Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessing The Reliability Of Physical End Matching And Chemical Comparison Of Pressure Sensitive Tapes, Meghan Nicole Prusinowski

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Pressure sensitive tapes are a common evidence type in a variety of forensic cases, including violent crimes, drug trafficking, and terrorism. Forensic laboratories are often requested to analyze tape samples for composition and potential source identification. Tape samples manufactured from different sources are often distinguishable when using a combination of sensitive analytical techniques. Nonetheless, the interpretation of the data remains challenging due to a lack of standard criteria and guidelines from which examiners can support their conclusions. As a result, there is a need to standardize the protocols of interpretation of physical and chemical comparisons of tape evidence.

The manufacture …

Reconciling The Dissonance Between Historic Preservation And Virtual Reality Through A Place-Based Virtual Heritage System., Danny J. Bonenberger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study explores a problematic disconnect associated with virtual heritage and the immersive 3D computer modeling of cultural heritage. The products of virtual heritage often fail to adhere to long-standing principles and recent international conventions associated with historic preservation, heritage recording, designation, and interpretation. By drawing upon the geographic concepts of space, landscape, and place, along with advances in Geographic Information Systems, first-person serious games, and head-mounted Virtual Reality platforms this study envisions, designs, implements, and evaluates a virtual heritage system that seeks to reconcile the dissonance between Virtual Reality and historic preservation. Finally, the dissertation examines the contributions and …

The Impact Of Post-Fall Huddles On Repeat Fall Rates And Perceptions Of Safety Culture: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation Of A Patient Safety Demonstration Project, Katherine J. Jones, John Crowe, Joseph A. Allen, Anne M. Skinner, Robin High, Victoria Kennel, Roni Reiter-Palmon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Conducting post-fall huddles is considered an integral component of a fall-risk-reduction program. However, there is no evidence linking post-fall huddles to patient outcomes or perceptions of teamwork and safety culture. The purpose of this study is to determine associations between conducting post-fall huddles and repeat fall rates and between post-fall huddle participation and perceptions of teamwork and safety culture.

Methods: During a two-year demonstration project, we developed a system for 16 small rural hospitals to report, benchmark, and learn from fall events, and we trained them to conduct post-fall huddles. To calculate a hospital’s repeat fall rate, …

Attraction Among Late-Adolescents, C. Nathalie Yuen, Tom Koziol, Jonathan Santo

Psychology Faculty Publications

Using a within-subjects experimental design, this study assessed the association between age and level of attraction in 514 male and female participants 19 years of age or older when rating photographs of individuals 19-22. The hypotheses were formulated to test the evolutionary perspective of attraction, that males prefer a younger female mate while females prefer an older male mate. Additionally, this theory suggests that initial attraction is influenced largely by reproductive factors. To test these hypotheses, 320 different pictures for each sex were used to measure perceived attractiveness. Multilevel modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses which were partially …

Essays On Environmental, Energy And Land Economics In China, Yiming He

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation consists of three essays involving environmental pollution, electricity consumption, and farmland leasing in China. These economic analyses are linked by their inclusion of institutional changes which have occurred in China over the past half-century. The first essay examines the effects of environmental pollution and institutional abatement targets on real average housing prices in China. The Spatial Difference-In-Difference model shows that the overall effect of 2006 SO₂ institutional abatement targets is to increase real average housing prices across provinces. The changes in both emissions of sulfur dioxide and industrial wastewater discharges have negative impacts on the change of …

Mirror, Mirror In The Chamber: Effects Of Social Stimuli On Operant Behavior, Michael Steele Yencha

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The variables affecting social behavior are myriad, making the prediction and control of behavior occurring in social contexts relatively difficult. One can attempt to create a controlled social context in the laboratory by introducing a second organism into an operant chamber. To investigate effects of social stimuli on operant responding, key pecking responses of three pigeons were maintained on a variable-interval (VI) schedule of reinforcement in Experiment 1, and the key pecking responses of three additional pigeons were maintained on a three-component multiple schedule in Experiment 2. The components included a variable-ratio (VR) schedule, a fixed-interval (FI) schedule, and a …

Understanding Sexual Prejudice: The Role Of Political Ideology And Strategic Essentialism, Crystal L. Hoyt, Thekla Morgenroth, Jeni L. Burnette

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Despite the increased visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ community, sexual minorities continue to face prejudice and discrimination in many domains. Past research has shown that this prejudice is more prevalent among those holding conservative political views. In two studies, we merge strategic essentialism and motivated ideology theoretical perspectives to empirically investigate the link between political orientation and sexual prejudice. More specifically, we examine how conservatives strategically use different forms of essentialism to support their views of gay individuals and their reactions to messages aimed at changing essentializing beliefs. In Study 1 (N = 220), we demonstrate that conservatives endorse …

