Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Busy Intersections: A Framework For Revitalization, George Tucker Childs

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Slides from a presentation given to the 4^th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation (ICLDC4), University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaii. 26 Feb – 1 Mar., 2015.

Consuming Poverty: The Unexpected Politics Of Food Aid In An Era Of Austerity, Maggie Dickinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tracks the remarkable growth of food assistance in the U.S. over the past fifteen years and asks what this expansion of food aid means for poor people living in New York City. Much of the scholarly literature on welfare policy in the U.S argues that social programs have become more stingy and punitive, particularly since the passage of welfare reform in 1996. On the surface, this does not seem to be the case for the food stamp program or for emergency food providers like soup kitchens and food pantries. Since 2001 food stamp rolls have risen 120% in …

Was There A Sensory Trade-Off In Primate Evolution? The Vomeronasal Groove As A Means Of Understanding The Vomeronasal System In The Fossil Record., Eva Christine Garrett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Primates have remarkable visual adaptations compared to most other mammals, long explained as associated with a trade-off with olfaction (smell). However, as more information comes to light on the role of olfaction in primate behavior it becomes apparent that olfaction is not a trivial sense. Even humans use smell to communicate, albeit in subtle ways, and the olfactory systems of the lemurs and lorises are very well-developed. Olfaction, however, is actually comprised of two distinct systems - the main olfactory and vomeronasal systems. These two systems overlap in many functions, but the main olfactory system is considered fairly generalized while …

What's "Black" Got To Do With It: An Analysis Of Low-Income Black Students And Educational Outcomes, Derrick E. Griffith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Well-known social scientist William Wilson notes the Black underclass is particularly at risk of developing behaviors and attitudes that promote educational and social isolation. This situation has become characteristic of America's inner cities (Wilson 1996). Education as the great arbiter of social mobility seems to be less true for America's most vulnerable Black students. Low-income Black students graduate high school at a much lower rate than their middle- to upper-income counterparts. This statistic prompts the examination of low-income (vulnerable) students and their high school educational outcomes.

The educational (under)achievement of Black students has been well documented and researched. Far too …

The Relationship Between Teacher Training, Perceptions Of School Violence, And Burnout., Kristi Lynn Geissler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study seeks to contribute to the limited body of literature addressing teachers and school violence (SV). The development of SV is analyzed through an ecological perspective (i.e., Bronfenbrenner, 1979), that allows consideration of how SV is influenced by individual, classroom, school, and community factors. Literature suggests that few teachers report feeling prepared to respond to instances of violence prior to entering the field (Kandakai & King, 2002) and that it is not clear if teachers are receiving adequate training to equip them with strategies and coping skills for dealing with SV (Espelage et al., 2013; Sela-Shayovitz, 2009). The …

Essays On The Impacts Of Quantitative Easing On Financial Markets, Joanne Guo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Due to the severity of the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve had attempted a variety of unconventional monetary policy to support the U.S. financial markets at the verge of collapse. The most well-known of the Fed's unconventional monetary policy is quantitative easing, in which it purchased a large amount of government securities from the markets in order to lower longer term interest rates and mortgage rates. The several rounds of quantitative easing had different impacts, intended as well as unintended, on U.S. financial markets and foreign markets. The purpose of this paper is to fully explore the effects, …

The City Meditations, Nicholas Grosso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This portrait develops a new understanding of how and why cities function and their importance to humanity. Past attempts at understanding cities have focused on their economic roles or cultural centers but have overlooked their great ability to engage conversation and spark new ideas. Drawing upon ideas and theories of architectural layout such as Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities, city planning (Lewis Mumford's What is a City? and Samuel Delany's Times Square Red, Times Square Blue), and social landscape (Jürgen Habermas), this project will develop a theory that considers how the city functions as …

