Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Benefits, Drawbacks, And Risks Of Ai, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Books and Chapters

The specter of the impact of artificial intelligence [AI] on law and legal education casts a long and uncertain shadow. Its mix of enthusiasm and trepidation can arise from a thin idea of what the label refers to. Four components differentiate AI from even high-end automation: Big data and predictive analytics, deep learning software, cloud computing, and natural language process. From the perspective of the person on the street though, is captured as “the art of creating machines that perform functions that require intelligence when performed by people,” centering on the ability to make independent choices. While that gloss may …

Defying The Odds: Exploring The Ways First-Generation College Students Enact Resilience, Paris Lauren Nelson

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This thesis examined the experiences of first-generation college students in the context of higher education. This thesis was framed by the communication theory of resilience to discover how first-generation college students enact five processes of resilience: crafting normalcy, affirming identity anchors, maintaining and using communication networks, employing alternate logics, and foregrounding productive action. First-generation college students face academic preparation, financial, social capital, personal, and college completion adversities that may necessitate engagement in resilience processes. Participants (N = 8) participated in focus groups and interviews where they discussed messages from family, peers, and university faculty and staff involving reactive and proactive …

Conversation Goals, Communication Satisfaction, And Relational Dynamics While Navigating Alzheimer’S Disease: A Pre- And Post-Diagnosis Dyadic Examination Of Family Communication, Elizabeth A. Spencer

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Currently there are more than 16 million unpaid Alzheimer’s disease and dementia caregivers in the United States. These caregivers are often family members of the person living with dementia, and as they navigate the process of giving care to the patient, they must also maintain relationships with each other. Families enter the dementia experience with a history of their relational experiences, and their relational experiences potentially change as they navigate family experiences after the dementia diagnosis. Much existing scholarship examining family communication in the context of progressive Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias has focused on the perspectives of one …

Recipes For Anger Appeals: A Systematic Review, Tianen Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Although there is an increasing use of anger appeals in communication research, scholars have yet to fully explore the causes of anger. Anger is elicited in situations where individuals perceive that their desired goals are blocked or needs are not fulfilled (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2016). Using Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs model (Maslow, 1943), the current study aims to systematically review communication studies on anger appeals to synthesize and categorize the violations of goals/needs that have been studied or utilized to elicit anger. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in eight relevant databases: ProQuest Dissertation & Thesis Global, Web of …

Raising Intercultural Competence Of American Students: A Pilot Study, Sheyla Finkelshteyn

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

International students and study abroad programs are major components of internationalization efforts for institutions (Beelen & Jones, 2015). Domestic students however do not have any established practice of intercultural training or orientation, even though most universities in America accept international students and promote internationalization which is the increase of intergroup contact as part of globalization (Sakurauchi, 2014). It is crucial to raise the intercultural communication competence (ICC) of American students so they can benefit from the internationalization efforts of universities (Sakurauchi, 2014). This study attempted see if the ICC can be raised by implementing an IPM training in a treatment …

Boundaries And Infomediaries: A Qualitative Study Of The Information Practices Of Community Health Workers, Robert M. Shapiro Ii

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Despite successful efforts to treat and manage diseases, public health officials have recently begun a campaign to refocus efforts toward initiatives to alleviate the pressures that are often referred to as social determinants of health. In eastern Kentucky, and in other geographical regions labeled as health professional shortage areas or medically underserved areas, issues stemming from social determinants are compounded with health care systems that are often lacking the human resources to meet basic medical needs. One strategy has been to utilize volunteers and paraprofessionals such as community health workers to lessen the burden on the primary care and hospital …

Encouraging Healthy Eating Among Older Adults Using The Transtheoretical Model: An Evaluation Of A Pilot Intervention, Lauren Brinkman Roberson

