Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

9/11 And The War On Terror: Iraq War Narratives And The Sacrifice Model, Janette Galvan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

What are Americans willing to sacrifice for war and during war? In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, American citizens weighed a trade-off between their security and their civil freedoms because of fear of another terrorist attack. The reasoning was that United States citizens were patriotic and in being so they were willing to sacrifice some civil liberties to win the war on terror to prevent future terrorist attacks, thereby ensuring their future safety and then, perhaps, recover the sacrificed civil freedoms. This thesis project focuses on the sacrifices Americans willingly made for and during the war on terror, sold …

Functional Data Analysis To Guide A Conditional Likelihood Regression In A Case-Crossover Study Investigating Whether Social Characteristics Modify The Health Effects Of Air Pollution, Juana Maribel Herrera Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this study we are focused on exploring whether social characteristics modify the relationship between air pollution and hospitalizations due to asthma or chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (COPD) in El Paso, Tx. The case-crossover design with conditional regression analysis was used, here the controls and the case are the same subject at different

times and has the advantage of removing confounding by permanently confounding factors. Social characteristics are included in the models as interactions with the pollutants, variables included are age, sex, ethnicity and insurance status as indicator for the socio-economic status. The pollutant's lags were chosen using the historical …

Deprivation And Hispanic Health Paradox: Neighborhood Effects On Children's Wheezing In El Paso, Texas, Young-An Kim

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the impact of hypothetical health determinants - including objective and relative economic deprivation, as well as foreign-born composition -at the neighborhood-level on respiratory wheezing among Hispanic children in El Paso, Texas while accounting for individual-level covariates based on hierarchical logistic modeling (HLM). Due to El Paso's majority Latino/a population, focus is placed on the so-called "Hispanic health paradox" through analysis of the impact of neighborhood foreign-born composition on Hispanic children's wheezing. Neighborhood-level variables at the census tract-level are derived from US Census data. The percent of families in poverty and the GINI coefficient for income (income inequality) …

Online Support Communication Among Military Spouses, Larissa Krenzer

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Communal Coping is characterized by the use of a shared support system to collectively manage stressors faced by individuals within a group sharing a common bond. I will argue that Communal Coping is present in the written communication between military spouses through the use of groups on Facebook during times of separation from service members. I will determine how these communities are formed within Facebook and how identities are formed within these support groups online through the use of language. I will examine unofficial military spouse support groups and FRG (Family Readiness Group) pages on Facebook and how group members …

The Threat Of Domestic Bioterrorism: Fact Or Fiction, Stacy M. Langston

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The threat of a domestic bioterrorist attack can be a daunting issue to cover. Using the analytic technique What If? Analysis a scenario was created for a domestic bioterrorism attack in Houston, TX. Indicators were developed to determine how to mitigate and respond to the attack. Recommendations were provided following the attack that can be used to prevent future attacks that were conducted in the scenario. Having a hindsight view of an attack is the best way to prevent and respond to the attack.

Mental Health And Medication Adherence As A Function Of Early Life Physical And Sexual Trauma In Hiv+ Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men, Carolina Lara

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of the study is to understand sexual risk and medication adherence among Latino HIV+ men who have sex with men (MSM) and who have a history of childhood trauma (CT; which may include unwanted sexual experiences, physical threats, physical harm and /or verbal abuse prior to the age of 16). We sampled 150 Latino adult MSM living with HIV at a clinic in El Paso, Texas that offers comprehensive HIV/AIDS services to those living on the U.S.-Mexico Border. We assessed self-reported histories of childhood abuse and participants' control expectancies not only toward sexual impulsivity, but also more generally. …

An Exploration Of Social Media Use Among Multiply Minoritized Lgbtq Youth, Alfie Leanna Lucero

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study responds to a need for research in a fast-growing and significant area of study, that of exploring, understanding, and documenting the numerous ways that multiply marginalized LGBTQ youth between the ages of 14 and 17 use social media. The primary research question examined whether social media provide safe spaces for multiply minoritized LGBTQ youth to express and explore issues of sexuality and gender. In addition, the study explores and categorizes multiple ways that the participants interact with social media and makes comparisons to prior work with more general populations. The study provides descriptions of the participants in terms …

Analyzing The Effectiveness Of Al Qaeda's Online Influence Operations By Means Of Propaganda Theory, David K. Lyons

