat Frey, Alexandre M. Anesio, Don A. Cowan

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microbial communities and nutrient dynamics in glaciers and ice sheets continuously change as the hydrological conditions within and on the ice change. Glaciers and ice sheets can be considered bioreactors as microbiomes transform nutrients that enter these icy systems and alter the meltwater chemistry. Global warming is increasing meltwater discharge, affecting nutrient and cell export, and altering proglacial systems. In this review, we integrate the current understanding of glacial hydrology, microbial activity, and nutrient and carbon dynamics to highlight their interdependence and variability on daily and seasonal time scales, as well as their impact on proglacial environments.

"I'M Scared To Come Out Of My Shell": Contraceptive Care For Migrants In St. Louis, Julie Deleger

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

This thesis establishes that migrants in St. Louis face a unique combination individual, interpersonal, and institutional barriers when accessing contraceptive care. These dynamics were examined using the social ecological model (SEM), which provided a valuable framework for understanding the multi-layer challenges at play. The research methodology involves a combination of ethnographic research, based on in-depth interviews and online surveys, as well as critical literature reviews. The data collected was then analyzed thematically to identify patterns and trends.

Chapter 1 offers insight into the factors influencing decision-making for the St. Louis migrant population. Chapter 2 of the thesis explores individual-level barriers …

Neighborhood Deprivation And Association With Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Mortality And Morbidity For Extremely Premature Infants, Brynne A Sullivan, Ayush Doshi, Pavel Chernyavskiy, Ameena Husain, Alexandra Binai, Rakesh Sahni, Karen D Fairchild, J Randall Moorman, Colm P Travers, Zachary A Vesoulis

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Socioeconomic status affects pregnancy and neurodevelopment, but its association with hospital outcomes among premature infants is unknown. The Area Deprivation Index (ADI) is a validated measure of neighborhood disadvantage that uses US Census Bureau data on income, educational level, employment, and housing quality.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether ADI is associated with neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) mortality and morbidity in extremely premature infants.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This retrospective cohort study was performed at 4 level IV NICUs in the US Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and South regions. Non-Hispanic White and Black infants with gestational age of less than 29 …