Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Televised Presidential Debate: Decreasing Effectiveness And The Impact Of The New Media Spin In The Fourth Age, Marcus Stevens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This Capstone Project focuses on the entire history of televised presidential debates in America. Beginning with the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and ending with the Obama-McCain debates of 2008, I examine and analyze academic books, articles and data in order to answer several questions: Did the American public continue to tune in to televised debate for information throughout the years? Have the debates lost their ability to maintain interest, change or affect electoral outcomes, or help inform the masses of the actual policies and promises of the candidates? Have the advances in technology and media had any effect on these …

Gender Socialization In Toys By Parents, Christina A. Simmons

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Substantial research in child development focuses on the formation of gender identity and how socialization in the home contributes to the acquisition of gender-linked behavior; however, there is not much recent discussion of the parents’ influence in the formation of gender stereotypes, specifically of those regarding toys, in Spain. Research indicates that children are able to identify the gender appropriateness of certain toys at early ages (between 2 and 4 years of age) and their interest in playing with stereotyped toys varies as a function of the toys' gender appropriateness. This study focused specifically on gender and toys and how …

The Influence Of New Medications On Prescribing Behavior By Practice Type: A Regression Analysis, Rita M. Pattarini

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Objective: To determine whether the type of practice to which physicians belong influences the types of medications they prescribe

Methods: The study used data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) to conduct a series of regressions for two pairs of medications. The first pair was for the treatment of high cholesterol. Advicor was the new medication and Lovastatin was the competitor. The second pair was for the treatment of arthritis. Humira was the new medication and Remicade was the competitor. For each pair, there were two sets of regressions that consisted of an unrestricted regression with all patients …

Chinese Job Growth And Workers’ Injury Compensation In China, Ann O'Neill

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Over the past decade, the PRC has made dramatic changes to its labor contract laws, corporate laws, and social welfare system in an effort to improve workers' wellbeing and decrease the impact of rights violations on the public healthcare system and national budget. This paper seeks to determine the effect of changes in social welfare policy made in 2003 on workplace injuries and illness in light of the domestic job growth that took place at that time. In 2003, changes in marketplace behavior, corporate law, and enterprise management policy led to a trend break in employment, wages, and insurance coverage …

Man Vs. Machine: Interpreting The Ambiguities In Diplomatic Negotiations, Caitlin Morrison

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper is intended to explore the linguistic causes of ineffectiveness and inefficiency in diplomatic negotiations and determine the best solution. The first sections are designated to explaining the function of international negotiation and typical linguistic problems that hinder effective communication in these situations. After determining that interpretation is the best option for multi-language negotiation, this paper examines the merits of both machine and human interpreters. I argue that human interpreters are more accurate in deciphering ambiguity and working with the intricacies involved in diplomatic discussions. This position is supported by numerous examples, including the current operations of the European …

Do Ct Scans Help Prevent Cancer-Related Deaths?, Auyon J. Ghosh

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper uses a region-level estimation approach associated with medical procedures to identify the effectiveness of X-ray Computed Axial Tomography (CT) scans as a diagnostic tool in preventing cancer-related deaths. In order to measure the effects of the CT scan on cancer-related deaths, I use data from both the National Health Interview Survey and the Vital Statistics of the United States. For all four regions, we observe an increase in CT scan use after 1979 or, as illustrated specifically in the figure, from 1975 to 1980. All four regions exhibit marked increases in lung cancer-related deaths, very little fluctuation in …

Accessibility In The Syracuse Food Desert, Amory Hillengas

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Food insecurity is uncertain access to nutritious food. It is a social justice issue influenced by geographic and demographic factors. Low-income and minority individuals are more prone to be affected by food insecurity. One way is that they may live in food deserts, places where there is limited access to nutritious food sources. It is unjust for anyone to have inadequate access to nutritious food. This study investigated this premise in Syracuse, New York. The selected study area was composed of zip codes 13205, 13207, 13202 and 13210. The food sources for these regions were identified through the database Reference …

Exploring International Economic Development Through Environmental Justice Movement Frame, Racquel Clarke

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In our global community 20% of the population controls 86% of the gross domestic product and 82% of the world market exports, according to the United Nations Development Program. This thesis explains where this inequality comes from and what can be implemented to help some countries miss out on economic prosperity while others enjoy fiscal bliss. The vast majority of countries with the lowest gross domestic product are non-European countries located in the global south. It is an economic problem for these countries that have been historically oppressed through the exploitation of slavery and colonialism. There has been little done …

Mapu Lahual: Ecotourism And Indigenous Rights In Chile, Danielle Dean

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Abstract: This thesis will assess the efforts of international organizations (IGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) to facilitate self-determination and economic independence for the indigenous Mapuches peoples in Chile. My hypothesis is that both IGOs and INGOs to a great extent have helped indigenous peoples gain substantive rights in Chile. When analyzing Chilean progress in indigenous rights, three topic areas were identified. The first considers how the constitutional frameworks support indigenous rights and what rights are guaranteed or hindered due the Chilean 1980 constitution. The second is the economic inclusion and independence of the tribes or communities. Ecotourism projects have …

