Digital Commons Network^™

Empowering Citizens In A Global Era: A Grounded Theory Study Of Community Gardens, Anita Tam

All Dissertations

In our global era, the modern food system can be viewed as consisting of a dominant macro-level corporate food industry, challenged by broad-based meso-level food justice and democracy movements, which are in turn fueled by micro-level community food initiatives. Research has yet to examine the role of community gardens in the context of this complex, multi-level food system. Grounded theory methodology was thus used to explore the deeper meaning of the community gardening experience to participants, in order to better understand the ways in which community gardens may scale up and contribute to democratizing the food system. Analysis of the …

Assimilation Of Foreigners In Germany, Jan Schiebler

All Dissertations

The first chapter of this dissertation is using data from the German SOEP panel, and I analyze the assimilation of immigrants in terms of initial wage gap and assimilation rate. The analysis consists of a basic assimilation model, a cohort model, and a source country specific model. The source country specific model allows us to distinguish assimilation rates for different groups of immigrants. I find that despite having the highest education of all immigrants, East European immigrants have the largest wage gap. Secondly individuals immigrating from former East Germany have a larger wage gap than immigrants from Italy and Turkey. …

Nexus Of Exchange Rate Deregulation And Agricultural Share Of Gross Domestic Product In Nigeria, Oyakhilomen Oyinbo, Falola Abraham, Grace Z. Rekwot

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The kernel of this study was to examine the causal relationship between exchange rate deregulation and the agricultural share of gross domestic product in Nigeria from an econometric perspective using time series data spanning a period of 26 years (1986 – 2011). Data on exchange rate and gross domestic product were analysed using augmented dickey fuller unit root test, unrestricted vector autoregression, pairwise granger causality and vector error correction model. The results showed the existence of unidirectional causality from exchange rate to agricultural share of gross domestic production and also, exchange rate deregulation had negative influence on agricultural share of …

Premature Births And Maternal Health: An Analysis Of Risk Factors That Affect The Rate Of Prematurity / Los Nacimientos Prematuros Y La Salud Materna: Un Análisis De Los Factores De Riesgo Que Afecta La Tasa De Prematuridad, Alexandria Mickler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: What are the major socio-demographic risk factors influencing the rate of preterm birth in Valparaiso, Chile? Objectives: The objective of this study is to identify risk factors that influence the rate of preterm birth in an urban population of women living in Valparaiso, Chile. This study aims to understand whether a relationship exists between socio-demographic characteristics, such as economic level, education, lifestyle, access to medical attention and resources and the risk of prematurity. The outcomes of this study seek to determine the major biological, cultural, and social relationships and identify at-risk social groups. Additionally, this study considers the …

The Children Of Lehi And The Jews Of Sepharad, Shon D. Hopkins, D. Chad Richardson

BYU Studies

The Book of Mormon strongly asserts a gathering, not only of Lehi's scattered seed but also of the "Jews." Both Lehi (quoting Joseph of Egypt) and the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel prophesied of a running together of the children of Joseph and the children of Judah. This paper proposes one way in which this prophesied unification of Joseph and Judah into "one nation" may have been in part fulfilled, namely in a joining of the Jews of Sepharad (Sephardic Jews) with the children of Lehi. This occurred when the Sephardic Jews (coming primarily from Spain and Portugal) intermarried with the …

The Mormons: An Illustrated History Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Roy A. Prete, Herman Du Toit

BYU Studies

Many predicted that the printed book would be doomed by developments in digital media. Far from it. This sumptuously illustrated "coffee table" hardcover publication by Merrell, an independent British publisher, testifies to the value of the printed book. The materiality of the medium emphasizes the synthesis of the complex visual and textual content of this publication--stressing the fact that this is a book and not a digital file after all. Stephen Hales Creative Inc., a design company in Provo, Utah, was responsible for the appealing visual design and layout of the book. The hard cover and dust jacket are both …

Analyzing Shakespeare’S Plays In A Network Perspective, Vikas Thotakuri

Student Work

Networks are popular models for representing interactions between entities in systems, such as in sociology, bioinformatics, and epidemiology. The entities in the networks are represented as vertices and their pair-wise interactions are represented as edges [1]. Many network metrics such as degree centrality (number of connections of an entity) and betweenness centrality (number of shortest paths passing through the entity) have been developed to rank the entities according to their importance [7] [10].Social networks are generally modeled on only one type of relation. Groups are open-ended, which means the number of participants and the time frame are not finite. Time …

