Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Vol. 2 No. 1, Moynihan European Research Centers, August 21, 2006, Moynihan European Research Centers

Newsletters from Moynihan European Research Centers

Letter from the Director -- New Modern European Studies Minor proposed -- Windows on Europe : the Kaczynskis reconsidered -- FLAS Fellow update -- CES Welcomes New postdoctoral fellow -- Upcoming events

Small Education Experiments Do Not Shed Much Light On Large Education Reforms, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Does The Quality Of Training Programs Matter? Evidence From Bidding Processes Data, Alberto Chong, Jose Galdo

Economics - All Scholarship

We estimate the effect of training quality on earnings using a Peruvian program, which targets disadvantaged youths. The identification of causal effects is possible because of two attractive features in the data. First, selection of training courses is based on public bidding processes that assign standardized scores to multiple proxies for quality. Second, the evaluation framework allows for the identification and comparison of individuals in treatment and comparison groups six, 12, and 18 months after the program. Using difference-indifferences kernel matching methods, we find that individuals attending high-quality training courses have higher average and marginal treatment impacts. External validity was …

Adaptive Modeling Of Workforce Domain Knowledge, Jian Qin, Peter Creticos, Wen-Yuan Hsiao

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Workforce development is a multidisciplinary domain in which policy, laws and regulations, social services, training and education, and information technology and systems are heavily involved. It is essential to have a semantic base accepted by the workforce development community for knowledge sharing and exchange. This paper describes how such a semantic base—the Workforce Open Knowledge Exchange (WOKE) Ontology—was built by using the adaptive modeling approach. The focus of this paper is to address questions such as how ontology designers should extract and model concepts obtained from different sources and what methodologies are useful along the steps of ontology development. The …

Rejecting The 65-Percent Solution, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

A Framework For Analysing The Microbiological Commons, Charlotte Hess, Elinor Ostrom

Librarian Publications

In an earlier article, “Ideas, artifacts and facilities: information as a common-pool resource”, we examined the role of collective action in building robust knowledge commons and in circumventing trends of enclosure and privatisation of the intellectual public domain. Our analysis suggested that collective action and new institutional design play as large a part in shaping the collection, distribution, and preservation of scholarly information as do legal restrictions and market forces. The microbiological commons extends well beyond the boundaries of e-prints and other full-text research documents that are the focus of the open access movement. It includes the contents of scientific …

Making Things Worse, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Professional Ethics: Forensic Anthropology And Human Rights Work, Jana Webb

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Human rights forensic anthropology does not have an ethical code developed specifically for this field. Currently, forensic anthropologists look to ethical codes in different fields. These codes may offer differing opinions. They do not address the specific work and issues forensic anthropologists may encounter in the field. An analysis of existing ethical codes in anthropology and forensic science was done to show which areas of the code were applicable to human rights forensic anthropology. Areas that these codes needed to address were also demonstrated. It was found that there was an emphasis on honesty and responsibility. Professionals had responsibilities to …

Creative Television Promotion, Kristina Quinlavin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The advertising world is a place focused on research, brand identity, and creativity, all of which combine to achieve one seemingly simple goal: to convince the consumer to purchase a specific item. It is often a difficult enough challenge to persuade a buyer that a product is worth her money, but there is one product category that demands something much more valuable than any price tag cost. This category requires its advertising to create a personal bond with the consumer; to welcome it and want it in her life. What is this audacious sounding product that charges something greater than …

Memory & Cognition: What Difference Does Gender Make?, Donna J. Bridge

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Small but significant gender differences, typically favoring women, have previously been observed in experiments measuring human episodic memory performance. In three studies measuring episodic memory, we compared performance levels for men and women. Secondary analysis from a pairedassociate learning task revealed a superior ability for women to learn single function pairs (i.e. words that are represented in only one pair), but performance levels for double function pairs (i.e. pairs that contain words that are also used in one other pair) were similar for men and women. We also reanalyzed data from a recognition experiment that used pictures as stimuli, and …

A Systematic Review Of The Methodology Of Expressive Writing Intervention Studies: Examining Location, Vanessa Juth

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Expressive writing interventions pertain to emotional disclosure through structured writing. Despite the encouraging results of controlled expressive writing studies, efforts to expand it into applied settings have been less successful and results have been more inconsistent. One varying factor among pertinent studies is the investigators’ alteration of the location of writing (both within and between studies). The purpose of this study is to systematically review the methodology and parameters of expressive writing intervention studies. A computer literature search was conducted using the PsycINFO and MedLine databases to identify peer reviewed articles of randomized controlled trials of the expressive writing intervention …