Sibling Self-Management: Programming For Generalization To Improve Interactions Between Typical Siblings And Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Lauren Kryzak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interactions between children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and their typically developing siblings are often of lower quality compared to their typical peers. Teaching behavior change strategies to typical siblings and their siblings with ASD can improve their interactions, but there is limited empirical evidence that it results in generalized improvements. One method to program for generalization is to teach learners to monitor their engagement in behavior change tactics (i.e., self-management). A multiple baseline probe design across typical sibling-sibling with ASD dyads was used to demonstrate a functional relationship between behavioral skills training with typical siblings and their engagement in …

Opportunities For Play-Based Experiences In Post "No Child Left Behind" Kindergarten Classrooms: The Role Of Training, Resources, And Accountability Pressures In Meeting Best Practices, Cristina Medellin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In response to No Child Left Behind (NCLB), opportunities for play-based experiences in classrooms have been challenged over the past decade. Despite research demonstrating the educational benefits of child driven play, teachers and schools have been pressured to focus on improving children's success on standardized assessments which may not relate to the developmental achievements expected from activity based experiences. To explore teachers' response to the tension between assessment driven mandates and best early childhood practices, this study investigated which factors influence teacher practices and values. Specifically, how do teacher training and classroom resources influence teachers' values about the appropriateness of …

The Neurophysiology Of Intersensory Selective Attention And Task Switching, Jeremy W. Murphy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Our ability to selectively attend to certain aspects of the world and ignore others is fundamental to our day-to-day lives. The need for selective attention stems from capacity limitations inherent in our perceptual and cognitive processing architecture. Because not every elemental piece of our environment can be fully processed in parallel, the nervous system must prioritize processing. This prioritization is generally referred to as selective attention. Meanwhile, we are faced with a world that is constantly in flux, such that we have to frequently shift our attention from one piece of the environment to another and from one task to …

The Mechanisms Of Transmission: Examining The Effects Of Childhood Interpersonal Violence Across Generations, Amber Nemeth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined the direct relationship between maternal exposure to childhood interpersonal violence (sexual and/or physical abuse) and behavioral problems in her pre- to early-adolescent children. It also examined whether maternal aggression (psychological and physical aggression) and emotion dysregulation (lifetime PTSD diagnosis and alexithymia) exerted a significant indirect effect on this relationship. This study was a secondary analysis of data collected from a cross-sectional and cross-generational study designed to examine associations among maternal impairments (substance abuse, general psychopathology, neuropychological functioning), child-rearing deficits (parenting deficits, child neglect, child physical/ sexual abuse), and adverse child outcomes (self-regulation deficits, aggressive behavior, and substance …

Learning To Write Without Writing: Using Conditional Discrimination Training To Establish An Expressive Repertoire, John Spear

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interpreting and describing complex information shown in graphs are essential skills to be mastered by students majoring in psychology. The dissertation describes conditional discrimination training procedures that induced students' writing of descriptions of graphs. This training was designed to establish targeted conditional and joint stimulus control by elements of graphs and their printed descriptions. Thus, writing, a production-based performance, was induced by conditional discrimination training, a selection-based procedure.

Children First Reforms, Fair Student Funding And The Displacement Of Accountability In The New York City Department Of Education, Daniel Voloch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the first decade of the 21st century, Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg oversaw a radical transformation of the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) into a portfolio management district in which the primary responsibility of the NYCDOE was not to develop the capacity of school leaders or teachers, but instead to create a marketplace through which strong schools could be created and failing schools could be closed. Central to these reforms was a focus on the individual school as the site of both reform and accountability. In a 2006 interview with William Ouchi (2009), Joel Klein …

Does Financial Openness Affect Economic Growth In Asian Economies? A Case Study In Selected Asian Economies, 1980-2010, Hsinrong Wei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent decades, financial liberalization has been one of the most important strategies for Asian countries to promote growth. However, debate emerges following several financial crises on whether liberalizing financial markets and allowing for free access to international capital markets, would benefit or impede economic development. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of financial openness on selected seventeen Asian economies and answer the three questions: 1. Is there any linkage between financial openness and economic growth for these seventeen Asian countries? 2. Does any of the financial openness pose positive or negative effects? 3. If no …

