Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Reading Between The Pictures: Documenting Economic Hardship In A Neoliberal Age, Pamela Ann Barker

Theses - ALL

ABSTRACT:

This thesis is interested in the ways that documentary photojournalism of economic hardship has changed in response to a neoliberal context. Analysis is centered on photographer Anthony Suau’s photo essay “Struggling Cleveland,” captured for TIME magazine in 2008. Suau’s photographs of economic hardship break from a tradition of photojournalism that focused on drama and emotion. I consider what appears and does not appear in the photographs, with particular attention to how the neoliberal context influences the content and mode of address of the photos. The photographs are analyzed independently for the ways that neoliberalism appears within each frame and …

Chicago's Carceral Geographies: Public Housing And Prisoner Reentry In The City, Madeleine Rose Hamlin

Theses - ALL

The Chicago Housing Authority’s recently announced Reentry Pilot allows limited numbers and limited types of ex-offenders to live in Chicago’s public housing for the first time (officially). Through interviews with policymakers, advocates, resident leadership, and service providers, as well as ex-offenders enrolled in or waitlisted for the Pilot, this thesis explores how the various stakeholders envision the goals of this Pilot and what factors they identify that may limit its success. By reshaping housing policy not only for the limited number of ex-offenders included in the Pilot but indeed, by pushing for broader sets of reforms, the Pilot attempts to …

Data Management; U.S. Federal Mandate Requirements, Paul Bern

Librarian Publications

Presentation on data management, how it intersects with open data and federal mandates for public access in USA, and a review of useful tools, including the DMPTool and others.

Introduction To Open Access, Amanda Page

Librarian Publications

Presentation for Open Access week 2017 at Syracuse University Libraries providing an introduction to what open-access is, and how it relates to scholarly communications and publishing, copyright, and voice. A review of the types of open-access and rights as well as the history, reasoning behind open-access, and definitions.

Implementation Assessment Of Executive Order 13518: The Veterans Employment Initiative (Interim Report), Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

Under the auspices of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University conducted an independent study to assess the implementation of the Veterans Employment Initiative (VEI). This Interim report discusses interim findings, as well as initial focus areas for the 2016-2020 administration.

2017 Annual Report, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This report overviews the accomplishments of the IVMF during 2016-2017.

Research Brief: "Understanding Transition Experiences Of Combat Veterans Attending Community College", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes a scholarly article of the same name. It reviews research which examines the transition experiences of student veterans as they navigate attending community college.

Paper 4: Pathways To Opportunity: Financial Flexibility And Workforce Readiness, Deborah A. Bradbard, Rosalinda Maury, Nicholas Armstrong

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This paper explores key factors that contribute to military family financial readiness—prior to transition—so that service members may exercise control over their finances and optimize their choices at transition to optimize their financial opportunities and minimize the risk of financial hardship. The goal for any service member is to maximize their range of options in transition by capitalizing on their unique assets (education benefits, intangible leadership skills, etc.) and limiting potential liabilities (limited professional network, advanced education or training) through sound financial preparation.

Social Media: Enhancing The U.S. Military’S Communication With Its Target Audience, Lloyd Eldon Bedford

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this qualitative research analysis is to highlight the key changes over the last decade that influenced the U.S. Military to redirect its efforts of ignoring social media, to make it one of its major contributing asset to effective communication. I will examine my findings by answering the following questions to prove or deny that social media has enhanced the U.S. Military’s communication with its target audience. The first question is-Why did the U.S. Military change its strategy on using social media to manage communication? I am aiming to find out who or what events influenced this change …

Pain-Related Anxiety As A Predictor Of Early Lapse And Relapse To Cigarette Smoking, Lisa Renee Larowe

Dissertations - ALL

Pain-related anxiety has been positively associated with tobacco dependence, smoking motives, self-reported barriers to smoking cessation, and expectancies for negative affect reduction via smoking. Although emerging research suggests that pain-related anxiety may play a role in the maintenance of tobacco dependence, no previous work has examined pain-related anxiety as a predictor of smoking cessation outcomes. The goal of the current study was to test the hypothesis that pain-related anxiety would predict early lapse and relapse to cigarette smoking among a sample of 55 daily tobacco smokers who participated in an unaided cessation attempt (i.e., without psychosocial or pharmacological intervention). Pain-related …