Professional Ethics: Forensic Anthropology And Human Rights Work, Jana Webb

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Human rights forensic anthropology does not have an ethical code developed specifically for this field. Currently, forensic anthropologists look to ethical codes in different fields. These codes may offer differing opinions. They do not address the specific work and issues forensic anthropologists may encounter in the field. An analysis of existing ethical codes in anthropology and forensic science was done to show which areas of the code were applicable to human rights forensic anthropology. Areas that these codes needed to address were also demonstrated. It was found that there was an emphasis on honesty and responsibility. Professionals had responsibilities to …

I Am What I Wear: The Use Of Dress In Constructing And Evaluating Sexual Identity, Jean Stevens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis explores different disciplinary studies and discussions of dress, and more specifically, the use of dress in constructing a gendered identity and sexual identity. To conduct this research, I performed a literature review and referenced various social psychological, sociological, and/or feminist theoretical frameworks. I argue that dress cannot serve as any sort of innate or accurate indicator of sexual identity; rather, the meanings associated with dress are socially produced and vary across time and place. Evidence for this argument emerges only after a literature review, as one can recognize a common theme linking the literature, or perhaps a commonly …

Poetry’S Outsiders: Why The Academy Should Embrace Poetry Slam And Its Audiences, Jessica G. Simon

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis addresses the problem of poetry’s declining audience in America by investigating the relationship between the academic poetry and poetry slam communities. Primary and secondary research on the history and current state of these two poetry communities reveal that the academic poetry community does not currently embrace Poetry Slam and its audiences. First, an audience survey of the three largest Poetry Slam audiences in New York City and interviews with slam poets who perform for these audiences suggest that Poetry Slam has the ability to cultivate audiences for poetry outside of the academy. Second, the results of an online …

Do Children's Hospitals Have Lower Mortality Rates? Evidence From The 2003 Kids' Inpatient Database, Christiane Labonte

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Objective: To compare mortality rates at children’s hospitals and non-children’s hospitals.

Data Source: I used the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids’ Inpatient Database (KID) released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2003. Thirty-six states participated in the HCUP in 2003, which included 3,438 hospitals, and 2,984,129 pediatric discharges.

Study Design: I hypothesized that mortality rates at children’s hospitals would be lower than mortality rates at non-children’s hospital because children’s hospitals have more specialized inputs, from the clinical training of sub-specialists and nurses to advanced machines and diagnostic tools, and may use these inputs more productively. To …

Upward Bound's Success In Interest Group Politics, Jessica Yusaitis

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

I examine how interest groups can gain and maintain federal funding by following one successful case study – Upward Bound.

Upward Bound is a federal program, headed by the Department of Education, which assists low-income high school students with finishing high school and with entering and succeeding in higher education. In 2005, President Bush proposed to cut finding for Upward Bound in order to further fund his No Child Left Behind initiative. However, UB managed to conduct a rewarding venture into interest group politics, and the program was reauthorized.

I plan for this project to serve as a handbook for …

Managed Democracy, Market Economy Or The Dichotomy Of Russia’S Political Economy, Evgenia A. Ustinova

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis examines the present day nature of Russian political and economic developments. The argument put forward is that President Putin has deliberately chosen a course of market economy, managed democracy – whereby an through an increasingly potent state and executive branch, Putin ensures sustainable growth for the Russian economy. Good economic performance ensures that the President is popular with the voters, no matter that his policies are designed to curtail democracy. The author concludes that current political and economic dichotomy will result in further development of the economy and eventual movement towards democratic ideals.

Risk Factors And Their Effects On The Comorbidity Of Asthma And Anxiety Disorders In School Aged Children, Stephanie P. Seigel

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease, characterized by attacks that make a child or adult feel like they are unable to breathe (Shohat, Graif, & Garty, 2005). Currently, nearly 6.3 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are afflicted with asthma (EPA, 2006)

Children with asthma are also more prone to developing other disorders especially, anxiety. The prevalence of child patients with asthma suffering from anxiety disorders is found to be as high as 4.7% (Katon, Richardson, Lozano & McCauley, 2004). The current study aims to examine the risk factors that contribute to the comorbidity of …

Bosnia And The Failure Of The New World Order, David Robbie

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

2 Abstract This paper attempts to prove that the United States failed to fulfill its international legislative obligations – namely the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – in the conflicts that occurred in the disintegrating state of Yugoslavia during the early 1990s. By doing this, the paper also attempts to discredit the idea promulgated by the first Bush administration that following the Gulf War and the end of the Cold War in 1991 there had emerged a “New World Order” which would combat the dark side of human nature and ensure that human rights …

Kidnapping Terrorists: Extraterritorial Forcible Abductions In The Global War On Terrorism, Matthew R. Mcnabb

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For those who have an interest in targeting, neutralizing, detaining, and adjudicating terrorists amidst the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), few tools are more poorly understood than the acquisition and subsequent movement of the alleged terrorists. Rendition is that process by which the body of an individual is taken from State A to State B. It may occur in either a “regular” or an “irregular” form. Regular rendition occurs when the individual is moved pursuant to the express terms and procedures of a given extradition treaty. Irregular rendition, on the other hand, is principally comprised of the rare instances in …