Young People's Attitudes Towards Inter-Ethnic And Inter-Religious Socializing, Courtship And Marriage In Indonesia, Lyn Parker, Chang Yau Hoon, Raihani Raihani

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper presents the attitudes of high school students in Indonesia towards inter-ethnic and inter-religious socializing, courtship and marriage. It also explores how different personal characteristics and social conditions such as gender, ethnicity, type of school and community affect these attitudes. The basic findings come from a survey of more than 3,000 students in senior high schools in five provinces of Indonesia: Jakarta, Yogyakarta, West Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and Bali. Survey data were supplemented with data from interviews and focus group discussions with students and from participant observation in and around the same schools. The authors found that most students …

A Portrait Of The New York City Lunatic Asylum On Blackwell's Island, Austin C. Labau

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Statement of Purpose

"Insanity is a subject which touches our civil rights at so many different points, that it may be said to have a place in every problem involving human responsibility." -John Ordronaux, New York State Commissioner in Lunacy, 1878.

Mental illness can reduce even the strongest person to a state of helplessness. The way in which a society treats individuals with mental illness provides a window into what that society most values - what behaviors it approves, what people it sees as most valuable, and how much society is willing to sacrifice to help those who may or …

December 2014 Commencement Program, Bowling Green State University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

"Ellos Son Mi Familia." Testing The Embodied Capital Theory In Dominican Populations In The Dominican Republic And In New York City, Elvira Pichardo

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores the conditions under which Dominican women invest in their own embodied capital and the embodied capital of their offspring, focusing on the tradeoffs between quantity and quality and income and stability using two different labor market economies in the Dominican Republic and in New York City. The main goals of this dissertation include three specific aims: (1) to identify different political economies and their impact on the same cultural/ethnic group, (2) to understand how access to different educational and employment opportunities influences variation in reproductive timing, considering ways in which birth control and birth spacing might facilitate …

Participatory Democracy In The Chinese Cyber World: Case Studies From Weibo, Duyi Li

Master's Theses

This thesis discusses features of citizen communication on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, and its relationship to participatory democracy in China. Weibo is a complex social space due to the interplay of different forces and social actors. On the one hand, Weibo provides the space for bottom-up political participation: it expands the horizontal discursive space where plural discourses coexist and interact; provides a social sphere where counter-discourses are created; a space where the culture of resistance is formed; and serves as an alternative source for information. On the other hand, the vertical political control of the state, and the …

Turning The Board Blue: America's Epiduralized System Of Birth. A Medical Ethnography, Maureen May

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is a medical ethnography of a nurse-midwifery hospital-based maternity service in an urban American hospital. The research study incorporates on-site observation, interviews, and data collection. The recent transformation of American hospital childbirth is described. Epiduralized birth has become the norm, representing a standardization of the cascade of interventions so often referred to by critics of the system of hospital birth in the United States. The routine use of the epidural has led to a Gleichschaltung of birth where the centrality of the epidural makes necessary a unitary, complex, totalistic set of interventions all of which make up an …

Abstract 131: Effect Of Environment Of Care Within Piro Sepsis Model: Is Tele-Health The Answer For Health Policy?, Donna Lee Armaignac, Carlos Valle, Julie Lamoureux, Louis Gidel, Xiaorong Mei, Emir Veledar

All Publications

No abstract provided.

The Lived Experience Of Honduran And Usa Nursing Students Working Together In A Study Abroad Program, Lorinda J. Sealey, Donna Hathorn

The Qualitative Report

Nursing study abroad is one approach to preparing student nurses to work more effectively in international environments as well as at home with culturally diverse clients. These programs foster self-reflection by permitting students to spend considerable time immersed in different cultures, thus exposing them to clients with different health beliefs and values. The authors of this transformational phenomenological study examined the lived experience of American and Honduran nursing students working collaboratively during a nursing study abroad program. One-time audio-recorded semi structured interviews were conducted to gather data from American and Honduran students. Six themes emerged: Communication (i.e., language and communication …

Not Just For Beginners - A Review Of Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide For Beginners, Gerald A. Craver

The Qualitative Report

In Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners (2013), Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke present their method of thematic analysis as well as some strategies for successfully conducting qualitative research. The book is user-friendly and contains practical advice that may appeal to both novices and experienced researchers alike.