Attention In Hiv, Kathleen Marie Van Dyk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In contrast to the striking benefit of advances in antiretroviral therapy on longevity and health in the HIV+ population, mild cognitive disorders persist (Heaton, Clifford et al., 2010). Additional factors that may be related to cognitive decline and warrant consideration in this population are aging and physical health status. Among cognitive domains affected, attention and processing speed have emerged as particularly vulnerable to the effects of HIV. There are also age effects observed in these domains, and we proposed that reduced physical health can also impact cognition in these areas, comparably to pain. Sensitive measures of attention that vary attentional …

La Poética Del Enrarecimiento En La Mujer Sin Cabeza (2008), De Lucrecia Martel, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

El cine de Lucrecia Martel frecuentemente ha sido abordado desde perspectivas que privilegian las problemáticas de género, así como la memoria y el trauma en relación con la última dictadura militar argentina. Si bien estas miradas sobre la producción de Martel son apropiadas, especialmente aquellas que se enfocan en las relaciones familiares disfuncionales y las dinámicas de poder en los feudos provinciales, se ha dejado de lado el contenido crítico que presentan sobre el tema del empleo doméstico y la relación entre formas de precariedad laboral e impunidad social. Este ensayo propone una lectura de La mujer sin cabeza (2008), …

Theory Development And Pilot Testing Of A New Survey Instrument On Usability By Older Adults, Meriam Caboral-Stevens

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An aging population and the use of technology are two pervasive phenomena that are burgeoning simultaneously. The confluence of these phenomena may present challenges for the older adults that could prevent a successful interface. Barriers and challenges can be addressed by examining the interface between older adults and technology. Usability is described as how well and how easily a user without formal training can interact effectively with the system. A review of the literature shows paucity in nursing theories on usability and the use of technology among older adults. This paper describes the development of a conceptual model - Use …

Techniques For Automatic Normalization Of Orthographically Variant Yiddish Texts, Yakov Peretz Blum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Yiddish is characterized by a multitude of orthographic systems. A number of approaches to automatic normalization of variant orthography have been explored for the processing of historic texts of languages whose orthography has since been standardized. However, these approaches have not yet been applied to Yiddish.

Using a manually normalized set of 16 Yiddish documents as a training and test corpus, four techniques for automatic normalization were compared: a hand-crafted set of transformation rules, an off-the-shelf spell checker, edit distance minimization with manually set weights, and edit distance minimization with weights learned through a training set.

Performance was evaluated by …

Homeland Security And Community Policing: Shift In Federal Funding Post Sep. 11: From Community Policing To Homeland Security, Mohsen S. Alizadeh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the aftermath of the 9/11, Homeland Security became the major model of the American Policing system, thus superseding community policing model. The purpose of this research is to use "before and after study design" to follow the grant trends of policing systems in order to examine whether the catastrophic events of 9/11 had a positive or negative impact on the grant funds of the mentioned policing models. Preliminary analyses revealed that there is significant difference in the mean level of funding prior and after the event for Homeland Security, community policing, and general policing programs. Segmented and Stepwise Regressions …

Guilty Stereotypes: The Social Psychology Of Race And Suspicion In Police Interviews And Interrogations, Sara C. Appleby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over 300 people have been exonerated by post conviction DNA testing, unequivocally proving their innocence. Nearly 70% of these post conviction DNA exonerees are members of minority groups, and approximately 69% of those convicted as a result of false confessions are racial/ethnic minorities (www.innocenceproject.org). To date, there is little research on the role of race in police interviews and interrogations. The present research had two goals. First, we examined Black and White participants' experiences during a mock crime interview. Second, using the interviews from Study 1, we evaluated the role suspect race plays in police officers' veracity judgments. Using a …

Must Be 18 Or Older: How Current Domestic Violence Policies Dismiss Teen Dating Violence, Rebecca Pensak

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

On Solid Ground: Building Opportunity, Preventing Homelessness, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center For Public Management, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Center for Social Policy Publications