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis sought to explore the use of propaganda by al Qaeda through the lenses of established propaganda theorists and theories. Through analyzing former al Qaeda releases and case studies in the context of propaganda theory this thesis established a clearer understanding of the effectiveness of al Qaeda's propaganda. After analyzing the propaganda and case studies it was discovered that the rate of those engaging in attacks based on al Qaeda's online influence operations is insignificant. The concerns that al Qaeda is recruiting numerous individuals to engage in attacks based on its online propaganda operations might be overstated and while …

Framed Golden Arch Messages: A Content Analysis Of Mcdonald's Television Commercials In Correlation With The Obesity Epidemic Around The Globe, Laura Leanne Macauley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Obesity is a growing problem all around the world. Fast food companies invest billions of dollars every year intending to sell their new and improved menu items. This study examined one of the largest fast food companies in the world, McDonalds. The present study investigated how McDonalds communicates nutritional claims as well as portion size throughout television commercial messages. The countries that took part in this examination were the United States, Canada, India, and Japan. Each of these countries has much different percentage rates of obese citizens. A content analysis examined one commercial in each of the four countries. In …

El Paso Residential Electricity Demand, David Ronald Macias

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study utilizes a dynamic error correction model to analyze the demand for residential electricity in El Paso County, Texas. Annual data is provided by El Paso Electric Company covering the period from 1977 to 2011. This study reports negative income elasticities for residential electricity demand and indicates that electricity is treated as an inferior good in El Paso County. The negative income elasticity result runs counter to many earlier studies, although recent empirical evidence indicates that residential electricity is also treated as an inferior good in the Seattle service territory. Negative income elasticities are an interesting result, and may …

Mental Health In A Colonia, Guadalupe Marquez-Velarde

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Mental health outcomes in colonias are the main focus of this thesis. They were examined in the colonia of Westway, which is an unplanned settlement in El Paso County with high poverty rates and adjacent to the Interstate highway, a steel plant and other polluting industries with a 97.3% Hispanic population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census). Data were collected through a door-to-door social survey in order to achieve three research objectives. In the first objective, I compared the prevalence of mental health outcomes in Westway and El Paso and found that the colonia residents do have significantly higher rates of …

"Operation Stone Garden": A Case Study Of Legitimation Of Violence And The Consequences For Mexican Immigrants In Chaparral, New Mexico, David Haller Mckenney

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

While globalization is widely theorized in terms of apolitical trans-border flows, this paper argues that the so-called "War on Terror," the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the so-called "War on Drugs" have legitimated the use of violence and aggression. This includes criminalization, closure, containment and deportation directed at trans-national flows of immigrants. Immigrants have become conflated with terrorists, drugs, crime and contamination as a generalized "other," to use Simmel's terms; they are typed as suspicious and dangerous strangers. From this perspective I suggest that the rise of contemporary security regimes or "the mobility regime" that emerged well before the …

When Medicine Divorces Morality: The Effects Of Immigration Status On Health Care Access In The United States, Angelica Menchaca

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study highlights the importance of noting the heterogeneity of citizenship statuses among Latina/os when analyzing access to health care and health insurance attainment. A significant breakthrough in health care in the U.S. came on March 23, 2010 when President Barack Obama signed [H.R. 3590] The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) legislating a "universal" health care system in the U S. While the passing of this legislation might have been a historical accomplishment it was not a panacea for all those suffering from lack of health insurance. The objectives of this study were three fold: 1) to analyze …

Summer Land Surface Temperature: Small-Local Variation In Intro-Urban Environment In El Paso, Tx, Mactar Mohamed

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

It has been well documented that rapid urbanization and population growth have led to the transformation of the natural landscape into anthropogenic urban land and changed such surface physical properties as albedo, energy balance, and surface roughness. Cities, therefore, will be warmer at the urban areas than the rural lands; this situation creates a phenomenon called Urban Heat Island (UHI).