Transfer And The Commodification Of Practice., Kenneth Andrew Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation engages in a close reading of the research in composition on transfer, a concept that refers to how the practices learned in one situation influence what a person can do in a future situation. In the studies that have appeared over the last two decades, the results have indicated that not much transfers between writing courses and future contexts, whether they be disciplinary courses or professional workplaces. Yet, despite the increasing prominence of transfer research, little time has been spent discussing the uses and limitations of the concept. To better understand its growing popularity among researchers, I examine …

Government Dependency Theory: Public Services, Banking Crisis, And The Likelihood Of Protests, Titus Bickel

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to determine what causes certain countries to experience mass protests during economic crises while other governments weather the same events and emerge unscathed. Further research on this topic could predict the likelihood of protests that lead to state collapse in countries like Ukraine. I argue that high gross domestic product expenditure on social services creates a dependent society that will protest when those goods and services are threatened by banking crises. I originated this theory and titled it the Government Dependency Theory. My theory uses data from 147 banking crises occurring in 115 countries …

The Italian Press And The Church: Italian Newspaper Coverage Of Lds-Related News And The Media Strategies Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In Italy 2010-2012, Giulia Vibilio Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between media and religion has been influenced by many factors in history. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has received a great deal of media attention throughout the world in the past five years. In Italy, the Church National Council of Public Relations worked to provide the media with the necessary information to report accurate news about the Church. This thesis collected the information provided to the Italian media by the Church National Council and analyzed the main topic and the level of accuracy reported by the Italian media on Church-related news. The results show that …

Social Forms And Culture Within Miller Park, Andrew Griffin

Student Research – Stevenson Center

This research explores the physical design and usage of Miller Park in Bloomington, IL for evidence of a cultural lineage to Frederick Law Olmsted and for indications that Miller Park functions as a third place locale as envisioned by Ray Oldenburg. The research also attempts to identify key cultural characteristics of the park, document park use, and assess Miller Park’s cultural significance within the local community.

The Substance Of Health: Aristotle, Deleuze And Guattari On The Dynamic Materiality Of The Living Body And Its Influence On Medical Concepts And Practices, Rachel Elaine Tillman

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Western medicine relies on a mechanistic conception of matter as passive and inert. Yet matter, and especially living matter, is actually dynamic and agential. This has transformative implications both for our quest to understand what health is and for determining what kinds of practices best promote health. I draw on a diverse set of philosophical thinkers to articulate a dynamic conception of living bodily matter that can enable us to define health more robustly and promote it more effectively. First I discuss the theoretical framework put forth by contemporary feminist accounts of materiality (" new feminist materialisms" or " material …

Family Education, Occupation, And Chronic Illness: Social Class And The Lives Of Hemodialysis Patients, Paul Eric Bugyi

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

A vast amount of evidence exists showing a relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health. Regardless of how outcomes are measured (self-reported health, incidence of disease, mortality rates and others), income, educational attainment, and occupation are key predictors. How SES matters for health outcomes has been a major question asked by researchers during the past 25 years. Many sociologists argue that the resources that come along with high socioeconomic status - money, power, prestige, beneficial social connections, knowledge, and skills - explains the SES/health gradient. This research project assesses whether or not those resources were important to individuals in dealing …

Gender, Power, And Inequality: An Examination Of The Causes And Consequences Of Queer Intimate Partner Violence, Bethany Marie Coston

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Violence is a not a new social phenomenon--at least, in the sense that violence has occurred throughout history between individuals, within communities, and practiced by institutions. But mainstream sociological studies of violence are all too often studies of men's violence. This project is an attempt to challenge critically the specter of heteronormativity that haunts the theories and praxis of intimate partner violence (IPV). Under this preexisting framework, studies have focused on men's violence against woman and used patriarchy as an explanation (i.e. the unequal distribution of gendered power, with men benefiting). However, I want to know if gender is still …

The Gendered City: The Politics Of Violence Against Women In Mexico City's Public Transportation System, Amy Dunckel