America In Recovery: Tracking And Analyzing The Obama Stimulus During 2009, Gregory Cassel

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper tracks and analyzes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, better known as the Obama stimulus plan during the 2009 year. As one of the most expensive public policies in history, the ARRA was designed to turn around an ailing economy by creating and preserving jobs, investing in key areas, providing relief to States and individuals, and tax cuts. Thus, it is important and useful to track the policy in order to see if it is doing what it is supposed to. Using federal agency Financial and Activity Reports, I create detailed graphs showing where the …

A Comparative Look At The Post Cold War Chinese And Us Arms Trade, Conor Byrt

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The arms trade involves the international sale or importation of conventional arms. This means the proliferation of any non-nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Today the global transfer of arms is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. The US has the world’s largest military expenditure and is known as the world’s greatest proliferator of conventional weapons. China in the past few years has maintained a position as one of the world’s largest importers of arms, and has recently taken the spot as the world’s second largest military expenditure.

Data from watchdog organizations suggests that the world is currently in a period …

Changing Constituencies And International Trade: The Role Of Organized Labor On The Trade Platform Of The Democratic Party, Chad Ivan Brooker

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Abstract

Problem:

There has been much talk over the past 50 years of the role of American labor in a changing American industrial market. As the world has become increasingly connected, American workers who tout high levels of labor rights, high wages, and safe working conditions have been hard pressed to compete with emerging economies that often share little of these same principles or legal decrees.

The debate over American competitiveness in the world has been fought on the picket lines, on the streets, in back rooms and most importantly in the stolid, white, columned halls of Congress. While liberalized …

More Audacity Of Hope: International Perspectives On What It Means To Be American, Megan Brimmer

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

What, from an international perspective, does it mean to be an American? After having spent so much time in other countries and seeing how people elsewhere felt about the U.S., I had to wonder, what about the people who actually come to America? What is it that draws them here and makes them want to stay or return? Do they view America as a pinnacle of perfection and hope and opportunity, or are we really perceived as the dregs of a consumption-driven world as some fear? In talking to international students from all over the world, I have found answers …

Virtual Teams Affect, Performance And Interpersonal Perception With Unexpected Leadership Change, Jeanette M. Zoeckler

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Traditional ways of doing business and communicating in the workplace are changing. With frequent mergers, shifting operational demands and underlying economic pressure, computer-mediated communication has been increasingly employed. To achieve greater flexibility in workforce configurations, working virtually is often more the norm than the exception. With continuously improving internet technologies, frequently work-teams are formed when members are not geographically co-located. Both internal and external pressures combine, in the corporate setting, to produce an unprecedented velocity of change which seems especially related to globalization. (Held, 2007) Just exactly how does the virtual team handle abrupt change? While many researchers focus on …

Success Of Theme Implementation: Small Leadership Theme High Schools In New York City, Samantha Leigh Wiese

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Introduction: This study reports the research results of small public high schools in New York City whose founding was centered around the theme of leadership. As an undergraduate student who interned in one of these high schools, the researcher has witnessed the disconnect that can exist between a school’s name and its curriculum. While there are many high schools in New York City that support the development of leadership in their students, the 15 high schools studied in this project were selected because they included the word “leadership” in their title. These schools were selected because they are more obvious …

The Effects Of Winning A Basketball National Championship On Admission Factors, Daniel Weistrop

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Collegiate sports attract a lot of attention and money. Many universities are sponsored by high powered sportswear and equipment companies including Nike and Adidas. Furthermore, CBS, Fox, and Disney participate in multimillion dollar media deals to exclusively cover a variety of sporting events featuring mainly collegiate basketball and football.

This is best demonstrated by the television coverage that respective sports receive. For example, CBS is in the midst of an 11 year, $6 billion contract that will pay the National Collegiate Athletic Association approximately $545 million per year to carry the NCAA basketball tournament. The NCAA basketball tournament is held …

Dual Citizenship In Asia, Mindy Eiko Tadai

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Among all regions, Asia lags behind in terms of the number of countries that recognize dual citizenship, but why have some Asian countries permitted dual citizenship while others have not? As of 2009, only seven countries in Asia recognize dual citizenship: Sri Lanka, Cambodia, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam. This study analyzes data for twenty-two Asian countries and conducts four case studies. The first two cases, India and the Philippines, recognize dual citizenship, while the second two cases, Nepal and Mongolia, do not. I examine three hypothesized factors that contribute to state recognition of dual citizenship in Asia: …

The Interrelation Of Box Office Results How Does One Weekend’S Movie Attendance Affect The Next?, Drew Sullivan

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In this paper, I attempted to determine the relationship between a movie’s box office success and the immediate timing of its release. Considering the large investment that needs to be made in producing and distributing a major motion picture, a full understanding of the factors that affect its success is vital. One factor that has been historically underexplored is the impact of movies that are directly competing with each other at the box office. This has been due to limitations in data. However, using publicly available data I was able to put together a dataset that looked at box office …

The Commodification Of The Modern Black Man: Examining The Effect Of Drug Law On The New York State Prison Industrial Complex, Alexis Kinney

