Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Development Of A Video-Based Tool To Measure Motor Asymmetry In Infants At Risk For Hemiparesis, Roha Ali

Master's Theses

Congenital hemiparesis is a unilateral motor impairment stemming from brain injury in utero or early postnatally. Hemiparesis can be difficult to detect in early infancy with current clinical tools. Yet, early identification of motor asymmetry could play a key role in the design of effective early intervention and rehabilitation strategies. This thesis presents the development and validation of a video-based tool designed to extract infant limb movement data using DeepLabCut’s (DLC) machine learning network. The pipeline was developed using videos of typically developing (TD) infants and infants with Asymmetric Perinatal Brain Injury (APBI), all at or under 3 months corrected …

Linking Fishery Productivity To Child Health In The Coastal Tropics, Francisco Flores-Mejia

Master's Theses

Fish are a primary source of calories, macronutrients, and income for coastal communities around the world, but overfishing and environmental changes have dramatically reduced productivity in the majority of small-scale fisheries. The social costs of these losses are believed to be large, particularly in poorer communities, but most estimates of fishery productivity effects on households are contextual and difficult to generalize. We combine a remote sensing measure of pelagic fishery productivity with geolocated child health and growth data from 34 countries in the coastal tropics. We estimate that the difference between sustainedly good versus bad fishing conditions corresponds up to …

Middle Management Diplomacy: An Examination Of Us Foreign Policy Analysis In Middle-Echelon Diplomatic Professionals, Isaac R. Silvino

Master's Theses

This study analyzes the role which managerial level U.S. military Foreign Area Officers and Foreign Service Officers play in shaping and implementing U.S. foreign policy. By analyzing the individual professional at the middle-echelons of an organizational hierarchy, we make an effort in dispelling ourselves from obscured perceptions of IR centered on character and state idealization driven narratives. Doing this may help bridge the foundational gap between academics and practitioners while shifting towards a paradigm of IR analysis focusing on human agency and decisions.

Result

Individual managerial echelon diplomats do not directly make policy, but rather play a crucial role in …

The Feather Of The Quill: How Folklore Shapes Human Relationships With Wildlife, Taylor Breeanne Nelson

Master's Theses

This thesis examines how folklore and cultural phenomena shape human relationships with wildlife, arguing that the stories a society tells about animals are not merely reflective of its values but are constitutive of them. Drawing on narrative research methods sourced from literature and academic journals and interviews with academics, conservationists, and community members, this project examines the role of animal folklore.

I discuss how narratives around wildlife evolved alongside the development of the United States, arguing that the beginnings of mainstream American conservation not only displaced existing communities but also erased the sophisticated human-animal relationships their traditions had long sustained. …

Crop Yield Shocks And Conflict In Sub-Saharan Africa: Subnational Evidence From Satellite-Based Yield Predictions, Benson I. Adomako

Master's Theses

This paper examines whether crop yields affect violent conflict at the subnational level across seven Sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, and Tanzania, over the period 2010 to 2024. A central identification challenge is that observed yields are endogenous to conflict: armed violence disrupts planting, cultivation, and harvest. To address this, I train a machine learning model on observed maize yield and satellite and environmental features to generate predicted yields for 1,338 second-level administrative districts annually. These predictions serve as the key regressor in a two-way fixed-effects panel with district and year fixed effects. I find …

Spatial Analysis Of Maize Yields And Household Dietary Diversity In Sub-Saharan Africa: Causal Evidence From A Machine Learning Instrument, Addi Joof

Master's Theses

MAIZE YIELDS AND HOUSEHOLD DIETARY DIVERSITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: EVIDENCE ON THE CAUSAL EFFECT FROM A MACHINE LEARNING INSTRUMENT

