Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Climatological Study Of Drought In Southern Michigan, Rudy Bartels

Masters Theses

Drought has become a reoccurring phenomenon throughout many regions around the world. Significant drought conditions have beenobserved overthe pastfive decades in relation to economic, social, and agricultural impacts. In this study, Southern Michigan is investigated over the past 52 years from 1960-2012. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) will be calculated over a 6-month timescale from monthly precipitations. Three variables including 500-mb heights, surface pressure maps, and sea surface temperatures, will be correlated with the SPI using sliding correlations and Pearson's R correlation to determine any relations between these variables and precipitation variations. We will further investigate the five driest, wettest, …

No Fracking Way! A Study On The Spatial Patterns Of And Changes In Perception And Distance From A Michigan Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing Site, Shannon Mcewen

Masters Theses

The research investigates whether Michigan residents' perception of risk from an oil and natural gas (ONG) well site that employs the use of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) changes with distance. The research goal is to determine if residents that live farther from a fracking site perceive it to be more dangerous than those who live closer. Secondary research goals include determining if increasing distance from a fracking site cause residents to overestimate their proximity to a fracking site and if gender and education levels have an effect on residents' perception levels. Data were collected from residents in three counties in …

A New Day For Nuclear: The Impact Of Nuclear Energy And Its Effects, Hannah G. Hilliard

Senior Honors Theses

Energy is a resource on which civil society is built. It affects every aspect of life and is vital to the survival of the modern world. This paper explores nuclear power and the effects it has on a national and global scale. The research looks at both the positive and negative aspects of nuclear energy, giving weight to both sides of the argument to present a detailed look at this resource. The research is compiled from a wide range of authors from scientists and nuclear experts to reporters and strategic intelligence agents. A proposed technology for the advancement of nuclear …

Volume 06, Kristen Gains, Amanda Willis, Holly Backer, Monika Gutierrez, Cara O'Neal, Sara Nelson, Sasha Silberman, Jessica Beardsley, Jamie Gardner, Edward Peeples, Matthew Sakach, Tess Lione, Emily Wilkins, Kelsey Holt, Jessica Page, Jamie Clift, Charles Vancampen, Gilbert Hall, Jenny Nehrt, Kasey Dye, Amanda Tharp, Jamie Leeuwrik, Ashley Mcgee, Emily Poulin, Michael Kropf, Nick Pastore, Austin Polasky, Morgan Glasco, Laura L. Kahler, Melinda L. Edwards, Brandon C. Smith, Mariah Asbell, Cabell Edmunds, Amelia D. Perry, Alyssa Hayes, Irina Boothe, Perry Bason, James Early

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction from Dean Dr. Charles Ross

Caught Between Folklore and the Cold War: The Americanization of Russian Children's Literature by Kristen Gains

Graphic Design by Amanda Willis

Graphic Design by Holly Backer

Prejudices in Swiss German Accents by Monika Gutierrez

Photography by Cara O'Neal

Photography by Sara Nelson

Edmund Tyrone's Long Journey through Night by Sasha Silberman

Photography by Jessica Beardsley

Photography by Jamie Gardner and Edward Peeples

The Republican Razor: The Guillotine as a Symbol of Equality by Jamie Clift

Graphic Design by Matthew Sakach

Genocide: The Lasting Effects of Gender Stratification in Rwanda By Tess Lione and Emily …

Analyzing Market Incentives For Wetland Restoration In Louisiana: Wetland Mitigation Banking, Blue Carbon Sequestration, And Wetland Entrepreneurship, Eric Newberry

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Energizing Europe: The Geopolitics Of Energy Security And Energy Diversification In The European Union, Gabriel Alfredo Uribe

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Europe has always had an interesting relationship with Russia, be it social, political, or economic. From the days of the Cold War, when there was the ideological battle of communism versus capitalism, with the alliance of NATO representing a front against the Iron Curtain, certain remnants of this dynamic have still survived. Russia has not always had the best of relations with the European Union (EU), which has not made it easy for the EU to have fully functioning foreign relations with them. This is problematic specifically because of the importance that Russia has on EU energy security, as it …