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

According to the World Health Organization as of 2010 more people live in cities than ever before. And yet, also according to them, women are one of the least likely groups to control the wealth and power that is produced in these metropolises. How are women excluded from equal right to the city? Why is gender inequality in cities so persistent and difficult for women to overcome? This research looks at the case of Mexico City -one of the largest cities in the world, hailed as an economic hub for Latin America- to answer these questions. In the last decade …

Sexual Decision Making In The Context Of Hookup Culture; A Mixed-Method Examination, Rachel Kalish

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This dissertation is a multi-method study of college students' sexual decision-making. It relies on interviews and focus groups to examine how college students make decisions within the context of the " hook-up culture" (Heldman and Wade 2010) prominent on American campuses. Patterns in the qualitative data are examined quantitatively using the Online College Life Survey. To understand how students make decisions in hookup culture, I examine their views of relationships, how they enact relationships, and the effects of hooking up on relationships. I that students envision relationships in their future, and choose not to expend time on them during their …

The Effects Of Gender Mainstreaming On Maternal And Child Health: A Cross-National Analysis Of Sub-Saharan Africa, Lauren Pandolfelli

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

A substantive body of sociological literature has found that women's status is correlated with improved maternal and child health outcomes in developing countries, and accordingly, proposes policy recommendations for ending discrimination against women. Yet, the sociological literature has not engaged adequately with policy models for improving women's status. I address this gap in the literature by conducting the first cross-national quantitative analysis of gender mainstreaming -the global strategy adopted in 1995 by United Nations member countries for fostering gender equality. Specifically, the dissertation uses two-way fixed effects ordinary least squares regression to estimate the effects of gender-mainstreamed bilateral health aid, …

Why Wiki Works: Peer Production And Making Knowledge The Wiki Way, Michael Andrew Restivo

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

With the widespread adoption of advanced information and communication technologies, the past decade has witnessed a proliferation of online organizations that aim to create public goods through voluntary collaboration among self-organized, networked individuals. This form of online collective action has been termed peer production. One of the most successful examples of peer production, and the most widely studied, is the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which is written in a collaborative fashion by hundreds of thousands of volunteers and used by millions of people daily. In this dissertation, I use Wikipedia as a strategic case site to critically reflect on the …

Between Here And There: The Ambiguous Ecologies Of Charles Simonds, Scott Volz

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

At the start of the 1970s, Charles Simonds began constructing miniature architectural ruins, what he calls dwellings, on the streets of New York City. They were fragile, temporary, and site specific. Occupying windowsills, wall crevices, and street gutters, the dwellings transformed their spaces from liminal to distinct. Over the course of the decade, Simonds built hundreds of dwellings in the Lower East Side alone, and they consequently developed a strong connection to the neighborhood. This essay addresses the dwellings as sites of makeshift ecologies. Looking at the reflexive relation between Simonds' sculptures and deteriorated living conditions in the Lower East …

Place Self: Identity At The Crossroads Of Place And Time In Catherine Opie's Los Angeles Landscape Seires, 1988-2004, Kim Woltmann

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Catherine Opie achieved success and notoriety during the 1990s for several controversial photographic series of herself and members of her LGBT community that explored themes of sexuality, gender, and identity. She also, however, built a contemporaneous body of work throughout the 1990s comprised of landscape series. These images embraced a cool stoicism and deadpan aesthetic that contrasted the intimacy and dissidence of Opie's portraits, as well as the early branding of her as a contemporary provocateur. They therefore received little scholarly attention. More recent renewed interest in Opie's landscapes is largely inspired, retrospectively, because images of place have now overtaken …

Multilingual Named Entity Recognition, Vivek V. Kulkarni

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

With the massive amounts of unannotated text available from myriad sources, learning representations useful for natural language processing(NLP) tasks is an increasingly popular research area. Using deep learning techniques, we learn distributed representations for words (word embeddings) using Wikipedia as the source of text for 40 languages. These distributed representations represent each word as a point in feature space and capture useful semantic and syntactic properties of words amd have been shown to be useful in NLP Tasks like Part of Speech Tagging(POS) etc. We have built 2 classes of word embeddings namely Polyglot and Skipgram for these languages. We …