Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How To Lie With Coronavirus Statistics: Campbell's Law And Measuring The Effects Of Covid-19, Joel Best

Numeracy

Campbell's Law warns that when measurements become consequential those whose performance is being measured may try to skew the results. This case study examines the Trump administration's efforts to present COVID-19 statistics that would discourage restricting economic activities and encourage reopening the economy.

The Influence Of Information Power Upon The Great Game In Cyberspace: U.S. Wins Over Russian Meddling In The 2018 Elections, Joseph H. Schafer

Military Cyber Affairs

The 2018 U.S. pivot in information and cyberspace degraded Russian operations in the 2018 election. Following pervasive Russian information power operations during the U.S. 2016 elections, the United States progressed from a policy of preparations and defense in information and cyberspace to a policy of forward engagement. U.S recognition of renewed great power competition coupled with Russia’s inability to compete diplomatically, militarily (conventionally), or economically, inspires Russia to continues to concentrate on information power operations. This great game in cyberspace was virtually uncontested by the U.S. prior to 2017. Widespread awareness of Russian aggression in 2016 served as a catalyst …

S-21 As A Liminal Power Regime: Violently Othering Khmer Bodies Into Vietnamese Minds, Daniel Bultmann

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The article analyzes the structure, scripts, and procedural logics behind the violent practices in S-21, the central prison of the Khmer Rouge, as a liminal power regime. The institution’s violent practices and operations served to reveal a “Vietnameseness” and/or otherness within the victims and to prove not only their guilt regarding a singular crime but also a long history of treason and collaboration with the Vietnamese, as well as a moral shortcoming that put them outside their own imagined Khmer moral universe and made them part of a larger scheme. The initial and—for the ideology of the revolution—problematic sameness of …

Arts & Literature: The Grey Zone, Sabah Carrim

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

A manifesto of the grey areas in scenarios of mass killings.

Failure To Protect?: Applying The Drri-2 Scales To Rwanda And Srebrenica, Elizabeth Mason

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article critically reanalyses the action, or lack of action, taken by UN peacekeepers in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the 1990's. The lack of action of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda and Bosnia has long been criticised as a conscious decision made by peacekeepers to not act in defence of those being targeted but instead to act as bystanders of genocide when they had the ability to prevent acts of genocide taking place. This article re-examines the actions of the UN command under Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda and Thom Karremans in Srebrenica, Bosnia in terms of the stress-related factors which influenced …

A Queer(Er) Genocide Studies, Lily Nellans

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper examines how queerness interacts with and is implicated in traditional genocides, i.e. those directed at racial, religious, national, and ethnic groups - the groups defined as protected classes in the Genocide Convention. It poses the following question: How can scholars of Genocide Studies learn from the queer theory-Genocide Studies nexus? To answer, this paper demonstrate how three distinct queer theory concepts can be woven with Genocide Studies to reveal novel insights into some of the field’s preeminent questions. Specifically, it draws on queer intellectual curiosity, heteronormativity, and reproductive futurism. Connecting queer theory with Genocide Studies yields empirical, analytical, …

Democratization As A Protective Layering For Crimes Against Humanity: The Case Of Myanmar, Anna B. Plunkett

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Myanmar has a history of state sanctioned violence against its own people. However, as the regime transition occurs the methods of conducting such violence have also changed. This has not led to an end to violence but an alteration in the methods used by the state. What can be identified is the use of democratic regime transition to legitimise the state’s actions whilst delegitimising the plight of communities that have historically resisted the state. By engaging in the minimal standards of democratic practice whilst developing relations with the international community on the basis of trade, Myanmar has been able to …

Gender, Age, And Survival Of Italian Jews In The Holocaust, Susan Welch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Political scientists have examined the role of gender in genocide but have largely ignored the Holocaust in these analyses. Yet, the Holocaust is the largest genocide in human history and there is much we do not know about how gender affected individual experiences. Nor do we have a very precise understanding of the impact of age in survival, beyond the common wisdom that old and young people usually did not survive. Here we examine in more detail the impact of gender and age and their intersection among the nearly 7,000 Italian Jews deported to the east, mostly to Poland and …

Better News About Math: A Research Agenda, Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein, John Voiklis, Laura Santhanam, Nsikan Akpan, Shivani Ishwar, Bennett Attaway, Patti Parson, John Fraser