In the recent decades, numerous approaches to study the variation of land surface temperature during daytime have emerged; however, little is known about the variation during nighttime. This study addressed the spatial variation of Summer Nighttime Land Surface Temperature …

Mouth To Mouth, Blake Nemec

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

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Todas Las Muertes De Lázaro, Diego Murcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

TODAS LAS MUERTES DE LÁZARO es una novela negra que habla de corrupción, ansias de poder, ambición y decepción. En este libro, el tema de la muerte es una excusa para hablar de todo un paí­s, El Salvador, y sus contradicciones a través del cinismo, el humor y el escepticismo. Su personaje principal, El Pí­tbul, es una representación del desamparo generalizado que el ciudadano común tiene de las instituciones del Estado. Este detective se embarca -por orden presidencial- en una búsqueda misteriosa que le requiere dar con un amo del disfraz. A medida que el investigador se interna en los …

Changing The Face Of American Culture: A New Perspective On Immigration, Stephanie Ann Quezada

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Immigration in the United States is currently a focal political and social issue. The nation's support for restricting immigration stems in part from the cultural threats made salient after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and from the recent influx of immigrants. The present research investigated the implications of perceiving immigration as voluntary or involuntary and permanent or temporary. Experiment 1, a pilot study, showed that U.S. citizens expect voluntary and permanent immigrants to assimilate to mainstream American culture. Experiment 1 also showed that U.S. citizens expressed greater anger toward immigrants who were permanently staying in the U.S., and greater …

Assessing Regional Impacts Of Transportation Policies And Traffic Management Solutions In Large Urban Areas, Tomas Rendl

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis introduces the problem of the continually increasing demand for road transportation in large urban areas. Associated problems and their possible solutions have been described and linked together in a wider context. Thereafter, a framework for the application of the multicriterial decision making method is introduced in order to help to find the best solution. The proposed framework evaluates alternatives and their potential impacts with respect to nine criteria. This method has been applied in a case study, using the example of the City of Prague, Czech Republic. Based on the results of two scenarios, the city's superior highway …

Developing A Sustainable Ecotourism Foundation In Indonesian National Parks Using Cross-Cultural Adaptation And Communication Framing, Adriana Salas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous research on ecotourism in Southeast Asia has focused on its positive and negative effects for conservation. However, the focus in this particular study is to look at what it takes to run a successful ecotourism site in four diverse areas in Indonesia using communication elements like cross-cultural adaptation and communication framing. Communication should be used as a baseline for a successful site and should be used as the most useful tool to address issues and challenges in ecotourism project development.

A successful ecotourism site must carefully look at how their ideas and programs are framed. Ecotourism must also create …

The Effect Of Religious Imagery On Following Suggestions For Risk-Taking, Jessica Marie Shenberger Trujillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Events such as "9/11" show that religion can be used to promote negative social behavior. The aim of the current study was to test whether religious imagery leads individuals to follow suggestions for increased risk-taking behaviors. The current study used culturally relevant positive and negative religious imagery primes (i.e., Virgin de Guadalupe and Santa Muerte) as well as positive and negative non- religious imagery primes (i.e., Frida Kahlo and La Malinche) and measured the extent to which individuals followed a confederate's suggestions to engage in risky behaviors on a Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Individuals varied in the number of …

Individual Predictors Of Hindsight Bias: A Longitudinal Study, Sonya M. Stokes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The hindsight bias, a person's tendency to overestimate their ability to predict the outcome of an event after the fact, is a phenomenon present in nearly every area of our lives (Arkes, Faust, Guilmette & Hart, 1988). The bias can be mitigated by factors such as analytical and deep thought regarding an outcome and increased expertise (Gray et al., 2007; Knoll, 2009; Arkes et al., 1988). In this study, we examined the growth of hindsight bias over 4 time points using a within-subjects memory model. For our analysis, we quantified hindsight bias in two ways: the number of "flips" a …

Development Of Demand Forecasting Model For Transatlantic Air Transportation, Katerina Strelcova

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis describes the airline planning process, analyzes the demand of the busiest transatlantic routes and establishes a methodology on how to plan new transatlantic routes from Europe to United States of America with Prague Airport as a hub, or secondary airport for these flights. A few of the most used airports in Europe are chosen and flight data in 2011 from these airports to the United States was analyzed. In addition, demographic, traffic and socioeconomic data of selected airports is collected. A demand forecasting model is then developed in steps using correlation analysis, multiple linear regression analysis and doubly …

Eyewitness Memory In Adults, Carlos Manuel Vargas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study encompasses the areas of eyewitness misidentifications and eyewitness suggestibility by developing a Video Suggestibility and Eyewitness Identification Scale for adults. Two hundred one college students were recruited to test this novel psychometric scale following procedures loosely based on the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales. The two main subscales proposed are labeled True, which measures non-leading questions answered correctly, and Yield, which measures questions endorsed based on misinformation; two lineup identification subscales were also analyzed for exploration. Reliability estimates showed acceptable internal consistency of True and Yield subscales after negative feedback was provided; while reliability in Target Present Lineups increased and …

Life And Health Outside Prison, Tiffany Amorette Young

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study explores the subjective understandings of formerly incarcerated individuals' experiences of health and healthcare prior to, during, and post release. The study incorporates in depth ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and life charting to formulate a holistic understanding of how incarceration has impacted the health and lives of the participants recruited for this study. All participants were incarcerated for a minimum of one year in the U.S. prison system. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the fields of sociology, criminology, and public health, and builds on the literature of race, health, and corrections in the United States.