Recurrent Chinese Restaurant Process With A Duration-Based Discount For Event Identification From Twitter, Qiming Diao, Jing Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the fast development of social media on the Web, Twitter has become one of the major platforms for people to express themselves. Because of the wide adoption of Twitter, events like breaking news and release of popular videos can easily catch people’s attention and spread rapidly on Twitter, and the number of relevant tweets approximately reflects the impact of an event. Event identification and analysis on Twitter has thus become an important task. Recently the Recurrent Chinese Restaurant Process (RCRP) has been successfully used for event identification from news streams and news-centric social media streams. However, these models …

Adverse Impacts Of Furlough Programs On Employee Work Rate And Organizational Productivity, Adedeji B. Badiru

Faculty Publications

This article is primarily a research-provoking exposition against the management approach used in the 2013 government furlough program. It is intended to prompt potentially productive research investigations on the impact of personnel furloughs, particularly on defense acquisition programs. Defense acquisition programs are time-sensitive and systems oriented. What appears as a minor delay in one unit of an acquisition life cycle can lead to long-term encumbrances within the entire defense system, resulting in enormous cost escalation. Pertinent analytical techniques/methodologies are provided to illustrate potential pathways for further research studies of furloughs and how they adversely impact organizational productivity. The author’s intent …

On Modeling Community Behaviors And Sentiments In Microblogging, Tuan Anh Hoang, William Cohen, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we propose the CBS topic model, a probabilistic graphical model, to derive the user communities in microblogging networks based on the sentiments they express on their generated content and behaviors they adopt. As a topic model, CBS can uncover hidden topics and derive user topic distribution. In addition, our model associates topic-specific sentiments and behaviors with each user community. Notably, CBS has a general framework that accommodates multiple types of behaviors simultaneously. Our experiments on two Twitter datasets show that the CBS model can effectively mine the representative behaviors and emotional topics for each community. We also …

Transparent Spectrum Co-Access In Cognitive Radio Networks, Jonathan Daniel Backens

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The licensed wireless spectrum is currently under-utilized by as much as 85%. Cognitive radio networks have been proposed to employ dynamic spectrum access to share this under-utilized spectrum between licensed primary user transmissions and unlicensed secondary user transmissions. Current secondary user opportunistic spectrum access methods, however, remain limited in their ability to provide enough incentive to convince primary users to share the licensed spectrum, and they rely on primary user absence to guarantee secondary user performance. These challenges are addressed by developing a Dynamic Spectrum Co-Access Architecture (DSCA) that allows secondary user transmissions to co-access transparently and concurrently with primary …

Do You Know The Speaker?: An Online Experiment With Authority Messages On Event Websites, Kwan-Hui Lim, Binyan Jiang, Ee Peng Lim, Achananuparp Palakorn

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the widespread adoption of the Web, many companies and organizations have established websites that provide information and support online transactions (e.g., buying products or viewing content). Unfortunately, users have limited attention to spare for interacting with online sites. Hence, it is of utmost importance to design sites that attract user attention and effectively guide users to the product or content items they like. Thus, we propose a novel and scalable experimentation approach to evaluate the effectiveness of online site designs. Our case study focuses on the effects of an authority message on visitors' browsing behavior on workshop and seminar …

Iowa Academy Of Science: The New Bulletin, V10n2, Spring 2014, Iowa Academy Of Science

New Bulletin

Inside This Issue:

--Message from the Executive Director

--Candidates for IAS President –Elect

--Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science

--Iowa Academy of Science 2014 Ballot

--Specify where your IAS donation goes

--2013 Member Donations to the Academy

--Announcements, Events & Deadlines

Near-Surface Internal Melting: A Substantial Mass Loss On Antarctic Dry Valley Glaciers, Matthew J. Hoffman, Andrew G. Fountain, Glen E. Liston