Numeracy

Numeracy is not a luxury: numbers constantly factor into our daily lives. Yet adults in the United States have lower numeracy than adults in most other developed nations. While formal statistical training is effective, few adults receive it – and schools are a major contributor to the inequity we see among U.S. adults. That leaves news well-poised as a source of informal learning, given that news is a domain where adults regularly encounter quantitative content. Our transdisciplinary team of journalists and social scientists propose a research agenda for thinking about math and the news. We engage here in a dialogue …

Designing Next-Generation Transportation Systems With Emerging Vehicle Technologies, Zhiwei Chen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in computing and artificial intelligence have enabled the development of various emerging vehicle technologies, e.g., autonomous vehicles (AV) and modular autonomous vehicles (MAV). These technologies bring new scientific and engineering problems challenging transportation researchers and practitioners. This dissertation aims to develop a suite of scalable computational and analytical tools for designing and analyzing next-generation transportation systems with the MAV technologies. Also, we intend to empirically study the system impacts in terms of the quality of service, energy implications, and inequality impacts.

For MAV system design, we develop a methodological framework centering at theoretical properties of the optimal system …

Counseling Clients With Traumatic Brain Injury: Exploring Counselors’ Perceived Knowledge, Comfort, And Self-Awareness, Michelle Bradham-Cousar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnoses continues to rise each year. Counseling is a critical factor in TBI treatment, and although numerous studies have investigated TBI outcomes, a paucity of researchers have studied professional counselors’ knowledge, comfort, and self-awareness when working with TBI clients. Due to the diversity of counselor caseloads, it is likely that counselors will serve clients with a dual diagnosis that includes TBI. These dual diagnoses include depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, psychosis, or another neurocognitive disorder. The purpose of this study was to explore counselors’ knowledge, comfort, and self-awareness when working with individuals with …

Enhancing Adult Refugees’ Metacognition, Motivation, And Multiliteracies: Metacognitive Instruction Within An E-Learning Environment, Imelda V. Bangun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adult refugees without print literacy are a diverse group. The reasons adult refugees lack print literacy varies widely among individuals. While meeting the needs of these adults is indeed important, instructors who work with these learners are frequently challenged to provide suitable e-learning environments in which these learners can thrive. Accordingly, the present study aimed to achieve four goals. First, it investigated the effectiveness of explicit metacognitive instruction within an e-learning environment in enhancing the motivational profile of adult refugees with limited literacy. Second, it researched the effectiveness of explicit metacognitive instruction accompanied with an e-learning environment in enhancing the …

Parent Coping And Sibling Relationship Quality In Pediatric Cancer: The Moderating Effects Of Parental Emotion Socialization Beliefs, Esther Davila

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined relations between parent coping and parent-, patient-, and sibling-reported perceptions of sibling relationship quality (SRQ), as well as potential moderating effects of parent emotion socialization (ES) beliefs in the context of pediatric oncology. Questionnaires were completed by 155 parents of pediatric oncology patients, 103 pediatric oncology patients, and 104 healthy siblings of pediatric oncology patients. Parent coping and ES beliefs predicted parent-perceived sibling warmth and dominance disparity. For parents low in emotion-dismissive ES beliefs, parent adaptive coping negatively predicted parent-perceived sibling dominance disparity. For parents low in emotion-coaching ES beliefs, parent adaptive coping positively predicted patient-perceived sibling …

Mapping Narrative Transactions: A Method/Framework For Exploring Multimodal Documents As Social Semiotic Sites For Ethnographic Study, Anne W. Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work grew from my attempts to find a method for studying a body of editorial cartoons—multi-modal documents producing cross-modal responses—that were created and published in an earlier time period, in order to answer questions about the culture in which the cartoons were produced and read. Initially my questions included wondering about the topics cartoonists addressed, the narratives cartoonists created to address the topics, how the narratives were framed, and in what ways the narratives might have been seen as attempts to shape the larger cultural discourse around the topics. However, given the number of possible combinations of information streams …

Predictors Of Economic Outlook In Stability Operations, Juan Carlos Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The participation of the United States military in stability efforts has increased dramatically since 2001. The core of current U. S. stabilization policies and measures derives from the US military's lessons in countering insurgencies since the late 20th century through the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and countries experiencing radical Islamic insurgencies. Counterinsurgency operations focus on gaining support from the relevant population through security, governance, and economic efforts. This research seeks to improve the understanding of the relationship between perceptions of security and governance on populations' economic outlook during stability operations. Applying the “Winning Hearts and Minds” approach to the …