Addi Joof, University of San Francisco, May 2026

This paper provides estimates of the effect of maize yield on household dietary diversity across seven Sub-Saharan African countries, using data from 36,474 maize-growing households in the Living Standards Measurement Study Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) panels for the period 2008--2021. OLS estimates which include district and country-by-wave fixed effects yield a positive and significant coefficient of 0.070 (SE = 0.006, p < 0.001), implying that a 10 percent increase in maize yield raises the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) by approximately 0.007 food groups. Because self-reported yields are subject to classical measurement error and unobserved household characteristics confound the OLS estimate, we construct an instrumental variable using a Random Forest model trained on satellite-derived agro-environmental features including the Enhanced Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Growing Degree Days, precipitation, and soil moisture obtained from Google Earth Engine at the GPS-coordinate-by-year level. Our preferred 2SLS specification, which adds region fixed effects to absorb persistent sub-national geographic variation, returns a positive point estimate of 0.217 (SE = 0.206; 95% CI: -0.19 to +0.63, p = 0.294) larger than OLS and consistent with downward attenuation bias, but imprecisely estimated and statistically indistinguishable from zero at conventional levels. We interpret the OLS estimate of 0.070 as a credible lower bound on the true effect, with the IV evidence pointing to a moderately larger but uncertain magnitude. Heterogeneity analysis reveals a declining gradient across consumption quintiles the effect is strongest among the poorest households (Q1: 0.055, p < 0.01) and diminishes with wealth (Q5: 0.015, not significant) while showing no gradient across market-integration levels. These patterns are consistent with own-consumption, rather than market income from surplus sales, as the primary pathway from yield to dietary diversity. OLS estimates are positive and significant in five of six estimable countries. The findings suggest that maize yield improvements can serve as a nutrition co-investment, particularly for subsistence-oriented smallholders, though the available data do not permit a sharp causal quantification of the effect size.

Keywords: dietary diversity, maize yields, instrumental variables, Sub-Saharan Africa, LSMS-ISA, satellite …

A Stadium In Our Backyard: Community Participation In Stadia Redevelopment Projects, Sofia Zazueta

Master's Theses

The Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain and the Chase Center in San Francisco, California are two stadium redevelopment projects that exemplify the stakeholder dynamics that come into play when developers pitch a multipurpose stadium located a few blocks away from people’s backyards. Urban development patterns must be in constant evolution to meet the needs and demands of the current generations. In cities, stadia redevelopment projects have entered the picture to reimagine the role that these structures once played. The stadium once used for the sole purpose of holding matches has become a venue that now hosts different events such as …

La Maquiladora De Sueños Is Where The “American Dream” Ends: The Socio-Cultural Impact Of Hai(T)Ijuanenses In The United States-México Borderlands, Pedro Aleman Perfecto

Master's Theses

Historically, Tijuana has been the destination for migrants who have been left out from the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world. The city is at the epicenter of globalization where many transit, leave, and arrive. Sometimes considered a “third country” due to its binational and bicultural identity with its sister city, San Diego, California. The growing number of Haitian refugees that arrived in Tijuana in the mid 2010s to seek asylum in the United States overwhelmed the city’s infrastructure and left the Haitian community vulnerable, yet it created new opportunities and reshaped new identities in the region. …

What Complexity Costs: Growth, Productive Capability, And The Vulnerability Of Interconnectedness, Pete Mcniff

Master's Theses

Growth depends on the sophistication of what an economy can produce, but economies that have specialized more deeply depend on the market access that sustains it. I test whether this dependence makes complex economies more vulnerable when access is disrupted, computing the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) from firm-level records in the U.S. Census of Manufactures (1850--1880) and using the Panic of 1873 as a natural experiment to measure county-level market access shocks from railroad bond defaults following Dutta (2024) and Donaldson and Hornbeck (2016). ECI predicts production and employment growth across all three decade windows, with the association strengthening as …

Trust, Civic Institutions, And Crisis: A Study Of Civic Culture In Italy, Nolan Joseph Sherwood

Master's Theses

This paper examines whether cultural familism — the orientation of trust toward family at the expense of strangers and civic institutions — shapes civic institutional engagement in Italy across three levels of analysis. The first analysis links four familism indices constructed from the European Values Study (2017) to pre-COVID municipal 5 per mille tax allocation rates across approximately 7,700 Italian municipalities, finding that higher Trust Gap and Institutional Distrust robustly predict lower baseline civic giving, both nationally and within each region. The second analysis uses a Regression Discontinuity in Time design exploiting the sharp onset of COVID-19 in 2020, finding …

Hidden Behind Happiness: Bhutan’S Global Image And Ethnic Exclusion, Deepesh Das Shrestha

Master's Theses

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the …

Flowing Borders: U.S. Border Externalization In Latin America And The Los Angeles Declaration On Migration And Protection, Magdalena Olvera Hernandez

Master's Theses

In recent years, Latin America has emerged as a central transit region for extracontinental migrants originating from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East who seek to reach North America through alternative routes. This thesis examines the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, among other regional migration governance frameworks that have reshaped migratory flows, state responsibilities, and protection outcomes in the Western Hemisphere. Focusing on the Darién Gap as a strategic chokepoint, the study analyzes the effects of coordinated migration policies, border externalization, and differentiated state roles on extracontinental mobility.

