Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Domestic Violence Is Prevalent Among U.S. Adolescents And Young Adults, Mary E. Helander, Xiaoyan Zhang

Population Health Research Brief Series

Rates of domestic violence are high among adolescents and young adults in the U.S. This data slice describes the geographic distribution of reported domestic violence incidents among adolescents and young adults in the U.S in 2019 and identifies the most common types of incidents.

Staying At Home: How Well Did Americans Maintain Their Health Behaviors During Covid-19?, Michael Serrur, James Rose

Population Health Research Brief Series

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a major toll on people's sense of schedule. Lack of motivation and the removal of daily routines has negatively affected health behaviors, leading to an increase in snacking and sitting around the house more frequently than before the pandemic. This brief summarizes the findings from a national survey aimed at understanding behavior change and goal setting during the pandemic and provides tips for getting back into healthy habits.

Pregnant Women With Substance Use Disorders Deserve Plans Of Safe Care, Alexandra E. Punch, Monika Taylor

Population Health Research Brief Series

Substance use among women who are pregnant is a growing U.S public health issue. Approximately 340,000 infants are affected by prenatal exposure to illicit drugs annually, leading to an increase in Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), and Child Protective Services involvement. This issue brief describes the current state of prenatal substance use and provides guidance on the use of federally mandated Plans of Safe Care to help mothers prepare for the arrival of their baby while navigating their substance use disorder.

The Employment Situation Of Veterans: May 2021, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

Veteran employment trends and statistics among various demographics during May 2021.

How Can Communities Support Addiction Recovery?, Austin Brown

Population Health Research Brief Series

Addiction recovery is a process that takes daily commitment. What those in early recovery need most of all are everyday opportunities that also support them in their recovery endeavors. When communities invest in recovery support, they demonstrate a belief that success in recovery matters. This brief explores the effects of community support on individuals in recovery. By providing necessities such as employment, housing, community spaces, and educational or vocational opportunities, communities can help create productive citizens who give back to the people and places that have invested in their recovery.

Court-Packing And Democratic Erosion, Thomas Keck

Political Science - All Scholarship

When faced with an incumbent party that is deliberately tilting the electoral and institutional playing field, under what conditions should small-d democracy advocates respond with hardball tactics such as Court-packing? This paper surveys the comparative literature on democratic erosion for key lessons regarding the role of courts in polities where democratic erosion is underway. The literature suggests that independent courts may sometimes operate as guardrails of democracy, but that once captured by anti-system parties, courts may also serve as effective agents of democratic erosion. The paper then draws on the history of Court-packing in the United States in an effort …

Food Insecurity Among Military And Veteran Families, Colleen Heflin

Population Health Research Brief Series

Food insecurity is a growing U.S. problem among military and veteran families. Data from 2020-21 suggest that between 1 in 5 and 1 in 3 military families experienced food insecurity in the last year: with disabled veterans experiencing even greater risks. This issue brief describes the policy revisions needed to programs such as SNAP, the Social Security Administration’s Disability Insurance Program, and the Veterans Affairs Disability Compensation Program to ensure our military members are food secure.

#Oscarssowhite: Millennials, Generation Z And Oscars Viewership, Marissa L. Thomas

Theses - ALL

This study explores the declining viewership of nationally broadcasted awards shows through the Oscars in connection with Millennials and Generation Z's call for diversity and inclusion. This thesis utilizes relationship management theory and corporate reputation theory to explore the current relationship between the Oscars and the Millennial and Generation Z generations. Through a mixed methods qualitative and quantitative process, this study seeks to determine whether Oscars viewership would benefit from the adoption of diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Imaginative Rhetorical Invention In The 21st Century: An Analysis Of Afrofuturism And Black Utopian Thought In A Black Lady Sketch Show As An Avenue Toward Black Liberation, Natalie Weathers

Theses - ALL

Inspired by recent events following the deaths of unarmed Black bodies killed at the hands of police officers and white vigilante citizens (Griffith, 2020; Oppel, 2020; BBC, 2020) this thesis seeks to validate the seemingly impossible aspirations of Black struggle and liberation in attempt to dismantle white supremacist ideology and oppression. Grounded in rhetorical theory emphasizing the imagination and canon of invention alongside critical perspectives of Afrofuturism and Black utopian thought, this thesis demonstrates the liberatory power of the Black American imagination within the United States in the 21st century through an analysis of A Black Lady Sketch Show (2019).