Asian Male Stereotypes: An Investigation Of Current Beliefs About Asian Males And Stereotypes Perpetuated By U.S. Modern Cinema, Noelle Knopp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a triangulated two-part study with a quasi-experiment design. Study Part 1 performed a textual analysis supported by the theory of framing on the films Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Always Be My Maybe, and To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You to find commonalities among portrayals of prominent East Asian male characters. Using Wong et. al’s findings of common perceived stereotypes by Asian American males, the author used the six traits defined by Wong et. al as a base to see if the films corresponded to or deviated from the stereotypes …

I'M Going Digital: Potentials For Online Communities Through Internet Remix, Justin N. Nguyen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the late 90s and early 2000s, computers and internet usage became more widespread. This widespread usage led to a proliferation of “digital objects” (digital versions of audio, video, image, text, etc.) dispersed through the internet. The instant and near-infinite reproducibility of digital objects combined with their ease of manipulation by computer users has led to their widespread recognition and use as tools of communication online. As a consequence, technology has allowed those traditionally thought of as consumers to become cultural producers by repurposing digital media objects. Because of this, internet remix of digital objects is one of the best …

Circadian Rhythms And The Embodiment Of Social Zeitgebers: Linking The Bio And Social, Tiffany R. Moore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Virtually all biological processes are under direct or indirect control of the circadian system. Chronic disruption of circadian rhythms, termed chronodisruption, is linked to increased risk for adverse health outcomes such as cancer, depression, and cardiometabolic disease. Circadian rhythms are highly sensitive to sociocultural contexts. As a result, circadian rhythms provide a valuable entryway to explore issues of embodiment. Here, embodiment refers to processes through which social experiences ‘get under the skin’ to become biological and manifest in health. To better understand what proximate social factors influence chronodisruption, this study assessed chronodisruption and social zeitgebers among a population of 15 …

Evaluating The Effects Of Peer Competition On Physical Activity During School Recess, Heather M. Zerger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With an increase in childhood obesity, engagement in regular physical activity is an important health-related behavior. In addition to being overweight or obese, a lack of physical activity can lead to other serious health risks. With children spending a majority of their weekdays at school, this environment should be used to promote physical activity. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of peer competition and feedback on children’s step counts. During baseline, participants wore a sealed pedometer during recess and physical education (PE). During intervention, participants with higher step counts were paired with participants with lower …

Maternal Social Status, Offspring 2d:4d Ratio And Postnatal Growth, In Macaca Mulatta (Rhesus Macaques), Juan Pablo Arroyo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Early life exposure to stressors can disrupt growth and development, resulting in long-term compromised function and increased risk for disease throughout the lifecourse. Maternal exposure to psychosocial stressors (i.e., stressors derived from social status, social inequalities, and social interactions) during pregnancy has been associated with reduced fetal growth, adverse birth outcomes, and increased morbidity for the offspring later in life. Maternal hormonal responses to stress, such as fluctuations in glucocorticoids (e.g., cortisol) and androgens (e.g., testosterone), can result in increased developmental instability, interfere with offspring growth in-utero, and may alter developmental processes of sexual dimorphism. Second digit to fourth digit …

Communication, Learning And Social Support At The Speaking Center: A Communities Of Practice Perspective, Ann Marie Foley Coats

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In response to increasing demand for public speaking instruction, more institutions are establishing campus speaking centers staffed by student tutors. Peer tutors provide clients with a range of supports in the speech-making process, including suggestions for speech content and organization and for improving delivery during simulated practice sessions. This study investigates patterns of peer interaction in one campus speaking center to understand the dynamics of peer support in a non-classroom setting and how they may create the conditions for student learning. This ethnographic study conceptualized speaking center activities and the practice of oral communication skills development through the lens of …

Networks In The Norm Life Cycle And The Diffusion Of Environmental Norms, James E. Fry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this research, I analyze how Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) and cities affect the diffusion and transmission of a decarbonization norm. Urban policy and political science scholars assert that cities and their networks are influential in implementing internationally coordinated environmental policy. However, few projects have analyzed how local actors may diffuse environmental norms that have been developed in the international system. Using the norm life cycle, this research explores the transmission of a decarbonization norm by means of GHG measurement and mitigation. I identify two critical objectives associated with a decarbonization norm: establishing a system for monitoring GHG emissions and …