Drawing on official migration statistics from Panama, the United States, …

Asian American Multiraciality And Cultural Wealth In Higher Education, Marielle Song Lyons

Master's Theses

Multiracial Asian American college students endure pervasive and commonplace monoracism, multiracial microaggressions, and deficit-based narratives in higher education, which negatively impact their sense of self, belonging, and mental health. Through narrative methodology, the present qualitative study captures the stories of three multiracial Asian American undergraduate students and how they are making sense of their racialized experiences and cultural wealth in higher education. The results of this study suggest that (a) multiracial Asian Americans experience monoracism and multiracial microaggressions, which shape their understanding of cultural legitimacy and impact their behavior, sense of self, and relationships with others; (b) monoracism and multiracial …

Vietnamese American Anti-Imperialism: South Vietnamese History And Analysis Of Publications Pre-1975, Jeannie Nguyen

Master's Theses

During the Vietnam War, citizens contested US imperialism at multiple levels. In South Vietnam, citizens published newspapers and magazines to challenge their government and expose the depth of US aggression in South Vietnamese society and culture. Inside the imperial core, Black, Chicano, and Asian American activists formed solidarities to resist the war and challenge racial inequality. At the intersection of imperialism inside and outside its borders, lies a group of South Vietnamese students and scholars who became American, migrating during the war via state-structured projects. However, in response to the heightening of war and drawing inspiration from their ‘Third World’ …

The Effectiveness Of Local Historic Place-Based Educational Programs: A Scoping Review, Danielle Bellantoni

Master's Theses

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of local place-based history education programs on adolescents aged students in 6th to 12th grade in the United States public school system. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) to summarize key research findings and identify gaps in the literature. Through thorough evaluation, three studies were included based on the eligibility criteria and each study showed that local place-placed history education programs are effective in the cognitive and affective domains. Although there is a gap in research, it is believed that …

Volunteer Spotlighting: Costly Signaling To Promote Volunteerism, Clyde A. Raible V

Master's Theses

Prosocial behaviors, because they are initially costly and do not guarantee a direct benefit to the actor, can nonetheless increase social status by signaling a willingness to incur cost on behalf of another. Given this signal value, nonprofit organizations may be able to leverage this knowledge to increase donations, such as through the provisioning of attention to, and recognition of, volunteers through social media. I predicted that the costliness of spotlighted behavior and the target signal clarity (i.e., individual vs. group spotlight) would interact with participants’ dispositional dominance and prestige-based status motives to influence volunteerism interest. To explore these associations, …

Mazique (22ad502): Late Woodland Village Or Vacant Ceremonial Center?, Lonnie A. Burch Jr

Master's Theses

Overlooking the bank of Second Creek near Natchez, Mississippi, the Mazique (22AD502) site is a Coles Creek period (AD 750-1000) mound and plaza center that once featured three mounds surrounding an open central plaza. Mounds A and B still sit prominently along the southern and eastern edges of Mazique’s plaza. The location of  Mound C remains unclear. Historic agricultural and construction activities have left no visible trace of the monument. The 2021 University of Southern Mississippi archaeological field school set out to investigate potential locations for Mound C and to explore the site's functionality.