Antichrist In The Oval Office: The Rhetoric Of 'Antichrist' In Online Discourse Surrounding Donald Trump, Meagan Bojarski

Theses - ALL

This thesis examines how people compare the president to the Antichrist online, specifically during the Trump administration. Looking at digital Antichrist comparisons as distinct communicative practices, I argue that the digital affordances and logics that allow for the rapid spread of ideas online work synergistically with the historical weight of the Antichrist as a concept, helping the comparisons to spread further and faster than they could have through other mediums while simultaneously being more impactful than other digitally-spread content due to the wealth of sources, both within religion and pop culture, which can be drawn on. In examining a Twitter …

Solitary Alcohol And Cannabis Use Among College Students During The Covid-19 Epidemic: Concurrent Social And Affective Correlates And Substance-Related Consequences, Amelia Victoria Wedel

Theses - ALL

Alcohol and cannabis use are remarkably prevalent among college students, with 60% reporting past-month alcohol use and 25% reporting past-month cannabis use. Emerging evidence suggests that a considerable portion of college students use alcohol or cannabis alone, and that rates of solitary use may be higher for cannabis than for alcohol. However, despite substantial evidence connecting solitary alcohol use with a number of affective and substance-related correlates, research on similar associations for solitary cannabis use remains lacking. Furthermore, no college studies to date have assessed solitary use of both alcohol and cannabis and consequently little is known about differences between …

The Association Between Experiences Of Relational Injustice And Psychological Distress In People With Marginalized Sexual Orientation And Gender Identities, Khoi Nguyen Anh Le

Theses - ALL

The current study explored correlations between experiences of relational injustice with psychological distress in people with marginalized sexual orientation and gender identity (MSOGI). Based on the Contextual Therapy theory, it was hypothesized that experiences of relational injustice are associated with psychological distress of people with MSOGI. Also, people with both marginalized identities were assumed to have greater distress than people with only one marginalized identity. Data were collected from clients self-identifying as MSOGI at the Syracuse University Couple and Family Therapy Center. Both self-reported and standardized instruments, including the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) and Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI-18), were used …

Why Is The Culture Surrounding Electronic Music So Attractive, Joseph Monopoli

Theses - ALL

Electronic Dance Music, also known as EDM, is a musical genre that has recently dominated the current music landscape and industry. However, there is a lack of understanding behind this beloved genre in terms of its culture and the fans that idolize it. In fact, this new culture that EDM fans have created, coined by them as "Rave Culture", is understudied. This research project is designed to take an exploratory approach into answering questions about this newfound culture and what makes this culture that surrounds Electronic Dance Music, so attractive. Because of this newly established culture, research surrounding this topic …

How Perceived Real-World Risk Affects Vr Experience, Shengjie Yao

Theses - ALL

Dwelling on presence theory and breaks in presence theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate how real-world risks may affect people's use of VR devices. A two-group comparison experimental design (N=51) was adopted to test how a less ideal play environment with potential risks can affect people's experience in using virtual reality compared to an ideal VR playing set up. The results suggest that people in a less ideal play environment with potential risks tend to pay less attention to the VR content as well as enjoy the experience less compared to an ideal VR playing set up. …

Toward A Public Relations Theory Of Integration, Kelly Coolican Gaggin

Dissertations - ALL

Health and human service nonprofit organizations provide a multitude of support services to marginalized and underserved populations in the United States and abroad. Public relations and communications professionals are often focused on supporting goals that are directly tied to the organization which are also strongly tied to revenue seeking through increasing awareness of mission and need for financial contribution. This qualitative constructivist grounded theory study explores the extent to which public relations and communications roles can impact the integration of service populations into their communities.Through interviews with 13 refugee aid organization staff and 11 refugees, primary barriers to integration, including …

The Conditional Mode Estimator Of Technical Efficiency: Theory And Application To Nyc Public Schools, Yi Yang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies the properties of the conditional mode estimator of stochastic frontier models and applies it to measure technical inefficiency. It consists of two chapters. The first chapter analyzes the conditional mode estimator's closed-form expressions, convergence, near-minimax optimality when interpreted using Lasso, and selection rules. The second chapter applies the true fixed effect stochastic frontier model (Greene, 2005a,b) to analyze the persistent and transient technical inefficiencies of 425 NYC public middle schools for cohorts of students that graduated between 2014 to 2016.