The Role Of Non-Secular Involvement Towards A Comprehensive Community Approach For Addressing Opioid Use Disorder, Amanda Gene Sharp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While the opioid overdose crisis continues to impact individuals, families, and communities across the United States, there is a sense of urgency to identify effective, efficient, and feasible approaches for curbing the death toll. It is clear, however, that without community-level acceptance of treatment and harm reduction approaches shown to be successful, the services available remain underutilized and thus less impactful than clinical evidence demonstrates. To overcome an opioid use disorder (OUD), an overall treatment approach should be tailored to an individual’s needs but might include components of medication, psychosocial support services, community engagement, and the development of healthy social …

Save Water Drink Wine: Challenges Of Implementing The Ethnography Of The Temecula Valley Wine Industry Into Food-Energy-Water Nexus Decision-Making, Zaida E. Darley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study demonstrates the interrelationships of people, food, energy, and water associated with Temecula Valley’s wine industry and reveals contradictions and biases in how people view these resources, which ultimately shape management and policies. The FEW (Food, Energy, and Water) Nexus is an approach increasingly used by policy- and decision-makers to understand the interrelationship of several resources. However, a FEW Nexus approach often lacks in social aspects that influence environmentally and economically sustainable outcomes, especially in the wine and wine tourism industry. When quantitative and qualitative data are available, the other challenge is which assessment to use. Two assessments often …

Multimodal Data Fusion And Attack Detection In Recommender Systems, Mehmet Aktukmak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The commercial platforms that use recommender systems can collect relevant information to produce useful recommendations to the platform users. However, these sources usually contain missing values, imbalanced and heterogeneous data, and noisy observations. Such characteristics render the process of exploiting the information nontrivial, as one should carefully address them during the data fusion process. In addition to the degenerative characteristics, some entries can be fake, i.e., they can be the outcomes of malicious intents to manipulate the system. These entries should be eliminated before incorporation to any recommendation task. Detecting such malicious attacks quickly and accurately and then mitigating them …

Fostering Success Through Coaching: Perspectives Of Help Seeking Within A Coaching Relationship With Post-Secondary Students From Foster Care, Jamie L. Bennett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coaching, a humanistic approach to growth, has recently been utilized on college campuses as an alternative to standard student service strategies to address the needs of students from foster care. For this dissertation, I have collected interview data from four coaches and five college students who had spent time in the foster care system to explore the perceptions of help-seeking behaviors and coaching within a campus-based university program. The goal was to understand the role of coaching in the students’ help-seeking behaviors. The theories of self-determination and survivalist self-reliance were used to conceptualize my literature review, research design, and data …

Feasting On Words: What University Students Learn When They Study Food Writing And Food Media, Janet K. Keeler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of food in college curriculum is unique in its ability to create lasting impact because of the keen interest millennial and Generation Z students have in what they eat and drink. Studying media with food at its core is an underutilized mechanism to show how food intersects with the lives of all people thus encouraging students to look beyond their own experiences to consider the wider society. A program evaluation of 10 semesters of food writing and food media courses at a Florida public university reveals the ways in which students make deeper connections to culture and current …

Digital Identity: A Human-Centered Risk Awareness Study, Toufic N. Chebib

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cybersecurity threats and compromises have been at the epicenter of media attention; their risk and effect on people’s digital identity is something not to be taken lightly. Though cyber threats have affected a great number of people in all age groups, this study focuses on 55 to 75-year-olds, as this age group is close to retirement or already retired. Therefore, a notable compromise impacting their digital identity can have a major impact on their life.

To help guide this study, the following research question was formulated, “What are the risk perceptions of individuals, between the ages of 55 and 75 …

A Review Of Antecedent- And Consequence-Based Interventions For Vocal Stereotypy, Christine A. Roeper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The exact prevalence of vocal stereotypy within individuals diagnosed with ASD in currently unknown. In a 2011 study on symptoms of ASD by Mayes and Calhoun, 85% of parents reported their child engaged in repetitive, atypical speech or vocalizations. While there is a plethora of research on behavioral interventions to reduce levels of vocal stereotypy in individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, at the time this review was written there is only one published review of the literature written by Lanovaz and Sladeczek in 2011. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to extend and update the 2011 review conducted …

One News Event, Three Media Frames, Le Xin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As a protest movement that has attracted international attention, the 2019 Hong Kong protest has become the focus of media and public attention due to political issues involving China mainland and Hong Kong. The reporting process and framing of news media for news events is actually a process of selecting and reorganizing related events. The media of different countries also reported the 2019 Hong Kong Protest like this process. However, the reporting frameworks in different media organizations are also completely different because of the differences in the nature, positioning, and political factors of those media. Based on the framing theory, …