Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mountain Communities During A Time Of War: A Case Study Of The Hutsul Region In The Carpathian Mountains Of Ukraine, Pavlo Rybaruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the ethno-ecological technologies employed by the Hutsul people within the highland agrarian economy of the Carpathian Mountains. Over centuries, the Hutsuls have developed ethno-ecological technologies that maintain ecological integrity while supporting community livelihoods.

The study addresses three primary research questions: What are the most important ethno-ecological technologies of the Hutsul highland economy? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be applied to economic, agricultural, and tourism development in the Hutsul region? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be combined with contemporary approaches to encourage sustainable development in the region?

The research explores the devastating impact of the Russian …

Privacy Rights: Their Evolution, Expansion, And Narrowing, Rebecca Nichole Ivans

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Privacy rights in the United States have evolved significantly through judicial interpretation, with reproductive rights playing a central role in their expansion and contraction. This paper examines how the Supreme Court's treatment of reproductive rights has shaped the broader understanding of constitutional privacy rights, focusing on landmark cases from Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022).

The analysis begins by exploring how the Court first established privacy rights through "penumbras" found within various constitutional amendments, particularly in Griswold's protection of contraceptive access for married couples. The paper traces the expansion of these rights through subsequent …

Information Literacy In The Artificial Intelligence Era: A Proposed Framework, Radwan Ali, Matthew L. Wilson

Communications in Information Literacy

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems and applications have become ubiquitous across daily life. While AI offers numerous positive opportunities, it also presents numerous challenges. Information literacy (IL) advocates are concerned about the risks that accompany AI systems. Given the universal reach of AI with its potential pitfalls and perils, researchers and practitioners from various fields and disciplines should inform the dialogue on AI’s development and application. A critical aspect of this dialogue comes in the form of information literacy. Our paper aims to answer the question “How can information literacy guide users in navigating and shaping artificial intelligence technologies?” by establishing …

Between Hard And Soft Power: A Historical Analysis Of U.S. Defense Diplomacy, Shuhei Takahashi

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

In recent years, countries around the world—those of Europe but also Japan, China, and Russia—have accelerated their efforts to use military assets as instruments of diplomacy. This trend has contributed to the rising prevalence of the term “defense diplomacy” in national security discourse. The United States is no exception. Its abundant military assets and its global network of bases clearly demonstrate that it is the world’s leading practitioner of defense diplomacy. Yet the United States lacks a clear strategic document outlining the concept. Moreover, because existing definitions remain theoretically ambiguous and methods for assessing the effectiveness of defense diplomacy initiatives …

Community Approaches To Digitally Documenting And Sharing Conjunto Music In The South Texas Borderlands, René Antonio Ballesteros

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the rich tradition of conjunto music within the South Texas borderlands, examining how integrating community engagement and digital humanities methodologies can effectively enhance the documentation, conservation, and presentation of this place-based expressive culture. Recognizing existing archival gaps, the research employed community-engaged programming to gather and preserve valuable cultural data. A key methodology outcome involved creating digital maps utilizing place-based data related to conjunto music sites and activities, subsequently integrating these maps into an ArcGIS Online story map for public online access. The findings demonstrate the significant potential of community collaboration and digital humanities tools in amplifying cultural …

2025 December, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for December of 2025.

Alexander Asboth: Hungarian Separatist And Union Civil War General, Paul T. Brueske

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This thesis reveals the experiences of a Hungarian Separatist, Alexander Asboth, and how he applied those experiences in the American Civil War. It examines Asboth’s biography, his expansive view of the Union, and how he differed from many commanding officers in the Western theater. Moreover, this thesis illuminates Asboth’s military service, including his leadership of a diverse force at Barrancas, Florida, and adds to the understudied collaboration of foreign-born officers and Black soldiers in Gulf Coast Civil War history.