Did the Mazique site support a …

Investigating Racial And Ethnic Differences In Help-Seeking Recommendations And Intentions For Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms And Symptom Clusters, Josselyn Yanisbeth Telule

Master's Theses

Racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) communities experience disproportionate exposure to adverse events, including discrimination, socioeconomic disparities, justice system involvement, and limited access to healthcare. These inequities increase the likelihood of experiencing potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and developing trauma-related mental health concerns such as posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Despite this elevated risk, REM populations consistently underutilize mental health services. Although several explanations have been proposed—including differences in symptom recognition, perceived need for care, cultural values, mental health literacy, and preferred sources of support—less research has examined racial and ethnic differences in help-seeking intentions (HSI) and help-seeking recommendations (HSR), particularly in response …

Examining The Interactive Effects Of Time Perspective And Life History On Decision-Making Patterns Among College Students: A Modified Replication Of Griskevicius Et Al. (2011b), Cameron M. Robins

Master's Theses

Griskevicius and colleagues (2011b) demonstrated decision-making patterns consistent with life history theory, called life history strategies, using an experimental design in which they randomly assigned college students to read one of two texts. The experimental condition was designed to trigger a feeling of heightened awareness of one’s own mortality, called mortality salience. Participants in this condition exhibited patterns of risk-taking and delay discounting on the outcome measures that were related to their childhood socioeconomic status (SES), one of the first demonstrations of life history strategies in an experimental setting.

However, multiple attempts at replication have failed to show similar results. …

Redeveloping Mississippi: A Case Study On Brownfields In Central & Southern Mississippi, Sahrah R. Yeroozedek

Master's Theses

Brownfields, or properties that are or possibly are contaminated with dangerous materials, represent a common obstacle for communities in Mississippi. The real or potential presence of contaminants at these sites often deters investors due to costly cleanup requirements (EPA, n.d. -b). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its Brownfield Revitalization Program, implemented guidelines for covering the costs and labor associated with the remediation of these properties. The EPA is not, however, responsible for redevelopment that supports long-term environmental and economic sustainability. Although the EPA maintains inventories of all Brownfields, there is also no comprehensive database of Brownfields and their current …

Psychological And Inflammatory Ties To Diet In Breast Cancer Survivors, Sonal Kaur Johal

Master's Theses

Breast cancer is among the most prevalent forms of cancer and is a primary cause of death among women (Wang et al., 2020). Cancer patients experience higher levels of anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and inflammation compared to non-cancer patients, which can predict a diminished quality of life but also contribute to higher mortality rates among cancer patients (Bortolato et al., 2016; Song et al., 2022). Diet has the potential to impact the manifestation of depressive and anxiety symptoms in both healthy individuals and those battling cancer. This study explored the association between dietary habits, specifically cholesterol, fiber, saturated fat, added …

Long Run Effect Of Industrial Place-Based Policy On County Level Complexity, An Investigation Of The Tennessee Valley Authority, Anita Ifeyinwa Umunnah

Master's Theses

This paper studies the long-term effects of large federal investments in place-based industrial policies on regional economic development, contributing new evidence on how industrial policies shape regional local productive capabilities over time. While extensive research show that industrial policies impact regional development by advancing productive technology (capabilities), the fundamental question remains how to measure this technological transformation. The study employs the use of Economic Complexity Index (ECI) as a measure of “technological advancements” resulting from large federal investments in place-based industrial policies. Previous evaluations of such investment were based on livelihood, employment and income outcomes, with productive capability of receiving …

A Novel Approach To Creativity Assessment: Forced Pairwise Ranking With Large Language Models, Phillip R. Gregory Jr

Master's Theses

Assessing creativity at scale remains a persistent challenge in cognitive science, as human raters are costly, slow, and often inconsistent in their judgments. This thesis introduced a novel framework for automated scientific creativity assessment using forced pairwise ranking, in which fine-tuned large language models compared response pairs and determined which was more creative. Five empirical studies were conducted using Llama-2-7B and Llama-2-13B models adapted via LoRA fine-tuning and benchmarked against human scored responses from the Scientific Creative Thinking Test. A regression baseline achieved Pearson �� = .74 on the test set, matching the human inter-rater ceiling reported in the literature. …

Preserving Cherokee Culture Through Literacy And Literature: A Study Of Gendered Literacy, Rhetoric, And Cultural Continuity In The Cherokee Nation, Diana W. Baber

Master's Theses

Early explorers to what is now America, beginning with Hernando DeSoto in 1530, stole the dignity and the lands of the Indigenous peoples of America, of whom the Cherokees are only one nation. Two of the things that could not be taken was the Cherokees’ rich cultural tradition and oral histories. Stories passed orally from generation to generation to ensure that histories were preserved. They were largely preserved by the women of the tribe.