Single Parent Households And The Effect On Student Learning, Asia Watt

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine if there is a relationship between single-parent households and the effect on student learning. A total of seven parents and three elementary teachers took a survey. Students’ scores in math and reading from report cards and PARCC scores were also used as data sources. Results revealed that the involvement of single parents at school varies depending on the type of involvement, however, data from the report card review showed all the parents review their child’s report card. Approximately 70 % or more assisted their children in math and English homework. In addition, …

Pokemon Go And Mental Health, Nathaniel Ed

Masters Theses

Pokémon GO is a new type of game that emphasizes physical activity and social interaction. In the literature, both physical activity and social interactions have been shown to be positively correlated with mental health. Much research has been conducted on the effects of gaming on mental health, but to date no research has been done on the possible correlations of the game Pokémon GO and mental health. The present study was conducted to determine whether Pokémon GO players scored significantly lower than a control group of traditional garners on scales of depression, anxiety, and pathological gaming, and if they reported …

Government Expenditure And Unemployment: Empirical Investigation Of Sub-Saharan African (Ssa) Countries, Grace Ayiwah Fosu

Masters Theses

Over the years, there have been increasing trends in government expenditures in most countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, but some of the social-economic indicators such as health, unemployment, education, inflation, and the others paint a blurry image of the effect of the rising public spending. It is worrisome to see that pictures painted by the economic indicators show that budgets made by governments in Sub-Sahara Africa look good on paper than their actual effect in the economy (Andrews, 2010; Peterson, 2010). As a result of this, the question that keeps emerging is that “does government spending actually impact economic indicators in …

The Transition Of Male Student-Athletes To A Division I College, Tori Harrison

Masters Theses

Using a qualitative methodology, the researcher studied high school student-athletes transitioning to becoming college student-athletes at the Division I-level. The study was narrowed down to six, second-year male student-athletes. There were two participants from baseball, two from football, and two from men's track and field. These participants were interviewed and asked a range of questions about their high school experience, their legal guardians' involvement in high school and in college, what their recruiting process was like, and how they managed their transition from high school to college. The interview was broken up into three parts to better understand their transition: …

Gwas Of Qrs Duration Identifies New Loci Specific To Hispanic/Latino Populations, Brenton R Swenson, Tin Louie, Henry J Lin, Raúl Méndez-Giráldez, Jennifer E Below, Cathy C Laurie, Kathleen F Kerr, Heather Highland, Timothy A Thornton, Kelli K Ryckman, Charles Kooperberg, Elsayed Z Soliman, Amanda A Seyerle, Xiuqing Guo, Kent D Taylor, Jie Yao, Susan R Heckbert, Dawood Darbar, Lauren E Petty, Barbara Mcknight, Susan Cheng, Natalie A Bello, Eric A Whitsel, Craig L Hanis, Mike A Nalls, Daniel S Evans, Jerome I Rotter, Tamar Sofer, Christy L Avery, Nona Sotoodehnia

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: The electrocardiographically quantified QRS duration measures ventricular depolarization and conduction. QRS prolongation has been associated with poor heart failure prognosis and cardiovascular mortality, including sudden death. While previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 32 QRS SNPs across 26 loci among European, African, and Asian-descent populations, the genetics of QRS among Hispanics/Latinos has not been previously explored.

METHODS: We performed a GWAS of QRS duration among Hispanic/Latino ancestry populations (n = 15,124) from four studies using 1000 Genomes imputed genotype data (adjusted for age, sex, global ancestry, clinical and study-specific covariates). Study-specific results were combined using fixed-effects, inverse variance-weighted …

Development And Implementation Of An Lgbt Initiative At A Health Sciences Library: The First Eighteen Months, Jessica Petrey

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Background: The University of Louisville School of Medicine is the pilot site for the eQuality project, an initiative to integrate training for providing care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients into the standard medical school curriculum. Inspired by and in support of this School of Medicine initiative, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library staff have developing our own initiative. Because of past and current lack of competent provider training and the resulting need for patients to be knowledgeable self-advocates, however, our initiative was broadened to include the goal of providing LGBT individuals in our communities—both on campus and in the …

A Seat At The Table: Information Literacy Assessment And Professional Legitimacy, Amber Willenborg, Robert Detmering, Samantha Mcclellan

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This qualitative study explores academic librarians’ perceptions of and experiences with information literacy assessment, focusing primarily on issues of professional identity, agency, and power. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that instruction librarians view teaching as integral to their professional identity and use assessment to legitimize that identity, both personally and at the institutional level. While this suggests that assessment has the potential to elevate the status of librarians on campus, the interviews also highlight ongoing professional and organizational tensions that hinder assessment efforts and inhibit librarian agency. The authors recommend more transparent communication, among other strategies, to address these challenges.