The Political Economy Of Preferential Trade Agreements, Ross Castner Jestrab

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is comprised of three chapters on preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The first two chapters examine why countries sign PTAs with other countries, while the final chapter studies the effect of PTAs on imports.

The first chapter provides direct empirical evidence that PTAs are consistent with the terms-of-trade theory. In other words, PTAs internalize the temptation to increase tariffs when countries possess importer market power. Using PTAs that occur between 2001-2015, I study the formation of PTAs and the structure of first year PTA tariff cuts. I first show the likelihood of a PTA increases when both countries have …

Conflict, Consensus And Modernizing Trajectories In Sub-Saharan Africa, Charles Themba Tuthill

Dissertations - ALL

Research on the political economy of African states has often focused on explaining the roots of socio-political disfunction or has been pre-occupied with successful cases like Botswana, whose demography and social structures differ markedly from other states on the continent. This dissertation takes a different approach; it seeks to understand the developmental dynamics of successful African states whose peoples and societies largely reflect the majority of states on the continent south of the Sahara. The research question first asks why Ghana and Kenya succeeded in creating growth-enhancing economic institutions. Next it examines why, in the post-Cold War era, Ghanaian economic …

Three Essays On The Housing Market, Tianyun Zhu

Dissertations - ALL

My dissertation comprises three essays on the housing market. The first two chapters analyze the housing market using the hedonic model. Chapter 1 estimates a semi-nonparametric hedonic regression that provides evidence for the change of bidding and sorting for job-access over time in Buffalo MSA. Based on the estimation result, a decomposition of the price change is implemented to shed light on how bidding and sorting contribute to the price change of a house with different job access respectively. Chapter 2 proposes an alternative approach which yields a likelihood-based estimator for implicit price elasticity of amenity demand. An application of …

Police Brutality And Black Lives Matter Protests: Portrayal In The Mainstream Media And The Effects On Audience Perception, Tyriana Chanel Evans

Theses - ALL

Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter Protests: Portrayal in the Mainstream Media and the Effects on Audience Perception examines newspaper coverage of the #BlackLivesMatter protests following the police killings of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray in 2015 and Korryn Gaines in 2016. The thesis seeks to analyze newspaper articles written by journalists of mainstream presses and Black American presses to interrogate the audience's perception of #BlackLivesMatter protests. In other words, how is the audience's perception about #BlackLivesMatter protests cultivated after reading the news? Through qualitative research, findings determined that The Washington Post and The New York Times occasionally published articles associating …

Three Essays On Climate Change Adaptation In Rural African Communities, Hannah Patnaik

Dissertations - ALL

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the present era, bringing new risks and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities across the world. While there is a broad recognition that solutions around climate change will require coordination and support across borders and governments, a large body of scholarship has focused on the local-level realities of climate change and the disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable populations. The climate vulnerable poor do not have the privilege of waiting for global policy and commitment to emission reduction targets. They need planned and proactive adaptation support to build resilience to the changing climate and …

Essays On Population And Housing Market In South Korea, Dahae Choo

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies important social topics in South Korea. The first two chapters evaluate the effects of a pronatalist policy introduced by local governments in South Korea, a country with one of the lowest fertility rates worldwide. In the first chapter, possible selection into marriage is highlighted considering the low out-of-wedlock births in the country. Also, the policy effects are examined in two different dimensions: changes in the probability of having a child and the time-to-child delivery. The second chapter estimates two important key variables to address the effectiveness of this program. First is the unconditional distribution of the reservation …

As A Matter De Facto: State Capacity Dynamics And Their Role In Shaping Sovereignty For Unrecognized States, Angely Martinez

Dissertations - ALL

What explains de facto states that do not pursue statehood? Why do we see examples of unrecognized states pushing for reintegration after a period of time? Why do some de facto states seem content with the status quo? Previous examination of de facto state strategies highlighted the role that the international system plays in granting independence. For the most part, de facto states, by default secessionist movements who have sundered from the parent state, are unlikely to be granted independence by the very system which holds a taboo against secession. The exceptions to this came after a long time of …