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Older adults, defined as those age 60 and above, are at an increased risk for many health-related complications that are directly related to nutrition (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). This study highlights the lack of nutrition education material developed for older adults in Kentucky. Such material has great potential to influence the health of older adults (Chernoff, 2001). This study evaluated an intervention developed, by means of formative research, to teach older adults nutrition basics. Both direct and indirect measures related to stages of change for healthy eating behaviors were collected six weeks pre-intervention and then immediately post-intervention. …

Analysis Of Information Value Chains For Gout Self-Care Management, Maranda Russell

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This value chain analysis study sought to identify information needed by gout patients to successfully manage their disease, leading to a model for information extraction from patient health records. A scoping review was conducted to identify the types of information needed by gout patients. The findings of each included study were divided and analyzed according to the stages of the care delivery value chain. The results of the review were then used to create a gout information value chain as criteria for annotating the information deemed important for gout patients contained in publicly available patient education materials according to the …

Quantifying And Typifying Image Use In Television News Coverage Of Mass Shootings, Ellie Catherine Hudd

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Increasing research supports the presence of a contagion effect among mass shootings, wherein extensive media coverage of mass shootings may inspire future mass shooters, many of whom view this coverage as a form of reward. Furthermore, two awareness campaigns–one from the private sector and one from law enforcement–have advocated against naming and depicting the shooter in media coverage of mass shootings. This study is theoretically grounded in second-level agenda-setting as the basis for a content analysis of three days of television news coverage of two mass shootings in the United States (one in El Paso, Texas and one in Pittsburgh, …

Move Or Improve? Place, Policy, And Educator Labor Markets, Cory Curl

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

What is the role of place and policy in shaping educator labor markets during the decade following the Great Recession of 2008? This research leverages data on Kentucky students, educators, schools, and school districts from 2009 to 2018, with a focus on the rural, isolated Appalachian region. Many counties in the region have long struggled with poverty, low rates of labor force participation, lower educational attainment, and dependence on public transfers (Ziliak, 2019). Despite these challenges, the people of Appalachia demonstrate a strong attachment to the region. With this research, I enhance understanding of contexts and conditions, such as unique …

Evidence-Based Approach To Drug Crisis, Jiebing Wen

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

I am devoted to health policy research, especially tackling the opioid crisis, and evaluating marijuana laws and newly emerging issues associated with legal recreational drugs. Opioid overdose in the United States continues to jeopardize public health. Meanwhile, the majority of states have legalized medical marijuana and one third of them further liberalized recreational marijuana. Marijuana liberalization, although originally independent of the growing opioid crisis, may be a harm reduction approach to the crisis because marijuana may be a substitute for opioids in pain management at a relatively lower risk. However, marijuana liberalization may also lead to marijuana-related harms, such as …

Essays On Economic Development Policies, Hakyeon Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Tax increment financing (TIF) policy is the most popular economic development policy in the United States. Despite the popularity of research on TIF, only a few comprehensive reviews of previous studies on TIF policy tool have been conducted. In light of this, the purpose of this paper is to review previous TIF studies relating to the controversy surrounding TIF programs. Specifically, previous studies do not provide clear answers about the efficacy of TIF and, indeed, raise more questions than answers. At the same time, this situation begs the question: why do local governments frequently use economic development policies? This is …

Communication Technology Intention To Use And Use By Cognitively Intact Long-Term Nursing Home Residents, Amy M. Schuster

Theses and Dissertations--Gerontology

The goal of this dissertation was to gain an in depth understanding of intention to use and use of communication technology (CT) by long-term cognitively intact nursing home residents. This study also explored the value of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as a framework for investigating the CT use of long-term cognitively intact nursing home residents. A convergent mixed methods design was used to gather data through semi-structured interviews, a nursing home resident communication technology checklist, a modified UTAUT questionnaire, the UCLA loneliness scale 10 item version, and the self-rated health scale. Participants (n …