During the 1848 Hungarian separatist movement, Asboth served as an Army staff officer under the leader Lajos Kossuth. However, the separatists …

Human Capital, Immigration, And Growth: A State-Level Dynamic Panel Study, William R. Cooper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This study examines whether who immigrates, rather than how many, matters for state economic growth in the United States. It integrates a policy-relevant proxy for skill (H-1B approvals) into an augmented Solow framework that separates immigration's quantity channel from its human capital channel and estimates dynamic effects in a balanced quarterly panel of 50 states (2010 to 2023 ). The empirical strategy estimates a two-step difference GMM Arellano-Bond model that reinforces identification using a double/debiased machine learning (DML) variant that orthogonalizes high-dimensional nuisance components via cross-fitting. This design targets the distinct roles of immigrant headcount versus skill in per capita …

Modeling Flood Risks For Small-Scale Coastal Watershed Across Shared Socioeconomic Pathway Scenarios, Sebastian Loschner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Coastal flooding, driven by the mixture of natural processes and human activities such as precipitation, waves, sea level rise, and urbanization, remains a growing concern. While recent flood-risk studies use IPCC's Shared Socioeconomic Pathways with climate projections to assess future flood exposure, smaller coastal watersheds, < 120,000 acres, remain insufficiently studied. Projected sea level rise is expected to intensify these impacts in smaller systems, potentially causing more severe flooding than reported for larger watersheds. To address this gap, this study used the SRH-2D model integrated with Aquaveo's Surface-water Modeling System to simulate flooding in the lower Fish River basin, Alabama. A coastal watershed sensitive to both riverine and tidal influences. Simulations tested different sea levels based on SSP scenarios corresponding to low, moderate, and high emissions for the years 2050 and 2100. Results indicate that the midcentury scenarios remained even in inundation extent and volume, between 9.9-10.4% compared to the 2020 baseline, the latter scenarios had a wider range in results of between 25.9-50.3% compared to the same baseline. Across scenarios, the most vulnerable and inundated areas of the smaller coastal watershed were the narrow points where upstream flow convene with downstream backwater. These findings highlight the need for futuristic location-specific flood mitigation strategies.

Improved Model For Neurodegeneration In C. Elegans, Jean-Pierre Arditi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

During Alzheimer's disease (AD), insoluble amyloid beta (AP) peptides accumulate to form extracellular aggregates (plaques). The direct cause of neuronal dysfunction observed in AD has been broadly investigated. The amyloid hypothesis states that AP plaques are neurotoxic, but recent studies support the AP oligomer hypothesis, which states that intracellular AP (iAP) is neurotoxic. To test this hypothesis, I used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to generate two transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) strains. I generated a strain (RSLl 11) using the rab-3 promoter to co-express GFP in neurons, which showed no gross behavioral changes but had a 50% reduced egglaying rate. RSLl …

Hkc01 - What We Do In The Shadows: How Urban Density Facilitates Information Diffusion And Civic Engagement, Qing Zhang, Evan Plous Kresch

Oberlin College Kasper Economics and Business Working Paper Series

Does urban density facilitate the diffusion of information and civic engagement? This paper exploits plausibly exogenous variation generated by a unique national policy in China that requires all residential buildings to receive sufficient hours of sunshine. The policy creates higher degrees of restriction on density at higher latitudes, where longer shadows require buildings to be further apart. Using differential topic dynamics on a national petition platform to measure information diffusion, this paper shows that people respond to shifts in government attention with varying speeds across latitudes. Increases in local government reply rate to a topic raises the volume of subsequent …

Updated Prevalence Estimates Of Obesity Among Adults In The United States, 2005–2018, Ashley W. Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction

Body mass index is an imperfect measure of excess adiposity but is ingrained in both research and clinical practice to define and diagnose adult obesity. The addition of waist circumference measure is recommended to fully capture obesity-related health risks at a population level. The latest reframing of obesity by the Lancet Commission relies on body mass index and waist circumference, as well as organ dysfunction and functional limitations, to differentiate between preclinical and clinical obesity.

