Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Crossing The Water And Keeping The Faith: Haitian Religion In Miami (North American Religions), Terry Rey, Alex Stepick

Alex Stepick

Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, significant numbers of Haitian immigrants began to arrive and settle in Miami. Overcoming some of the most foreboding obstacles ever to face immigrants in America, they, their children, and now their grandchildren, as well as more recently arriving immigrants from Haiti, have diversified socioeconomically. Together, they have made South Florida home to the largest population of native-born Haitians and diasporic Haitians outside of the Caribbean and one of the most significant Caribbean immigrant communities in the world. Religion has played a central role in making all of this happen. Crossing the Water …

Do Political Parties Matter For Turnout? Number Of Parties, Electoral Rules And Local Elections In Brazil And Bolivia, Carew Boulding, David Brown

David C. Brown

Does the number of political parties influence voter turnout in developing democracies? Some scholars argue that large party systems facilitate matching voter preferences with a specific party, increasing turnout. Others argue multiparty systems produce too many alternatives, decreasing turnout. In developing democracies, there is debate over whether these institutions matter at all. We argue that party systems do matter for turnout in developing countries, but the relationship between turnout and the number of political parties is conditional on the electoral formula. Under proportional representation systems, large numbers of parties increase turnout. Under winner take all systems, large numbers of parties …

Penal Culture And Hyperincarceration: The Revival Of The Prison, Alex Steel, Chris Cunneen, David Brown, Eileen Baldry, Melanie Schwartz, Mark Brown

David C. Brown

What are the various forces influencing the role of the prison in late modern societies? What changes have there been in penality and use of the prison over the past 40 years that have led to the re-valorization of the prison? Using penal culture as a conceptual and theoretical vehicle, and Australia as a case study, this book analyses international developments in penality and imprisonment. Authored by some of Australia’s leading penal theorists, the book examines the historical and contemporary influences on the use of the prison, with analyses of colonialism, post colonialism, race, and what they term the ‘penal/colonial …

Minority Stress Theory: An Examination Of Factors Surrounding Sexual Risk Behavior Among Gay And Bisexual Men Who Use Club Drugs, Michael Dentato, Perry Halkitis, John Orwat

John Orwat

Background: Few studies have examined the impact of minority stress theory (MST) upon sexual risk behavior among gay and bisexual men using club drugs. Similar studies have focused on ethnic minorities and women; however, gay and bisexual men demonstrate greater likelihood for risk behaviors leading to HIV/AIDS. Objective: This study examines sexual risk behavior from the perspective of minority stress theory upon substance-using gay and bisexual men and their partners. Methods: Multivariable logistic regression analysis examined minority stress associations with participant sexual risk behaviors, drug use, and partner type, controlling for demographics. Results: 396 gay and 54 bisexual respondents, ages …

Open Access And The Institutional Repository, Julia Lovett, Andrée Rathemacher

Julia Lovett

Slides and other materials from a presentation at the conference Querying the Library: Digitization and Its Impact, sponsored by the James P. Adams Library at Rhode Island College. The conference took place on May 31, 2013. A video of the presentation is available at http://digitalcommons.ric.edu/ql/2013/QTL_May31/5/.

Abstract of the presentation reads: "This panel will discuss the efforts to pass a Harvard-style Open Access Policy at URI which will enable faculty authors to retain the rights to their articles even if they subsequently sign away their copyright to a journal."

University Of Rhode Island Open Access Policy, Andrée Rathemacher, Julia Lovett

Julia Lovett

These are the Powerpoint slides for a presentation on the University of Rhode Island Open Access Policy to the University of Rhode Island Dean's Council on October 23, 2013.

Open Access At Uri: Exciting Opportunities For Faculty, Researchers, And Grad Students, Julia Lovett, Andrée Rathemacher

Julia Lovett

Slides from a presentation, "Open Access at URI: Exciting Opportunities for Faculty, Researchers, and Grad Students" offered at the University of Rhode Island Libraries on October 8 and October 21, 2013.

"Open Access provides you with the opportunity to increase your readership and your scholarly impact, and also improves your access to scholarly information. The DigitalCommons@URI is part of an international effort to increase access to scholarly articles, theses, and dissertations. Come learn about the benefits of open access for your research and how to comply with URI's Open Access policies."

Part of the University Libraries' Search Savvy Seminar series.

Open Access Policy At The University Of Rhode Island, Julia Lovett, Andrée Rathemacher

Julia Lovett

Materials related to a "Lightning Talk" presentation on the University of Rhode Island Open Access Policy, given at the NETSL Annual Spring Conference in Worcester, MA, April 12, 2013.

Ieee Istas13- People As Sensors: The Social Implications Of Living In A Smart World, Alexander Hayes, Katina Michael, Nick Rheinberger

Alexander Hayes Mr.

What is the technological trajectory of people wearing sensors? What are the benefits, risks and costs? What is the vibe going to be like at ISTAS13 with people like Marvin Minsky and Ray Kurzweil attending? What do you hope to gain from the meeting? Can we foresee a time that all glasses will be embedded with sensors? What are the implications? E.g. in the higher education sector? What about the gathering of evidence by law enforcement? What is point of eye?