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The McMurdo Dry Valleys, southern Victoria Land, East Antarctica, are a polar desert, and melt from glacial ice is the primary source of water to streams, lakes and associated ecosystems. Previous work found that to adequately model glacier ablation and subsurface ice temperatures with a surface energy-balance model required including the transmission of solar radiation into the ice. Here we investigate the contribution of subsurface melt to the mass balance of (and runoff from) Dry Valley glaciers by including a drainage process in the model and applying the model to three glacier sites using 13years of hourly meteorological data. Model …

Chemical Literature Databases: Conflict Of Interest?, Belinda L. Hurley

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

A publisher of a research database controls the search algorithms of its database and, at a minimum, partially controls the indexing metadata attached to journal articles indexed in its database. A publisher of a journal partially controls the indexing metadata attached to articles in that journal. A publisher who publishes both a research database and journals that are indexed in that database has significant control over two major aspects of the discovery process. This allows the possibility for a publisher to introduce a bias into its algorithm that could favor discovery of its own articles. This work looks at search …

Explore The Six Fundamentals Unlv Accelerated: High-Energy X-Ray Applications (Hexa), Oliver A. Hemmers

NSTec UNLV Symposium

• UNLV and HEXA for a Brighter Southern Nevada Future
• History of HEXA’s Public-­‐Private Partnership
• Discovery Through Research and Innova4ve Technologies
• The Innova4ve Process
• Southern Nevada Research and Economic Development Applica4ons
• HEXA Program Benefits

Fearless Friday: Kirsten Crear, Kirsten Crear

SURGE

Even in her last semester here at Gettysburg, Kirsten Crear ’14 is fearlessly working to make changes for the future of the campus community. This semester, Kirsten introduced a STEMinists club on campus that will give female students who are STEM (an acronym for Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) majors the opportunity to come together and create a community, share and discuss the difficulties they face as women in their fields of study, and support and mentor each other as they prepare to enter their fields.

Kirsten is passionate, driven, and determined, taking the initiative to bring this group of women together on campus …

Fema Region Iii Coastal Flood Study - Hampton Roads Adaptation Forum, Robin Danforth

March 28, 2014: Addressing Current and Future Vulnerability through Floodplain Management

No abstract provided.

The Community Rating System And Sea Level Rise Adaptation, Shannon Hulst

March 28, 2014: Addressing Current and Future Vulnerability through Floodplain Management

No abstract provided.

Agenda, Hr Adaptation Forum

March 28, 2014: Addressing Current and Future Vulnerability through Floodplain Management

No abstract provided.

Floodplain Management Ordinance: Virginia Beach, Whitney Mcnamara

March 28, 2014: Addressing Current and Future Vulnerability through Floodplain Management

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Messages On Environmental Behavior, Miki Yoshimura-Rank

DePaul Discoveries

Over the past few decades environmental awareness and education have increased without a corresponding increase in pro-environmental behavior. Recent research on public service announcements and social marketing theory indicate that positive injunctive with positive descriptive norms are most effective in increasing proenvironmental behavior. The current study focused on the impact of different types of environmental messages on promoting recycling behavior in college students. Over 250 recycling actions were measured in the experiment. It was hypothesized that the positive injunctive with positive descriptive statement would be most effective in causing more university students to recycle. The findings, although not statistically significant, …

Agenda: Fracking, Water Quality And Public Health: Examining Current Laws And Regulations, Network For Public Health Law, American Society Of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Public Health Law Research Program

Fracking, Water Quality and Public Health: Examining Current Laws and Regulations (March 20)

Improved technology developments in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking," have resulted in an oil and gas production boom nationwide. Fracking involves pumping pressurized water, sand, and chemicals down wells to crack bedrock, freeing petroleum and natural gas. Wastewater discharges, hydraulic fracturing fluid releases, and other accidental spills pose potential water quality risks, sparking concern for public health.