Methods

Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005–2018), we adhere to the proposed redefinition to examine obesity trends in the …

Presumption Of Creditworthiness, Nakita Q. Cuttino

Michigan Law Review

Creditworthiness, or the likelihood that one will repay one’s debts, is typically signaled through a three-digit number known as a credit score. Yet, over thirty-two million adult-aged consumers lack adequate consumer credit reports and therefore do not have a traditional credit score. As a result of being unscored, these consumers are generally presumed uncreditworthy and foreclosed from mainstream credit markets. Unscored consumers are often relegated to extractive, fringe credit markets that neither require nor build credit scores. More insidiously, however, a growing number of non-credit contexts, including rental housing, utility services, and employment markets, look to creditworthiness to determine eligibility …

Exploring The Impacts Of Medical Invalidation On Postpartum Parents With Pcos, Shalini Venkat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) face an increased risk of poor perinatal health, yet little is known about whether negative healthcare experiences contribute toward these outcomes. Patients with PCOS have reported experiencing invalidation by healthcare providers; however, the effects of these encounters in postpartum populations remain unclear. Using data from an online survey, the current study investigated whether PCOS status moderated the relationships between invalidating communication by healthcare providers, pregnancy and birth complications, postpartum depression, and postpartum anxiety. While experiences of invalidating communication by healthcare providers predicted worse perinatal health, those with PCOS solely experienced an increased risk of …

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Teaching And Learning In High School Social Studies Curricula In Georgia: A Case Study, Sharon Ann Mcmeans-Lukiri

Dissertations

Despite increasing diversity within Georgia’s high school student population, it remains unclear to what extent social studies teachers incorporate Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) in the planning and implementation of their instruction. Recent research indicates that many educators continue to struggle with developing effective instructional practices that meet the learning needs of students from vulnerable communities (Liasidou & Symeou, 2018). Students from these communities often experience lower academic achievement (Ladson-Billings, 2009), and when the curriculum fails to reflect or respond to their cultural backgrounds, they are more likely to disengage from school (Ladson-Billings, 2009). This gap between students’ cultural needs and …

“Festivity Without Feast”: Autonomy, Prosperity, Mutuality And Inequality In A Mentawai Village, Darmanto Darmanto

Antropologi Indonesia

Among the Mentawai, autonomy, prosperity, and mutuality are core values that foster their egalitarian ethos. In the last few decades, they have reconfigured these values in their quest for equality with outsiders who have consistently looked down upon them. The state encourages and facilitates their pursuit by establishing a centralised village, implementing development projects, and promoting engagement in commodity production. These processes direct productive work results towards household livelihoods, legitimising wealth accumulation and sidelining sharing practices. In seeking equality with outsiders, the realisation of autonomy and productivity increasingly leads to internal inequality, which is the antithesis of their egalitarian quest …

Accepting Film: A Study On Tradition, Values Change And Continuity In Tebuireng Pesantren, Jombang, Nurman Hakim

Antropologi Indonesia

The pesantren tradition contains values that become a guide for life and become a source for the actions of santri and kiai. The values in the pesantren tradition in the form of akhlak (morals), ibadah (worship) and barokah (blessings) become an anchor for kiai and santri in responding to films that are considered products of modernity emerging from the west. In the past the act of watching and making films was rejected and considered contrary to the pesantren tradition, but slowly now films are used by pesantren to preserve the tradition itself. This article explores how values in the …

Valorisasi Wayang Kulit: Tambal Sulam Pengalaman Pengrajin Wayang Kulit Dan Liyan Di Desa Wisata Wayang Sidowarno, Yayuk Windarti

Antropologi Indonesia

The emergence of Sidowarno Wayang Tourism Village indicates a significant transformation in the traditional art of wayang kulit (shadow puppetry). Wayang artisans in Sidowarno offer wayang kulit as an educational process packaged within a tourism village. However, as they adapt to the needs of others, the values embedded in wayang kulit undergo changes. This article addresses several questions, including: how do the roles of wayang kulit artisans in Butuh Village, Sidowarno contribute to the development of the wayang tourism village? How does the presence of other actors shape and transform the values of wayang kulit? Furthermore, how does …

When Two Worlds Collide: Caring In The Midst Of Bureaucratization Of Healthcare In Malinau, North Kalimantan, Anwar Arifin