The Effects Of E-Cigarette Taxes On E-Cigarette Prices And Tobacco Product Sales: Evidence From Retail Panel Data, Chad Cotti, Charles J. Courtemanche, Joanna Catherine Maclean, Erik Nesson, Michael F. Pesko, Nathan Tefft

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

We explore the effect of e-cigarette taxes enacted through 2017 in eight states and two large counties on e-cigarette prices, e-cigarette sales, and sales of other tobacco products. We use the Nielsen Retail Scanner data for the years 2011 to 2017, comprising approximately 35,000 retailers nationally. We calculate a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index of 0.251 for retail-based purchases of e-cigarettes, indicating high market concentration. We estimate a tax-to-price pass-through of 1.55 (p < 0.01) and an e-cigarette own-price elasticity of -2.6 (p < 0.01) for the average e-cigarette tax. We also estimate a positive cross-price elasticity of demand for e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes of roughly 1.1 for the average tax, suggesting that e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes are economic substitutes. Our results suggest that higher e-cigarette taxes would increase e-cigarette prices and reduce e-cigarette sales, with an unintended effect of increasing traditional cigarette sales. We simulate that for every one standard e-cigarette pod (a device that contains liquid nicotine in e-cigarettes) of 0.7 ml no longer purchased as a result of an e-cigarette tax, the same tax increases traditional cigarettes purchased by 6.2 extra packs.

Examining The Effects Of Public Policies And Addiction On Purchase Of Tobacco Products With Causal Inference And Machine Learning Methods, Xueting Deng

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

My three essays explore the effects of tobacco policies and addiction on the consumption of e-cigarettes and other tobacco products. Recently, jurisdictions imposed taxes and other regulations on e-cigarettes, with the hope to raise tax revenues and address health concerns regarding e-cigarette use, especially youth addiction. My first essay in Chapter 1 focuses on the effects of e-cigarette taxes on sales of e-cigarettes. It compares the two types of tax policies on sales of e-cigarettes, cigarettes, and smoking-cessation products. This comparison provides information for lawmakers on decisions of taxes regarding the perspectives of revenue generation and tobacco control. Second, after …

Shiny Objects, Hiding Places: Examining Community-Engaged Data Practices In Lexington, Ky, Emily Barrett

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

As local governments increasingly turn to data-driven solutions to help address some of their most acute challenges, from entrenched poverty to affordable housing, they often call on community-engaged researchers as collaborators, analysts and experts. While critical scholarship has highlighted the problematic logics underpinning this turn to data and digital technologies as the solution for urban issues, university-community partnerships offer a unique opportunity to further explore not only how these discourses materialize, but also how they are being actively negotiated and re-imagined in spaces of local government.

In this thesis, I explore one such university-community partnership and its efforts to critically …

Values, Risks, And Power Influencing Librarians' Decisions To Host Drag Queen Storytime, Diana Floegel, Sarah C. Barriage, Vanessa Kitzie, Shannon M. Oltmann

Information Science Faculty Publications

This paper reports preliminary qualitative findings from a survey of public library staff who work at libraries that have and have not hosted drag queen storytimes (DQS), a popular but contested children's program. Three constructs—values, risks, and power—are developed to describe how individual, library, and institutional forces combine to determine whether DQS occur. Findings contribute to limited scholarly work on DQS by including locations that have not hosted DQS and by engaging critically with how institutional forces shape library staffs' decision-making around DQS. It is critical to understand factors contributing to this decision-making to inform contextually appropriate strategies for encouraging …

Academic Law Libraries And Scholarship: Communication, Publishing, And Ranking, Dana Neacsu, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

We suggest that libraries define for themselves a more active role within scholarship production, which we define to include publication, distribution, access, and the process of scholarship impact assessment. The argument rests on the practical considerations of business organization. Curating the output of faculty scholarship is simply good business for law schools, and many already do it through faculty repositories. Given that foundation, it seems logical for the library, as the institution which already manages those repositories, and which supports the students’ law reviews and journals in numerous ways, to step up and manage the full range of scholarship publication. …