This paper presents many of the factors that contribute to family instability; identifies the gaps in programs meant to serve low-income families; documents the role of federal and state rental subsidy programs; and demonstrates the interconnected roles of rental assistance, childcare, and employment assistance in increasing family incomes. The coalition of agencies undertook both quantitative and qualitative research for this paper. The coalition held focus groups with numerous stakeholders across the Commonwealth—families who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness, service providers, and public employees. On Solid Ground thanks the many participants who shared their experiences, as well as …

Rrh Library Newsletter, February 2015, Libraries At Rochester Regional Health

Rochester Regional Health authored publications and proceedings

Newsletter sections include: Transfusion Errors; Ebooks in ClinicalKey®; Used Book Sale; Donations Sought

The Quantity And Quality Adjustment Of Births When Having More Is Not Subsidized: The Effect Of The Tanf Family Cap On Fertility And Birth Weight, Ho-Po Crystal Wong

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

I examine whether the family cap policy that reduces or eliminates incremental welfare benefits for additional births born to mothers already on welfare would affect both the quantity and quality of births in terms of birth weight. I find that the family cap produces very pronounced effect on reducing out of wedlock birth and low birth weight rates among teenagers. The evidence suggests that the family cap policy might not just produce a deterrent effect on nonmarital childbearing but also a quality effect on birth: those births that actually occur are endowed with better health in terms of birth weight.

Balancing Work & Family Responsibilities: A Guidebook For Parent Support Providers, Julie M. Rosenzweig, Anna M. Malsch, Eileen M. Brennan

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

This training manual and guidebook for Parent Support Providers has been adapted from Children/Youth with Disabilities: Their Parents are YOUR Employees, a workbook for human resource professionals originally produced by the Work-Life Integration Project at Portland State University. The research behind the manual comes from over two decades of federally funded studies focused on understanding the work-life experiences of parents with children challenged by behavioral health disabilities. Supplemental materials to the manual for group training purposes include a slide presentation, and a training script.

The survey at the end of this manual may be used as a pre/post evaluation of …

War, Fields, And Competing Economies Of Death. Lessons From The Blockade Of Leningrad, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

War can create a massive amount of death while also straining the capacity of states and civilians to cope with disposing of the dead. This paper argues that such moments exacerbate contradictions between three fields and “economies” (logics of interaction and exchange) – a political, market, and moral economy of disposal – in which order and control, commodification and opportunism, and dignity are core logics. Each logic and economy, operating in its own field, provides an interpretation of the dead that emerges from field logics of normal organization, status, and meanings of subjects (as legal entities, partners in negotiation, and …

Newsletter Catholic Deaf Of Detroit, February 2015

Newsletter Catholic Deaf of Detroit

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Detroit, MI

Newsletter Catholic Deaf of Detroit Finding Aid

St. Francis Borgia Deaf Center Church Bulletin, February 1, 2015

Saint Francis Borgia Deaf Center Church Bulletin

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Chicago, IL

Saint Francis Brogia Deaf Center Church Bulletin Finding Aid

Library Education And Development Newsletter, Volume 8, Issue 3, Uno Library Science Education

Library Education and Development (L.E.A.D.)

This issue of the Library Education and Development Newsletter features Advice from the Frontlines from Shari Spiehs-Hudson, Student Spotlight on Tina LaMontagne, Announcements and Professional Development.

Fundraising For Affordability: Well, Somebody's Got To Pay For It. Panel Presentation With Lauren Fancher, Jeff Galant, Gerry Hanley, And Marilyn Moody, Marilyn K. Moody

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

This individual panel presentation by Marilyn Moody describes the work being undertaken by Portland State University to reduce student costs for textbooks and course materials. It describes the major stakeholders and their impact. It also includes Portland State strategies being used to build support and funding for textbook affordability initiatives.

Full panel conference abstract: These three entities have successfully fundraised in order to address the cost of course materials on campuses. Lauren Fancher and Jeff Gallant of ALG will discuss state government funds for the University of Georgia Regents, Gerry Hanley will present his efforts working with private foundations with …