Tests Of Sample-Recovery Models Of Cued Recall, Jack Harvey Wilson

Dissertations - ALL

Sample-recovery models are a predominant class of episodic memory models that seek to explain why sometimes the representation of an experienced event is not retrieved or retrieved incorrectly. In these models, a correct retrieval occurs if the correct target item was sampled among the alternative studied item, then recovered correctly. In cued recall, participants output the representation of a single experienced event, a target, given a presented test stimulus and some defined relationship between the stimulus and the target. This relationship depends on the kind of cued recall and can rely on either studied or pre-experimental relationships. Sample-recovery models of …

Judicial Deference To Administrative Statutory Interpretation In The Modern American Administrative State, Rachel Marie Macmaster

Dissertations - ALL

The American administrative state of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is defined by deference by federal courts to administrative agencies. The political science and (especially) legal literatures have long discussed how federal courts defer to agencies, but little attention has been dedicated to how to identify deference and why courts defer. This dissertation redefines deference, a term that has been topic of extensive discussion in the last forty years but that was missing a key feature: the intent of the deferrers. Using administrative courts as the proxy for agencies at large, this dissertation suggests three reasons why judges may defer. …

Antichrist In The Oval Office: The Rhetoric Of ‘Antichrist’ In Online Discourse Surrounding Donald Trump, Meagan Bojarski

Theses - ALL

This thesis examines how people compare the president to the Antichrist online, specifically during the Trump administration. Looking at digital Antichrist comparisons as distinct communicative practices, I argue that the digital affordances and logics that allow for the rapid spread of ideas online work synergistically with the historical weight of the Antichrist as a concept, helping the comparisons to spread further and faster than they could have through other mediums while simultaneously being more impactful than other digitally-spread content due to the wealth of sources, both within religion and pop culture, which can be drawn on. In examining a Twitter …

Why Is The Culture Surrounding Electronic Music So Attractive, Joseph Monopoli

Theses - ALL

Electronic Dance Music, also known as EDM, is a musical genre that has recently dominated the current music landscape and industry. However, there is a lack of understanding behind this beloved genre in terms of its culture and the fans that idolize it. In fact, this new culture that EDM fans have created, coined by them as “Rave Culture”, is understudied. This research project is designed to take an exploratory approach into answering questions about this newfound culture and what makes this culture that surrounds Electronic Dance Music, so attractive. Because of this newly established culture, research surrounding this topic …

#Oscarssowhite: Millennials, Generation Z And Oscars Viewership, Marissa L. Thomas

Theses - ALL

This study explores the declining viewership of nationally broadcasted awards shows through the Oscars in connection with Millennials and Generation Z’s call for diversity and inclusion. This thesis utilizes relationship management theory and corporate reputation theory to explore the current relationship between the Oscars and the Millennial and Generation Z generations. Through a mixed methods qualitative and quantitative process, this study seeks to determine whether Oscars viewership would benefit from the adoption of diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Reflections From The In-Between: Visualizing The Mental Thresholds Of Dissociation, Katherine Virag

Theses - ALL

I am fascinated by the state of being in-between; by the mental spaces that are somehow neither here nor there, but also somehow both here and there. At a young age, I began to experience depersonalization and derealization, and this dissociated state left me feeling trapped somewhere on the threshold of reality and non-reality. My artistic practice is concerned with the psychological antitheses of dissociation – comfort vs discomfort, safety vs danger, and reality vs non-reality, and the continuum of space between these polarities. Often through large-scale installations, I create a physical space for the viewer to enter. These spaces, …

Family History Of Alcohol Use Disorder As A Predictor Of Endogenous Pain Modulatory Function, Kyle Mackenzie White

Theses - ALL

Family history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) is frequently endorsed by chronic pain patients. Although individuals with a family history of AUD have demonstrated enhanced sensitivity to painful stimulation, we are not aware of any previous research that has examined clinically-relevant endogenous pain modulation (i.e., capacity to inhibit or facilitate pain) in this population. The goal of this study was to test family history of AUD as a predictor of conditioned pain modulation, offset analgesia, and temporal summation among a sample of moderate-to-heavy drinkers. Participants (N = 235; 58.3% male; Mage = 34.3, SD = 12.3) were evaluated for family …