Workshop | Body Worn Video Recorders: The Socio-Technical Implications Of Gathering Direct Evidence, Katina Michael, Alexander Hayes

Alexander Hayes Mr.

- From in-car video recording to body-worn video recording

- Exploring available technologies: how do they work, pros and cons

- Storing direct evidence in secure storage: factors to consider

- Citizens “shooting” back with POV tech – what are their rights?

- Crowdsourced sousveillance- harnessing public data for forensic profiling

- Police force policies and practices on the application of new media

Reflections From The Wearable Computing Conference In Toronto, Canada, Nick Rheinberger, Katina Michael, Alexander Hayes

Alexander Hayes Mr.

Could sports men and women who are monitored using wearable computers actually be playing to a global theatre to ensure the upkeep of their performance benchmarks instead of consciously watching and reacting to what is happening in the game they are playing? What are the social implications of heart rate monitors and GPS units now embedded into player clothing? What were some of the reflections from the IEEE ISTAS13 meeting on Wearable Computers in Every Day Life? What were some of the main messages that you walked away with from that conference? What made the greatest impression on us was …

Improving Food Safety Through Self-Regulation: Exploring The Applicability Of The Hazard Analysis And Critical Control Points (Haccp) System To The Spinach And Peanut Industries, A. Bryce Hoflund, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

Abstract: Recent years have seen a plethora of incidents in the United States that have called attention to food safety, including spinach, peanut, lettuce, and ground beef recalls. Unsurprisingly in the wake of these recalls, the propensity has been to advocate for additional government regulation. This proclivity begs the question, however, is more reform what is needed? The food safety regulatory system in the U.S. is massive and fragmented; are more regulations the answer to ensuring the safety of food? Skeptics may argue that the only way to ensure the food processing industry is kept in line is through rigid …

Making Keywords Work: Connecting Patrons To Resources Through Enhanced Bibliographic Records, Mina Chercourt, Lauren Marshall

Mina Chercourt

Libraries seek methods of maximizing users' discovery of relevant resources. One of these methods is to enhance bibliographic records with tables of contents. Limited previous research has shown a positive correlation between record enhancement and circulation, but the costs for enhancement can vary widely. The authors present their research in which they examined circulation statistics after retrospectively enhancing records for anthologies of literature with low prior circulation. Results indicate that circulation increased for some subject areas, but not others. The authors conclude that this service is of value to our users, and discuss the issues of costs and selection of …

Teaching Threshold Concepts: Practical Plans For Meaningful Instruction In Information Literacy, Gayle Schaub, Hazel Mcclure, Patricia Bravender

Gayle Schaub

With the unique constraints that instruction librarians face in the classroom, we often rely on point-and-click instruction sessions that do not always communicate essential information literacy concepts. This program identifies key threshold and core concepts and correlates them with ACRL information literacy standards. The presenters highlight lesson plans that promote critical thinking and engaged learning and offer an opportunity for participants to collaborate in the creation of a standard-aligned lesson plan.

Underclaiming And Overclaiming, Sachin Pandya, Peter Siegelman

Peter Siegelman

Arguments that we have too much litigation (overclaiming) or too little (underclaiming) cannot be valid without estimating how many of the undecided claims that are brought (actual claims) or not brought (potential claims) have or lack legal merit. We identify the basic conceptual structure of such underclaiming and overclaiming arguments, which entails inferences about the distribution of actual or potential claims by their probability of success on the merits within a claims-processing institution. We then survey the available methods for estimating claim merit.

Going Pro: Success Stories, Ashley Dupuy, Eli Arnold, Casey Long, Oscar Gittemeier, Traci Drummond

Eli Arnold

“Going Pro: Success Stories” is the third and final installment of Atlanta Emerging Librarians' 3-part series on becoming a professional librarian.This event will focus on stories from the front with five successful librarians sharing their experiences, insights, and advice. Our panelists include librarians and archivists from academic and public libraries.

Paying It Forward...And Backward, Rita Spisak, Eli Arnold, Sandra Barclay, Linda Golian-Lui, Michael Luther

Eli Arnold

Sturgis Library recently started a Mentorship Program concurrently with the hiring of 5 librarians. Paired with veterans, mentees met regularly (as a group & one-on-one) with mentors to get a feel for the culture of the library & advice on librarianship.

Get In Or Get Out: The Impact Of Financial Liberalization On China's Economic Growth, Licheng Yin

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

After the major system failure in 2008, policy makers have started to question about whether the western financial system is still an optimal choice. Continuing financial liberalization or restricting foreign banks from entering are two choices for the developing world to consider. Thus, it is important to know whether China’s 2006 policy, which liberalizes China’s banking sector, has had a positive impact on its economic growth. The theories and empirical findings in the current literature provide an ambiguous answer to the economic impact of foreign banks’ presence. As such, this paper evaluates China’s 2006 policy on economic growth by using …

Winona Currents Annual Report 2013, University Advancement - Winona State University

Winona Currents

Winona Currents Annual Report for 2013.