The Construction Of The American Catholic Church: Gender, Sexuality, And Patriotism In U.S. Catholic Media, 1917–1970, William Korinko

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This project explores the complex relationship between religion, culture, and politics in the United States during the twentieth century by examining a largely unexplored pocket of Roman Catholic pamphlet literature, as well as other forms of Catholic media, including newspapers, magazines, radio programs, and television shows. During the twentieth century Catholic media makers spent a considerable amount of energy speaking and writing about issues related to gender and sexuality, and they often did so in racially coded terms. In addition to making prescriptions of what was appropriate and moral sexual and gendered behavior, these media makers repeatedly made the case …

Is Athlete Activism A Predictor Of Resilience?, Travis Robert Scheadler

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Several athletes have taken personal responsibility to engage in activism, often with hopes of bringing social and political change. While scholars have identified several barriers preventing athletes from engaging in activism (e.g., public criticism, status and job loss, withdrawal of funding, anticipated distress; Cunningham & Regan, 2012), other scholars have identified personal benefits from engaging in activism (e.g., improved confidence, self-concept, belief in change, agency, life meaning; Klar & Kasser, 2009; Rabkin et al., 2019). Distress from the barriers, however, may be prerequisites to enhancing resilience, a theoretical construct that may help explain the benefits of activism. Thus, by applying …

A Systematic Review Of Mindfulness Interventions’ Impact On Athlete Emotional Distress & Wellbeing, Trevor Nathan Tierney

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Mindfulness-based interventions’ (MBIs) effectiveness for improving wellbeing and reducing emotional distress is well-documented in both clinical and non-clinical sections of the general population (McAlarnen & Longshore, 2017). Although mindfulness has been shown to be effective with these populations, less is known about the specific effects for athletes. The effects of MBI’s for athletes may be different given that the intention for MBIs in the sport context is typically to improve performance, where in most other contexts it is not (Gardner & Moore, 2012). Furthermore, athletes are a distinct population who possess unique factors on which their wellbeing and mental health …

Exploring Positive Identity And Relationship Satisfaction In Bisexual Women In Relationships With Men, Kamryn Michel

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Bi-negative discrimination, negative attitudes, and beliefs regarding bisexual individuals are at least partially responsible for mental and physical distress in the bisexual community (Friedman et al., 2014). Romantic relationships can act as a buffer against negative health outcomes as well as increase overall well-being (Dush & Amato, 2005). However, research has shown that binegitive attitudes can impact a person’s willingness to begin relationships with bisexual individuals (Fienstein et al., 2014). This study aimed to explore the impact of positive identity on relationship satisfaction of bisexual women in relationships with men. In particular, we investigated five possible facets of positive identity: …

The Sound Of Leadership: The Self-Leadership Strategies Of Local Activist Musicians, John Hill

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Within this dissertation I focused on the examination of local activist musicians’ self-leadership strategies and the method in which they lead social change movements. Additionally, I sought to increase the understanding of charismatic leadership, self-leadership strategies of local activist musicians, and the method in which local activist musicians lead social movements. To my knowledge, no published studies have explored local activist musicians’ self-leadership strategies. Therefore, this study is significant because I (a) explored a term which lacks a unifying definition, charismatic leadership, (b) provided theoretical foundations for activist musicians and social change, and (c) explored the self-leadership strategies of …

Risky Business: Visualizing And Historicizing The Role Of Geographic Representation And Thinking In American Business, John Swab

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Geographic representation and thinking has a long history in the American business world. This thesis examines the role of geographic representation and thinking in the fire insurance industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the Sanborn Map Company and in the development of site selection as a concept in the mid-twentieth century through the biography of William Applebaum. Through these case studies, I explore the relevance applied cartographic representations to the business world and the opportunities it presents towards advancing geography as a discipline.