Understanding Local Political Participation In West Africa, Kelly Ann Krawczyk

Wayne State University Dissertations

A growing body of research suggests that institutional performance affects citizen participation (see Holzner 2010; Bratton, Mattes et al 2005; Hiskey and Bowler 2005). But despite this recognition of the importance of institutions, there is relatively limited research into the institutional determinants of political participation, particularly with respect to developing countries. This dissertation fills this gap by examining local political participation in Ghana and Liberia using an institutional approach. I employ qualitative analyses based on field work and primary source documents, as well as quantitative analyses at both the individual and contextual level.

At the individual leveI, I find the …

Debugging The Future: Quality Of Life, Academic Success And Student Acceptability Of Assistive Technology, Brooke Flodin

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"Research has shown that integration of Assistive Technology (AT) in the educational environment is minimal but can offer life-changing benefits. My study explores the obstacles of AT and the relationship between acceptability of AT and student quality of life as well as individual self-reported academic success. I surveyed two existing groups of students at a regional comprehensive university. The first group is receiving assistance through instruction and tutoring services. The second group is receiving support to pursue future doctoral studies. Participants provided self-report of their academic strengths and challenges, acceptability of AT, and quality of life. I offered participants multiple …

The Student's Perspective: Exploring Ethnic Group Variances In Bullying Behavior Using Mixed Methods Research, Stephanie Grunewald

Dissertations

Although bullying is a widely recognized problem among school-aged youth, current research has failed to adequately consider whether ethnicity impacts students' involvement in, and perceptions of, bullying behaviors. This study employed a mixed methodology to examine how an ethnically diverse sample of students in seventh and eighth grade described and perceived bullying within their school. Initially, the Student Comprehensive Assessment of Bullying Behavior-Revised (SCABB-R) (Varjas, Henrich & Meyers, 2008a) was administered to students attending a suburban middle school in the Midwest (N = 750; 391 males, 359 females). Individual interviews were then conducted to further explore students' perspectives of bullying …

Taboo Lexeme Conditioning And Obscenities In American English, Alexander Werny

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Taboo Lexeme Conditioning refers to the neurological, psychological, and sociological conditioning required during lexical acquisition for a native speaker to treat or experience certain lexemes as highly taboo. Taboo words differentiate both neurologically from non-emotional or non-taboo lexemes, and lexically person to person, in at least 4 ways: 1) they exhibit high activity in the emotional and moral processing structures of the limbic system, and can activate, or be uttered, independently of cortical structures involved in propositional language processing; 2) they generally receive a high amount of negative emotional response during lexical acquisition and subsequent usage, which affects how they …

Relationship Predictors Of Prenatal Maternal Representations Of The Child And Parenting Experiences One Year After Birth, Kylene Krause

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Bowlby’s attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982) is one of the most dominant approaches used to describe and investigate attachment relationships and emotional development throughout the entire lifespan. However, attachment research is typically conducted through two distinct fields of psychology: developmental and social/ personality psychology. These two fields tend to use different research strategies and measures and focus on different types and aspects of relationships, yet both make important contributions to the attachment literature (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998). The goal of this investigation was to integrate attachment research from these two fields of psychology in order to broaden psychological and scientific understanding …

The Harvest Of Ministry: Exploring The Ministry Of Women Religious In Cleveland, Robert L. Fischer

Faculty Scholarship

Women religious serve in a range of ministries, often with the most disenfranchised in society. The nature of sisters' ministries has often been reduced to its external character – providing education, health care, or social services. What has been less understood is the enduring nature of the forces underlying these ministries. This study draws on six focus group conversations involving 33 Catholic sisters. The study surfaces key themes that frame a better understanding of the work of today's women religious. These themes can be adapted for others who seek to work with people in need.