After the American Revolution, there was pressure from the new government to force the Cherokees to assimilate to the new American culture—to speak English, dress and …

Opioid Use Knowledge And Attitudes Among U.S. Adults, Jadyn E. Knox

Master's Theses

The opioid epidemic remains a public health crisis, with overdose rates continuing to rise. Associations between individuals opioid use and knowledge of and attitudes toward opioid substances and overdoses have been investigated to inform educational interventions. However, many studies utilize college student or adolescent samples, and findings remain inconclusive. An assessment of opioid knowledge and attitudes across broader adult populations is lacking. Concurrently, replication literature in the social sciences is limited, therefore, the present study replicated and expanded upon Williams et al. (2013) and Vyas et al. (2023) studies. Reliability and validity of the Opioid Knowledge scale, Opioid Overdose Knowledge …

Mobile Markets And Farmers’ Markets: Evaluating Food Accessibility For Underserved Communities In The Bay Area, Rajeshwari Rajesh

Master's Theses

Studies indicate including farmers’ markets, mobile markets, and other local food systems improve fresh food access for low-income communities, especially when paired with food assistance programs that offer financial incentives. This study aims to evaluate mobile markets and farmers’ markets in the Bay Area using the five dimensions of food access: accessibility, availability, acceptability, affordability, and accommodation. The study is based on primary data collected from 173 in-person surveys at six mobile and eight farmers’ markets in the Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties. Key survey participants were market shoppers participating in food assistance programs. A mixed research methodology included …

Game Genre, Gender, And Sense Of Community In Online Gaming, Patrick Brown

Master's Theses

Sense of community has been shown to improve quality of life in numerous ways. Previous research suggests sense of community can be felt even within groups that never meet in person. The current study explored the relation between game genre, gender status, and sense of community in online gaming groups. Additionally, discrimination was included as an additional outcome due to its close link with sense of community. A total of 189 college students (Mage = 20 years old) of diverse gender and ethnicity completed an online survey consisting of the Sense of Community Scale, Everyday Discrimination Scale, demographic questions, and …

Workplace Incivility And Well-Being: A Moderated Mediation Analysis Of Loneliness And Supervisor Support, Marie Rylance

Master's Theses

By building on previous research and addressing calls to examine the growing epidemic of loneliness, this study investigated how workplace incivility affects employee well-being and workplace outcomes, with attention to the roles of loneliness and supervisor support. Guided by the Conservation of Resources theory, workplace incivility was conceptualized as a resource-draining process that fosters stress states such as loneliness. A key contribution of this study was examining the process through which incivility impacts employees, by testing loneliness as a mediating mechanism and supervisor support as a potential moderator. Using data from 178 participants, regression and mediation analyses were conducted, as …

The Effects Of Educational Materials On Knowledge And Attitudes Toward Psilocybin, Lindsey Elise Wade

Master's Theses

Depression is one of the most prevalent and burdensome mental health conditions worldwide, affecting millions and contributing to over 700,000 deaths by suicide annually. Nearly half of patients with major depressive disorder fail to respond adequately to standard antidepressant treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has emerged as a promising alternative for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), yet public understanding of this therapy remains limited. The present study examined whether a brief psychoeducational intervention could affect knowledge and attitudes toward PAT among members of the general public in the United States. Participants were randomly assigned to read …

Bicultural Identity, Work-Life Balance And Mental Health Outcomes In Swana Students, Julie M. Salama

Master's Theses

Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) college students navigate academic demands alongside immigration-salient stressors that may shape their mental health and academic performance. This study examined generational status (Gen 1 vs. Gen 2+), identity conflict, ethnic identity, and work–life balance (WLB) in overall GPA and major GPA, and mental health outcomes of depression (PHQ-9), and anxiety (GAD-7) among SWANA students (N = 35). Two one-way MANOVAs found no generational differences for academics (overall/major GPA) or mental health (PHQ-9/GAD-7). Identity conflict was unrelated to GPA or symptoms but was positively associated with ethnic identity, while WLB was negatively correlated with depression …