Analyzing Nation Branding Through Public Relations Lenses-- The Case Of The 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Ruoshi Li

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

Studies across several disciplines, including marketing, political science and culture studies, have already touched on the concept of nation branding. Different experts with distinct academic backgrounds look at nation branding from different angles. This paper first takes a critical review of the conceptualizations of nation branding and then revisits the public relations theories, followed by a synthesis of public relations concepts with nation branding in a case study of the Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony. It also seeks to open a conversation within the field of communication and public relations on the trend of nation branding. With an aim of …

The Dynamics Of Conflict: Transforming Northern Ireland, Ronit Berger

Dissertations - ALL

The main goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of the process of conflict transformation. More specifically, I wish to examine what are the circumstances that push Dual Wing Resistance Organizations (DWRO), and particularly, the Irish Provisional Republican Movement to behave in one of four different ways: convergent towards violence, convergence towards cooperation, divergence and confusion.

My main argument is that in order to understand conflict transformation processes and what pushes an organization to behave in a particular way one must look into the interaction between factors at three levels of analysis: the context, organizational dynamics and …

Suffering For Land: Environmental Hazards And Popular Struggles In The Brahmaputra Valley (Assam), India, Mitul Baruah

Dissertations - ALL

The twin processes of flooding and riverbank erosion have over the years re-shaped the Brahmaputra Valley landscape in the northeast Indian state of Assam. While flooding and erosion have always been part of the natural landscape of the valley, they have now turned disastrous causing agro-ecological instability and large-scale displacement of the local population. This dissertation is based on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in different parts of Assam, with a special focus on Majuli River Island, located in the middle of the Brahmaputra River, and Rohmoria in the upstream. It examines the political ecological processes of the re-production of …

The Role Of Icts In Social Movements: The Case Of The Honduran National Front Against The 2009 Coup, Fatima K. Espinoza Vasquez

Dissertations - ALL

There is an important academic conversation happening about how social movements adopt, use, and configure Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for political participation. This dissertation contributes to that conversation by taking a holistic look at ICTs, throughout a social movement's emergence and development, while considering its context, its organizational structures and sense-making processes.

I explore the case of the Honduran National Front Against the Coup (NFAC), a relevant case due to its similarities with other movements, like the use of social media, the support from the international community and its geographically dispersed networks; but also, particular in its political and …

Measuring The Financial Shocks Of Natural Disasters: A Panel Study Of U.S. States, Qing Miao, Yilin Hou, Michael Abrigo

Center for Policy Research

This paper employs panel vector autoregression to examine the dynamic fiscal response to disaster shocks. With 50-state, 1970-2013 panel data of state government finance and disaster damage, we estimate disaster impacts on revenue, expenditure, debt issuance, and intergovernmental transfers. We find that following a disaster, states increase program expenditure, but receive more federal transfers. Disasters have limited impact on total tax revenues but amplify fluctuations in sales, income, and property tax revenues. Our findings suggest that disaster-induced additional spending is largely financed through federal transfers, which include not only disaster relief funds but also non-disaster-related public welfare aids.

Parasocial Relationships With Transgender Characters And Attitudes Toward Transgender Individuals, Lizhen Zhao

Dissertations - ALL

The transgender population lives in a condition of serious discrimination, poverty and violence (NCTE, 2014). Few studies, however, have been conducted to understand people’s attitudes toward this population and factors that affect the responses. Applying the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis (Schiappa, Gregg & Hewes, 2005), this thesis investigated the relationship between audiences’ positive and negative parasocial relationships with transgender characters in TV and their attitudes toward transgender people in real life. A survey method was employed to address research questions and test hypothesis. Results show a significant association between parasocial relationship (positive or negative) and attitudes toward trans people in real …

The Competing Risks Of Prepayment And Default On The Single-Family Mortgage Market, Ran An

Dissertations - ALL

This study contains three chapters. Since the subprime crisis, it has become increasingly important to understand the competing risks of prepayment and default on the single-family mortgage market. This research studies the economic factors that affect the competing risks of prepayment and default in locations where the aggregate of the prepayment risk and the default risk are simultaneously high.