Guantanamo And The End Of Hostilities, Eric Talbot Jensen

Faculty Scholarship

Detainees in the War on Terror have been at Guantanamo Bay for over a decade. The justification for these detentions has been, at least in part, the on-going hostilities in Afghanistan. However, President Obama’s announcement in his 2013 State of the Union address that “By the end of [2014] our war in Afghanistan will be over” may undercut the continuing detention authority for at least some of these Guantanamo detainees. This paper analyzes the legal doctrine of release and repatriation in light of President Obama’s announcement and concludes that the President’s determination that hostilities have concluded between specific Parties to …

Digitalcommons@Cedarville Statistical Report For December 2013, Cedarville University

DigitalCommons@Cedarville Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

How Ending Gender Violence In India Improves The Nation's International Reputation And Tourism Industry: A Case For Nationalism, Sharon Nambudripad Schiffer

Graduate Masters Theses

As nations have become far more interconnected by means of globalization in the 21st century, the issues that affect one nation often have affects upon others. As India is a nation with a population of more than 1.2 billion, the issues that affect the nation also affect others. As an assault in Delhi, India made international news on December 16, 2012, the international community has become more aware of the incidents of gender-based violence that exist within the country. The ramifications of the international community's knowledge of the assault included a drastic decrease in both its international reputation and its …

The Effects Of Nesting Environment On Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Injury, Laura Grace Rollins

Graduate Masters Theses

Term neonates with hypoxic-ischemic (HI) injury are at risk for devastating neurological sequelae. The objective of this study is to determine if altering the early environment for maternal care-taking impacts the immediate and long-term sequelae of HI offspring. The Rice-Vannucci model was used to induce HI in postnatal day (PND) 7 Long-Evans pups. Litters were assigned to a closed nest (CN) or normal standard housing (SH) condition. Neurobehavioral development, cognitive ability, and stress response were assessed to establish any benefits of the CN condition. Finally, postmortem brain tissue was analyzed for morphometric markers of injury.

Germs, Pigs And Silver: King Philip's War And The Deconstruction Of The Middle Ground In New England, Benjamin M. Roine

Graduate Masters Theses

Early in the seventeenth century Algonquians peoples of southern New England and English colonists built a middle ground which benefitted both groups. Trade, the existence of competition from Dutch and French colonies and powerful Algonquian tribes maintained this middle ground. However, as trade items, such as beaver pelts and wampum became rare or lost value and continued English immigration to New England weakened Dutch claims to the area, the middle ground began to crumble. As English-style farms and livestock changed the ecology of New England and the colonists sought to assert their will, Algonquians lost the ability to live as …

Crater Detection Via Genetic Search Methods To Reduce Image Features, Joseph Paul Cohen

Graduate Masters Theses

Recent approaches to crater detection have been inspired by face detection's use of gray-scale texture features. Using gray-scale texture features for supervised machine learning crater detection algorithms provides better classification of craters in planetary images than previous methods. When using Haar features it is typical to generate thousands of numerical values from each candidate crater image. This magnitude of image features to extract and consider can spell disaster when the application is an entire planetary surface. One solution is to reduce the number of features extracted and considered in order to increase accuracy as well as speed. Feature subset selection …

Crowdfunding For Biotechs: How The Sec’S Proposed Rule May Undermine Capital Formation For Startups, Brian J. Farnkoff

Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy (1985-2015)

No abstract provided.

The Science And Practice Of Research Synthesis, Julia H. Littell

Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

European Comparative Literature As Humanism, Bernard Franco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "European Comparative Literature as Humanism" Bernard Franco presents an epistemological reflection on comparative literature in the context of the evolution of the relationships between different forms of knowledge. Franco argues that in the late nineteenth century the notion of the "humanities" replaced that of the "human sciences," but that we have recently returned to a humanist concept of knowledge linked to ethics. Franco focuses on the origins of this critical reflection about the nature of knowledge and on the debate in the Romantic period between rational and non-rational forms of knowledge. The idéologues (Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy, …

On World Literatures, Comparative Literature, And (Comparative) Cultural Studies, Ning Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "On World Literatures, Comparative Literature, and (Comparative) Cultural Studies" Ning Wang argues that cultural studies is characterized by being opposed to (elite) literary studies not only because it points to popular or non-elite literature, but also because it challenges the discipline of comparative literature. On the other hand, (comparative) cultural studies complements literary studies in that it contributes a great deal to the reconstruction of a sort of new comparative literature. Wang illustrates how some of the representative Anglo-American comparatists are now doing cultural criticism while still engaging in comparative literature and they paved the way for …

Adiga's The White Tiger As World Bank Literature, Abdullah M. Al-Dagamseh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Adiga's The White Tiger as World Bank Literature" Abdullah M. Al-Dagamseh reads Aravind Adiga's novel within the context of global neoliberal capitalism, especially as radical neoliberal reforms took root in India in 1991. Al-Dagamseh argues that The White Tiger read as world bank literature provides critiques of the globally hegemonic discourses of success story narratives by exposing the contradictions of different, but overlapping facets of neoliberal ideology. Further, Al-Dagamseh demonstrates that the novel serves to reveal the contradiction between mythical global narratives and the reality and nature of "success" and "development" achieved through violence, crime, and destruction …