Twenty Questions About Design Behavior For Sustainability, Michal Strahilevitz, Additional Author(S)

School of Economics and Business Administration Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

How America Became Capitalist: Imperial Expansion And The Conquest Of The West, James Parisot

Sociology Faculty Publications

In an age of political and economic uncertainty, from the Great Recession to the election of Donald Trump, it is essential to understand the ways capitalism and imperialism are central to the American way of life. The story told in this book brings together a new interpretation of American history beyond mainstream perspectives to chart the ways in which white-settler colonialism pushed expansion on the western frontier of empire, and locates the history through which empire gradually took on a capitalist form. It follows the pathway of expansion from the making of an Atlantic world market through the creation of …

Witchcraft In The Press, Norman Miller

Dartmouth Scholarship

Between 1960 and 2010, Professor Miller collected about 720 newspaper reports on witchcraft in East Africa from local sources. Reports for Malawi and Zambia were dropped from this analysis to establish a collection of 521 reports for Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. This database has yet to be fully analyzed, and is made available here for further research and publication in the understanding of witchcraft violence. The data may be sorted by date, country, press source, or by major topic using the Excel spreadsheet referenced below. Instructors in such organizations as police academies and NGOs concerned with violence against women may …

Afterlives Of Indigenous Archives, Ivy Schweitzer, Gordon Henry Jr

Dartmouth Scholarship

Afterlives of Indigenous Archives offers a compelling critique of Western archives and their use in the development of “digital humanities.” The essays collected here present the work of an international and interdisciplinary group of indigenous scholars; researchers in the field of indigenous studies and early American studies; and librarians, curators, activists, and storytellers. The contributors examine various digital projects and outline their relevance to the lives and interests of tribal people and communities, along with the transformative power that access to online materials affords. The authors aim to empower native people to re-envision the Western archive as a site of …

Investigating The Late Woodland Climate Of Old Tampa Bay, Florida, Jaime Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tampa Bay and the broader Central Gulf Coast region of Florida bear evidence of site reduction and population decline during the onset of the Late Woodland period (AD 500-1000). Concomitantly, Weeden Island culture flourished to the north, while climatic instability loomed to the south. It is unclear if the site abandonments in the area between the two are related to social or cultural change, an unstable climate, or a combination thereof. Interdisciplinary research has provided evidence for climate change and sea level regression during the sixth and seventh centuries in Southwest Florida, but these variables have yet to be investigated …

Analyzing Pre-Inhumation Breakage Ceramics At Lamanai, Belize: A Conjunctive Approach, Ryan Enger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the Terminal Classic period (9th-10th centuries A.D.), the ancient Maya at Lamanai, Belize, began to practice pre-inhumation breakage of ceramics in mortuary contexts. Previously, the custom had been to bury whole vessels with the deceased. This conspicuous shift in behavior suggests important changes in beliefs regarding the role of ceramics in death and interment at a pivotal moment in ancient Maya culture history. Despite this significant change, there has been no published research conducted specifically on these vessels. In fact, there has been no clearly delineated set of characteristics for what qualifies as a pre-inhumation breakage vessel (PBV). This …

Mirrors As Portals: Images Of Mirrors On Ancient Maya Ceramics, Julie Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Maya believed there were multiple worlds in addition to the human world. Portals connected these worlds and allowed active engagement between the Maya and their gods. Without portals and the ability to communicate between the worlds the Maya belief system could not function. Evidence suggests the Maya believed reflective surfaces – mirrors and water surfaces – were portals to spiritual worlds. In this thesis, I examine the portrayal of mirrors as portals in Maya art, focusing on mirrors in scenes painted on ceramics. Combining archaeological, iconographical, and linguistic data I argue that mirrors functioned in service to ritual as …

Reexamining The Relationship Between Divided Government And Voter Turnout, Heidi Beck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the effect of divided government on voter turnout originally posited by Franklin and Hirczy de Miño (1998), which suggested that each year of exposure to divided government resulted in a cumulative negative effect on voters leading to alienation and lower turnout. It reconsiders this argument using more recent data, given that voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections (as measured by the Voting Eligible Population) has increased since 2000, even though divided government has occurred during this period. This thesis also uses new data and methods to address concerns about the original aggregate level research design. The research …