Nationalism, Law, Gender And Sexuality: An Anthropological Study Of U.S. Military Culture Among Veterans, Elizabeth R. Gwin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This study looks at the ways that sexual and gender identities are constructed through the translation of military experience into the veteran culture of a VA hospital, taking into account the influences of US nationalism in both military and civilian culture. Through life-history interviews, formal vocabulary association exercises, and informal participant observation carried out over the course of three months in 2006, questions about how the VA culture encourages or discourages certain displays of gender and sexual identity through its policies as well as its unofficial customs and traditions are identified and explored. The emergence of a new, unofficial “uniform” …

A Comparison Of Oral Reading Fluency Interventions: Group-Based Fluency Trials Versus Individualized Repeated Readings, Lynne Gertz

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Reading is a critical skill needed to achieve success in nearly every aspect of life. Students who have difficulty reading in the early grades have a greater chance of high school dropout, a negative attitude toward reading, and even a decreased likelihood of adequate employment. Unfortunately, well over half of all elementary school students read at or below a basic level. Although many factors are involved in becoming a proficient reader, research shows that fluency is one of the most important factors for reading at a mastery level. Oral reading fluency, the speed and accuracy with which a student reads …

The Food Fight Between The United States And Europe: Why Gmos Divide The West, Sarah A. Delude

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) have quickly become an abundant source of food, especially in the United States. But as GMOs have grown, Europeans have raised major concerns over health and environment issues posed by GMOs. In 1998 the European Union imposed a moratorium restricting the approval of any new GMOs in Europe. But the United States saw this as a block to free and fair trade and has taken a case up with the World Trade Organization to resolve the matter. The final decision is past due, but the EU has already lifted the moratorium. Instead, it has imposed rules …

Understanding Al-Qaeda: History, Ideology And Infrastructure, Sarah Dickens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Understanding al-Qaeda: History, Ideology, and Infrastructure is a critical analysis of the formation and evolution of the global terrorist organization commonly referred to as al-Qaeda. The work provides a foundation for understanding al-Qaeda’s operations and organizational strategies by detailing its historical origins, ideological framework, and infrastructural installations.

The thesis is divided into three segments, each containing two chapters. The first segment is devoted to a discussion of al-Qaeda’s historical formation. The initial chapter relies on the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the hunt for terrorist Ramzi Yousef as a point of departure in understanding al-Qaeda. This …

Incarceration Of African-American Males: Impact On African-American Families, Terri Barnes

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Abstract not Included

Players The First Magazine Dedicated To Young Female Athletes And Women’S College Sports Fans., Stephanie Plotino

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The involvement of women in athletics has exploded over the last 10 years. This project capitalizes on this changing dynamic by creating a prototype of a women’s college sports magazine called Players. No such magazine currently exists in the United States, but I believe there is a market for it among teenage female athletes who are interested in women’s college sports. Without Players, females have only male-dominated publications like Sports Illustrated or ESPN for general sports coverage, or they can read more female-friendly publications such as Shape and Fitness, which cater to an active lifestyle but do …

Education Finance Reform And Property Tax Relief, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

County Characteristics And Poverty Spell Length, Andrew Grodner, John A. Bishop, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

*In this paper we ask, how do individual and community factors influence the average length of poverty spells? We measure local economic conditions by the county unemployment rate and neighborhood spillover effects by the racial makeup and poverty rate of the county. We find that moving an individual from one standard deviation below the mean poverty rate to one standard deviation above the mean poverty rate (from the inner city to the suburbs) lowers the average poverty spell by 20 to 25 percent. This effect is equal in magnitude to the effect of changing the household head from female to …

Pure: Life And Design In Finland, Sarah Moskaitis

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My longtime fascination with Scandinavian design inspired me to pursue an honors thesis project in spite of the many obstacles that would have to be overcome. As I began to design a project plan, my research led me to focus on one specific area of Scandinavia. Finland seemed to be one of the most interesting countries that Americans probably know the least about. Boasting one of the best educational systems in the world and an impressive design history, this quaint population of only about five million has completely transformed their homeland since the devastation left by World War II. The …

Ventilator Induced Lung Injury, John A. Johnson Jr.

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Severe physical-trauma can lead to the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Currently, the only known treatment for ARDS is mechanical ventilation. However, if mechanical ventilation is applied inappropriately further injury and malfunction of the lungs may occur, and thus, causing a ventilator induced lung injury (VILI). VILI has several manifestations including volutrauma, atelectrauma, and biotrauma. These mechanisms often exacerbate one another adding further insult to the injury. The goal of this current study is to establish a stable control pig model of ARDS as a comparison for ventilatory strategies that will act in a more protective manner than …