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This Capstone project examines the effect of New York State’s prison industrial complex on local economies. The prison industrial complex is a system of imprisonment that, through various methods, transforms prisoners into commodities. The complex involves endorsing legislation to create more crimes and longer sentences for those crimes, thus increasing the number, and term length, of incarcerated citizens. In New York, the creation of the Rockefeller drug laws resulted in a revitalized diligence in the war against drugs, leading to the promotion of prisoner-based upstate economies. Through engagement with United States drugs laws, historical accounts of drug use and addiction, …

Reflections Of A Young Journalist Working Within The Parliament Of The United Kingdom, Joe Frandino

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The purpose of my Capstone project is to present a personalized insight into the British political and journalistic systems, and how they contrast with their respective American counterparts. As an intern in the British Houses of Parliament, and with the news department of the Liberal Democratic Party of the United Kingdom, I will present my significant experiences and understandings, as well as the changes I underwent during my study-abroad semester in London, England during the spring of 2009.

Rural Life Census Data Center Newsletter: Birth And Infant Mortality In South Dakota, Saileza Khatiwada, Jake Cummings, Diane Kayongo-Male

Census Data Center Newsletter Archive: 2007-2010

The joy of birth and the sorrow of losing a newborn are profoundly personal experiences. Still, to some extent, both infant births and deaths are associated with numerous social and environmental factors. These factors include maternal health and level of access to, and quality of, health care (MacDorman and Mathews 2008). Moreover, infant mortality has been recognized as a relatively reliable marker of societal well-being (Gortmaker and Wise 1997). Therefore, it is important that we examine infant mortality rates throughout the state of South Dakota.

Booms, Busts, And Gambling: Can Gaming Revenues Reduce Budget Volatility?, Brad R. Humphreys, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

Over the past 20 years, state and provincial governments in North America have expanded legal gambling opportunities to consumers. One of the primary policy goals of this expansion of gambling opportunities has been to increase government revenues. Gambling is an attractive source of new government revenues because consumers are relatively insensitive to the implicit “tax” rate imposed on gambling activities and gambling is a voluntary activity, only those who chose to gamble are subject to this implicit tax. In this paper, we document the contribution that gambling revenues make to state and provincial tax receipts, and the extent to which …

The Labor Market Effects Of The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Robert Baumann, Bryan Engelhardt, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

The local, state, and federal governments, along with the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee, spent roughly $1.9 billion in direct costs related to planning and hosting the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In this paper, we investigate whether these expenditures increased employment. At the state level, we find strong evidence it increased employment in leisure related industries in the short run and potentially in the long run. However, the results indicate it had no long term impact on employment in retail trade or in the overall economy.

The Silent Witness, May-June 2010

Silent Witness, The

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Washington, D.C.

The Silent Witness Finding Aid

Conducting A Journal Assessment Project Using Microsoft Access To Obtain Faculty Input And Promote The Creation Of A Cost-Effective Journal Collection, Yvonne Lee, Laura E. Abate, Steven W. Brown, Kathe Obrig, George P. Paul, Lionel Williams, Semhar Yohannes

Himmelfarb Library Faculty Posters and Presentations

Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library created a database using Microsoft Access to execute a value assessment project of its online and print journal collection. This poster presentation summarizes the process of creating a cost-effective journal collection.

Connecting To Our Community: Extending Librarians' Roles Through Collaboration, Alexandra Gomes, Elizabeth Palena Hall, Laura E. Abate, Elaine Sullo, Cynthia Kahn

Himmelfarb Library Faculty Posters and Presentations

Reaching out to various groups of their patron base, the librarians of Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library developed new initiatives to expand their roles and responsibilities. The new outreach initiatives included a film series, an instructional technology series, an art exhibit, and a medical education project. This poster presentation summarizes each initiative and the resulting impact in the user community.

Himmelfarb Web 2.0 Tools And Other Technologies: Connecting With Patrons, Elizabeth Palena Hall, Alexandra Gomes, Elaine Sullo, Paul Levett, Laura E. Abate, Kathe Obrig, Jolinda Thompson, Cynthia Kahn

Himmelfarb Library Faculty Posters and Presentations

Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library adopted many Web 2.0 tools to accommodate the growing expectations of dynamic web and mobile services in academic libraries. This poster presentation highlights the features and tools in each Web 2.0 service. These library services include blogs, really simple syndication (RSS feeds), Camtasia tutorials, LibGuides, a multi-database search tool, and Facebook.

How A Mandated Space Change By The Library's Parent Organization Resulted In Unexpected Benefits To Multiple Intra-Library Systems, Kathe Obrig, Lionel Williams, Leah Pellegrino, Jennifer Mcdaniel, George P. Paul

Himmelfarb Library Faculty Posters and Presentations

In 2008, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library was mandated to relocate its 70,000-volume bound journal collection. This poster narrates the planning and execution of this project which resulted in unexpected benefits to the library.

About The Struggle Between The "Lower" And "Upper", Viktor Yelenskyy

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Translating A Personal Identity Into A Website, L. Boccucci

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

To see abstract download attached file