Chapter 1 outlines the analysis based on thirty-year, fixed-rate, single-family mortgages in five Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs): Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Detroit and Las Vegas. These MSAs are chosen from a sample Single-family Loan-Level Dataset constructed by Freddie Mac based on high …

Achieving Public Long-Term Care Insurance Through Social Security Wealth: Microsimulation For The Us Case, Alexandre Genest

Dissertations - ALL

The risk of needing long-term care (LTC) at some point in one's life is non-negligible, and the cost of care–whether in formal or informal settings– can be prohibitive for many seniors. In fact LTC is sometimes labeled the last major uninsured expense for seniors in the United States. The majority of LTC costs are currently borne by Medicaid and out-of-pocket spending, while private insurance coverage remains minimal. The take-up of private insurance among American seniors has remained low, in part because of the large (and growing) cost of premiums, as well as the presence of Medicaid. As the payer of …

Reacting To Negative Self-Relevant Information In An Interpersonal Context, Mingxuan Tan

Dissertations - ALL

Using a newly developed perspective provided by cross-cultural research, the concept of face, I conducted three experiments to examine the impact self-construal, feedback source and interpersonal contexts have on one’s reactions to negative self-relevant information. In these experiments, characteristics of contexts including audience’s status, audience’s standard, audience’s performance and publicness of the situation were manipulated to examine participants’ reactions to feedback pertaining to an ostensibly important ability. These experiments revealed that compared to the interdependent self-construal, the independent self-construal was associated with higher levels of self-serving responses. These self-serving responses include attributing failure to external factors and attributing success to …

Depressive Symptoms As A Longitudinal Predictor Of Sexual Risk Behaviors Among African American Adolescents: Findings From Project Imppacs, Jacklyn Babowitch

Dissertations - ALL

Research that clarifies individual level factors associated with sexual risk behavior among African American adolescents remains an important public health priority. The current study examined the longitudinal association of depressive symptoms to sexual risk behaviors, and determined whether the association of depressive symptoms to risky sex varies as a function of gender in a sample of African American adolescents. A secondary aim was to examine whether self-efficacy for sex refusal and condom use mediate the depression-sexual risk relationship. Data analyses focused on baseline and three-month assessments of depressive symptoms and sexual behaviors assessed for the previous three-months, including: (a) engagement …

Predicting Social Functioning In Young Adults With 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: A Longitudinal Study, Kayla Eileen Wagner

Dissertations - ALL

Background: The primary objectives of the current study were to (a) describe social functioning outcomes over a 9-year span in individual with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS) and (b) identify childhood predictors of social functioning in young adults with 22q11.2DS.

Method: Using data from a prospective longitudinal study, young adult social functioning was compared among individuals with 22q11.2DS, their siblings, and community controls. Childhood cognitive, emotional, and behavioral predictors of young adult social functioning were examined. In addition, the relationship between psychosis and social functioning was explored. Family environment and factors contributing to parental stress in adolescence were investigated as potential …

A New Method For Helping Chinese People Who Are Facing Retirement To Exert Greater Control Over Their Financial Resources, Xuanmu Yan

Dissertations - ALL

In China, personal financial advisers are not common. Chinese people who are facing retirement have a difficult time to plan for their retirement. This causes a very serious problem in China: many older Chinese do not have enough money in retirement. Therefore, my goal is to help Chinese people that are facing retirement without a detailed financial plan. In order to do so, I’ve conducted research to understand the long-term goals of those Chinese people. As a qualitative research approach, I've created three probes to explore the problems they are facing and the reasons why existing solutions do not work …

Three Empirical Essays On International Trade And Public Economics, Yusuf Kenan Bagir

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on the economic impacts of various policy issues on Turkish labor market and international trade. Chapter 1 examines the employment and wage effects of the refugee influx from Syria on Turkish native labor. Results indicate statistically significant negative employment and wage effects on the low-skilled and less-experienced individuals especially in the border regions. The second chapter investigates the impact of the presence of foreign missions on trade. This study uses Turkey’s aggressive expansion in its foreign mission network as the source of variation and finds significant positive effect on both the exports and …