This webinar will examine the laws and regulations governing water quality issues related to fracking, recent state court decisions affecting regulations, and implications for public health.

Slides: Best Management Practices For Oil And Gas Development And Comparative Water Quality Database Of Regulations Relating To Shale Oil And Gas, Matt Samelson, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment. Intermountain Oil And Gas Bmp Project

Fracking, Water Quality and Public Health: Examining Current Laws and Regulations (March 20)

Presenter: Matt Samelson, J.D., Attorney, Consultant for Intermountain Oil and Gas Best Management Practices (BMP) Project, Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment, University of Colorado Law School

34 slides

How Many Credit Card Frauds Must We Endure Before Security Improves?, Maritza Martinez

UCF Forum

Yes, it can happen to you…

Inferences & Connections, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Data-oriented systems are inferring relationships between people based on genetic material, behavioral patterns (e.g., shared geography imputed by phone carriers), and performed associations (e.g., "friends" online or shared photographs). What responsibilities do entities who collect data that imputes connections have to those who are implicated by association? For example, as DNA and other biological materials are collected outside of medicine (e.g., at point of arrest, by informatics services like 23andme, for scientific inquiry), what rights do relatives (living, dead, and not-yet-born) have? In what contexts is it acceptable to act based on inferred associations and in which contexts is it …

Predicting Human Behavior, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Countless highly accurate predictions can be made from trace data, with varying degrees of personal or societal consequence (e.g., search engines predict hospital admission, gaming companies can predict compulsive gambling problems, government agencies predict criminal activity). Predicting human behavior can be both hugely beneficial and deeply problematic depending on the context. What kinds of predictive privacy harms are emerging? And what are the implications for systems of oversight and due process protections? For example, what are the implications for employment, health care and policing when predictive models are involved? How should varied organizations address what they can predict?

Inequalities And Asymmetries, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

The availability of data is not evenly distributed. Some organizations, agencies, and sectors are better equipped to gather, use, and analyze data than others. If data is transformative, what are the consequences of defense and security agencies having greater capacity to leverage data than, say, education or social services? Financial wherewithal, technical capacity, and political determinants all affect where data is employed. As data and analytics emerge, who benefits and who doesn't, both at the individual level and the institutional level? What about the asymmetries between those who provide the data and those who collect it? How does uneven data …

Still Waters Run Deep: Landscaping Practices, Community Perceptions, And Social Indicators For Stormwater Nonpoint Source Pollution Management In Manatee County, Florida, Ann Rebecca Persaud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater nonpoint source pollution (NPSP) is a result of diffuse sources of pollutants transported by rainfall and surface runoff into stormwater ponds and drainage systems before percolating into the ground. In particular, the nutrients found in fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides applied in excess by homeowners and landscapers can cause a range of issues in stormwater ponds from fish kills to eutrophication. As a result, Manatee County, Florida has issued a fertilizer ordinance with best management practices (BMPs) and a fertilizer black out period to reduce NPSP. This study is aimed at capturing the perceptions of residents which affect stormwater NPSP …

Coastal And Ocean Economic Summaries Of The Coastal States 2014, Pat Johnston

Publications

The following summaries of the ocean and coastal economies were prepared by the National Ocean Economics Program as a companion the State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies 2014. The U.S. report, its appendices, and these state summary reports are available on the NOEP website at www.OceanEconomics.org/download.

Asymmetric Empirical Similarity, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The paper offers a formal model of analogical legal reasoning and takes the model to data. Under the model, the outcome of a new case is a weighted average of the outcomes of prior cases. The weights capture precedential influence and depend on fact similarity (distance in fact space) and precedential authority (position in the judicial hierarchy). The empirical analysis suggests that the model is a plausible model for the time series of U.S. maritime salvage cases. Moreover, the results evince that prior cases decided by inferior courts have less influence than prior cases decided by superior courts.