Cartographic Efficacy: Histories Of The Present, Participatory Futures, Amber J. Bosse

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Throughout history, maps have held a particularly potent ability to inform and persuade their users. Recognizing the power maps and their modes of productions possess, participatory mapping has been celebrated for its capacity to empower systemically disenfranchised communities by way of establishing inclusive pathways for influencing collection and representation of spatial information. What has remained largely periphery to considerations of participatory mapping, however, has been discussions of map design. Decades of scholarship in both traditional and critical veins of cartography, however, argue that it’s the careful execution of design choices that grant the map its power. Without attention to design, …

Becoming Gentrifier/D: Aesthetics, Subjectivities, And Rhythms Of Gentrification In Seoul, South Korea, Myung In Ji

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Gentrification has been extensively studied beyond Euro-American societies. In particular, previous research of Seoul’s residential gentrification has broadened our understanding of the role of the developmental state and property speculation in urban clearance and renewal. However, little attention has been paid to the contemporary retail gentrification in Seoul that has different aesthetics, subjectivities, and rhythms compared to residential gentrification. In retail gentrification, old urban neighborhoods are no longer demolished but cherished with their nostalgic landscapes and atmospheres. In this context, this dissertation project explores Seochon, a gentrifying neighborhood in Seoul, that was designated as a cultural heritage site in 2010. …

Reserved For The Whole Earth: Forms Of Evidence, Ought Anxiety, And The Futures Of Geographic Inquiry, Eric M. Robsky Huntley

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines geographic forms of evidence in the practices of landscape architects and geographers. I analyze evidence not only as an epistemic phenomenon, but as an aesthetic one, as well. Convincing an audience that the world is (or should be) one way and not another requires that knowledges be stacked, extended, and stitched together in a manner admissable to an audience. In the first two chapters, I use the case of the landscape architect Ian McHarg to examine how his approach to integrating scientific knowledge---a aesthetic response to what I theorize as 'ought anxiety'---grew alongside the environmental bureaucracy in …

Street Musicians, Soundscapes And Hearing The State In Urban Public Spaces Of Istanbul, Lacin Tutalar

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This study explores street musicians’ routines and associations with public space in Istanbul, Turkey between 2014 and 2016, a period which corresponds to a new, more conservative routine in the aftermath of a time of political contention in 2013. The study overall takes up a rhythmanalytical perspective, following the cultural geography’s interest based on Henri Lefebvre’s use of the term. I contribute to that interest by paying attention to changes in the composition of an urban public in Istanbul through a mix of institutional (e.g. bureaucratic, capitalist and religious) and corporeal (e.g. tourists, musicians, young people, audience, street maintenance, refugees, …

Relevant Angry Affect Slows Response Time To Commands, Aleah Combs

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Previous research has found that emotional prosody can interact with speech perception and listeners’ processing of the meaning of particular word/emotion pairings(Kim and Sumner, 2017). What remains unclear is how this interactive processing can affect behavioral responses such as responses to imperatives. To answer this question,71 participants were presented with a series of commands given in a relevant affect.Commands were read either with angry prosody, happy prosody, or neutral prosody (control) and the participants were instructed to press the requested button on a response box as quickly and accurately as possible. All emotional states were simulated and normed for perceived …

Pmkns For Pie: Parsed Morphological Katr Networks Of Sanskrit For Proto-Indo-European, Ryan Mark Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

In this thesis, I construct two computational networks for Sanskrit to test theories of nominal accentuation as a way of examining the simplicity of each theory. I will be examining the Paradigmatic Approach and the Compositional Approach to nominal accentuation. For the Paradigmatic Approach, nominals are categorized into mobile and static categories based on how the accent appears in the paradigm (Fortson 2010). For the Compositional Approach, accent mobility is a result of the combination of morphemes and their inherent accent states (Kirparsky 2010). To construct these networks, I use the KATR extension to the DATR language for lexical knowledge …