“Que(E)Rying Religious Activism: Culture, Identity, And The Politics Of Family In Unitarian Universalist Churches”, Karen E. Macke

Dissertations - ALL

Despite the longstanding debate about religion’s role in social movements, conservative religious opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) social movement in the United States has limited sociological research in this area to questions of individual identity or the oppositional strategies used by religious and LGTBQ groups to sway public opinion and policy decisions. This dissertation addresses the less well-understood dynamics of mainstream religious group participation in LGBTQ social movement. Through frameworks of social movement theory, organizational culture, and queer theory, it explores the organizational elements shaping congregants’ practices in two Unitarian Universalist (UU) churches considered “Welcoming Congregations”. …

Research Brief: "The Impact Of Demographic Differences On Native Veterans’ Outpatient Service Utilization", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes an examination of the impact of Native veterans' personal demographics on their outpatient utilization of VA-based primary care and mental health services.

What Can Social Networks Tell Us About Learning Ecologies?, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

The ecology metaphor is drawn from the biological sciences and refers to the “scientific study of the distribution, abundance and dynamics of organisms, their interactions with other organisms and with their physical environment” (British Ecological Society, 2016). In recent decades, the metaphor has become useful for tackling the complexity of new information and learning environments, particularly as driven by the increasing quantity of information, the growing number of available media and means of communicating, the extended reach of information technologies, and the new practices arising from these configurations. This paper brings to the discussion of learning ecologies the research and …

From One To Many: Creating A Culture Of Research Reputation, Scott Warren, Anne E. Rauh, Jen Hill

Librarian Publications

Faculty and the institutions they work for have increasingly strong needs to manage their research reputations. Syracuse University Libraries assists individuals and institutional offices in determining metrics such as the H index, citation counts, altmetrics, etc. and provides context to these metrics. The first presenter will illustrate how the Libraries provide assistance in managing one's individual research reputation using subscription based and freely available tools. The second presenter will outline how institutional wide reputation is being cultivated in cooperation with other campus units. Lastly, the third presenter will discuss the value of and how a subscription based vendor is vital …

A Family Affair: Library Opportunities To Connect With Parents And Families, Melinda Dermody, Laura Benjamin

Librarian Publications

Parents are important aspects of our students’ academic lives, and as such, should be acknowledged and considered as allies and potential partners with libraries. This article presents ideas for many ways in which libraries can engage with parents and families, while also exploring the benefits of such efforts. The broad areas in which these efforts fall include 1) overall student success, 2) connecting with other student-supporting and student-reaching entities on campus, and 3) supporting the critical efforts of student recruitment and retention. In this article, examples of different parent engagement opportunities are also discussed, including involvement in campus events, engaging …

Beyond The Matrix: Repository Services For Qualitative Data, Sebastian Karcher, Dessi Kirilova, Nic Weber

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

The Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) provides infrastructure and guidance for the sharing and reuse of digital data used in qualitative and multi-method social inquiry. In this paper we describe some of the repository’s early experiences providing services developed specifically for the curation of qualitative research data. We focus on QDR’s efforts to address two key challenges for qualitative data sharing. The first challenge concerns constraints on data sharing in order to protect human participants and their identities and to comply with copyright laws. The second set of challenges addresses the unique characteristics of qualitative data and their relationship to the …

The Identification And Estimation Of A Large Factor Model With Structural Instability, Badi H. Baltagi, Chihwa Kao, Fa Wang

Center for Policy Research

This paper tackles the identification and estimation of a high dimensional factor model with unknown number of latent factors and a single break in the number of factors and/or factor loadings occurring at unknown common date. First, we propose a least squares estimator of the change point based on the second moments of estimated pseudo factors and show that the estimation error of the proposed estimator is Op(1). We also show that the proposed estimator has some degree of robustness to misspecification of the number of pseudo factors. With the estimated change point plugged in, consistency of the estimated number …