Community Responses To Mass Casualty Events: A Mixed Method Approach, Jeffrey Payne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how traits of a mass casualty event and community institutionalization affect how a community demonstrates solidarity after a mass casualty event. A systematic examination of mass casualty events along these lines has not been conducted before. Theoretically, individual helping behaviors like altruism help explain individual involvement in demonstrations of solidarity while solidarity and resilience help in explaining group behaviors. A typology is proposed that breaks up mass casualty events into four different types: terrorism, criminal, weather and accidents. These types of events make up the majority of non-war mass casualty events. Experimentally a sample of students is …

Acoustic Ecology And Sound Mapping The University Of Central Florida Main Campus, Robert Clarke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Acoustic Ecology and Sound Mapping the University of Central Florida Main Campus" explores the intersection of place and space, sound studies and acoustic ecology, visualization, and archives. The end result consists of a collection of "soundwalk" and stationary recordings conducted from 2016-2019 at the University of Central Florida (UCF) main campus in Orlando presented as an online Sound Map. This archive previously did not exist and provides a snapshot of the various sounds heard throughout the campus as well as a starting point and context for future research into this still-emerging field of acoustic ecology and sound studies. While the …

Utilizing Geographic Information Systems To Record And Analyze Osteoarthritis Data In Joints Of The Arm: A Methodology For Dry Bones, Adam Biernaski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common pathologies encountered in dry bone contexts. However, even with the wealth of publications on documenting the presence of OA from skeletons, these studies prove to be largely incomparable due to different scoring methodologies and procedures in calculating prevalence. The standardization of a new OA data collection procedure would mitigate variability in evaluating, scoring, and calculating the prevalence of OA, thus allowing accurate comparison between studies. However, this level of data collection has often been described as unwieldy and lacking concordance. This research outlines a new methodology that utilizes Geographic Information Systems (GIS) …

Repro, But Make It Fashion: Discourses On Sex, Sexuality, And Reproduction In Teen Vogue Magazine, Estefany Londono

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are many possible sources for youth to become educated about sexuality and reproduction, however the media are cited as particularly powerful and prominent sources of information (Jaworski, 2009). Particularly in an era in which abstinence-only messaging dominates sex education, media become a source to which young people turn and where they receive much of their sex-based messaging. Due to backlash over problematic content that perpetuates gender stereotypes and relays harmful messages about sex and sexuality, some magazines, including Teen Vogue, have attempted to shift towards more feminist-minded content (Keller, 2011, Milkie, 2002). This study is a qualitative critical feminist …

Lifetime History Of Concussions And Behavioral Measures Of Anhedonia, John O'Donnell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Concussions are the most common neuropsychological problem in the United States and are associated with sequelae such as cognitive complaints and depression-related symptoms. Recent research suggests that head trauma is associated with anhedonia and that concussions have the potential to damage axons and postsynaptic connections in neural circuits that play a role in reward processing. Anhedonia may be better understood as an overarching construct with multiple subtypes including motivational, decisional, and consummatory. The current study examines the relationship between lifetime concussion history and subtypes of anhedonia using behavioral measures of reward processing: the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT), Probabilistic …

Do Global Cities Make Green Cities? How Global Governance Impacts Transportation In Bogotá And Medellín, Eleanor Jackson

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how global and local governance has combined to deliver effective and sustainable public transportation in cities by comparing Bogotá’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system, TransMilenio, with Medellín’s mass transit system, STIMVA, often referred to as Metro de Medellín. After considering the rationales used to justify local and global authority over climate change, this analysis problematizes the supposed benefits of empowering global and local actors by highlighting the conflicts of interest that plague the elites who mediate the global and the local. In analyzing the global and local interactions, this work draws from extensive literature to highlight three …

How Political Violence Helps Explain Organized Crime: A Case Study Of Mexico's "War On Drugs", Alanna Fulk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines research from the disciplines of political science and criminal justice to develop a theory that explains geographic variation in violence related to organized crime. Large-scale organized crime violence exhibits characteristics of both ordinary crime violence and political violence, but these subjects are generally analyzed separately. However, as large-scale organized crime has become more prevalent and violent in recent years, most notably in Latin America, studies, including this one, have attempted to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to better explain trends in organized crime onset, termination and violence. This thesis argues that although the overall goal of organized …

Government Respect For Human Rights And Their Relation To Shadow Economic Activity, Christopher Gahagan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shadow economic activity can have detrimental effects on many aspects of a society including trust in government policies, quality of public institutions, government revenues, and economic growth. Empirical studies have generally employed a rational actor approach and focused on economic factors. Most studies in this literature claim that when individuals do not receive the right economic stimuli from the government, it damages the relationship between individuals and the state and citizens opt to move into the shadow economy. A small but growing body of research, however, suggests that certain political factors can also lead to shadow economic activity because of …