Antropologi Indonesia

The issue of healthcare under neoliberalism has been a topic under scrutiny for anthropologists. With the rise of financial capitalism, the state is reconfigured to create a life where the logic of the market triumphs over all other aspects of life. This reconfiguration includes the healthcare sector, where new paradigms of neoliberal governance are incorporated into the fabric of healthcare. In continuing this analysis, I want to address a more specific approach regarding how neoliberal mechanisms work to disrupt caring practices, particularly through the use of bureaucracies. Drawing from various literature and my own ethnographic experiences in Malinau, this article …

(Wp 2025-06) Ramsey And Keynes...And Sraffa And Wittgenstein: Change In Interwar Cambridge Economics And Policy, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

The Ramsey-Keynes exchange regarding the nature of probability is investigated in connection with the development of interwar Cambridge economics and Ramsey and Sraffa’s influences on Keynes and Wittgenstein. First discussed are Ramsey’s criticisms of Keynes and Wittgenstein; then Sraffa’s criticisms of Marshall and Wittgenstein. Ramsey was influenced by Peirce and pragmatism and Sraffa by Gramsci and the theory of cultural hegemony. Ramsey died in 1930 but Sraffa continued to interact with both Keynes and Wittgenstein. After his critique of Marshall he participated in the ‘Cambridge circus’ and turned to recovering the Classical economics of Ricardo. Keynes’s General Theory statement of …

The Road To Regulation: A Literature Review Of The Influences On The Updated Silica Standards, Skye M. Medcraft

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Silica is a hazardous compound that poses a risk to human health resulting from dust creating activities across various industries. Several agencies, including OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) and MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) have adopted regulatory oversight of silica exposure in the workplace. As more research has been conducted on silica exposure, the health effects are becoming better described, which has led to the creation and updating of exposure regulations to protect worker health. The objective of this literature study is to review the data presented to the Department of Labor and discuss how the factors that …

Acceptability Of Corticosteroid Use In The Treatment Of Infant Bronchiolitis: Utilizing The Theoretical Framework Of Acceptability To Design Research Instruments, Caroline R. Smetanka

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Bronchiolitis is the leading cause of hospitalization among infants under six months, yet treatment remains largely supportive due to clinical guidelines that discourage pharmacologic intervention. Recent research suggests that bronchiolitis is not a uniform condition, and a subgroup of infants (those classified within “Profile A”) may benefit from targeted corticosteroid therapy. However, these treatments remain outside current clinical guidelines, and their successful adoption depends on stakeholder acceptability. This Capstone project developed and refined four data collection instruments- two questionnaires and two interview guides- designed to assess how healthcare providers and caregivers perceive the acceptability of corticosteroid treatment for Profile A …

Infectious Disease Crisis Communication After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Macy Lloyd

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has experienced a proliferation of mis- and disinformation, an increasing politicization of health and science, and growing distrust in government, science, and institutions. While these trends present challenges for normal public health communications, during a public health emergency, such as an infectious disease outbreak, these challenges are even more acute. To address challenges at the local level, health departments need plans, products, and tools that adapt health crisis communications to the current media environment and meet community members where they are across the trust continuum. To develop an infectious disease incident communication plan, …

Silent Cries: Analyzing The Psychological Profiles Of High School Shooters, Kayla N. Martinez

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Over the past two decades, school shootings have increased in frequency and severity in the United States, leaving schools, families, and communities with long-lasting trauma. Despite experiencing school shootings for more than 20 years, protocols put in place regarding school shootings seem to only be reactive rather than proactively identifying and preventing the occurrence. The purpose of this thesis was to analyze behavioral patterns high school shooters tend to exhibit using multiple factors and propose potential preventative strategies to reduce the number of incidents. This study relies on secondary data analysis in which behavioral, mental, and environmental factors were examined …

From Student Project To Research Agenda: How Libraries Facilitate Gis Education And Collaboration, Charidy Paige, Jeanine Finn

Library Staff Publications and Research

Geographic information systems (GIS) have been a tool and methodology deeply
intertwined with academic libraries since the initial efforts of ARL and ESRI to support the development of map librarians into geospatial data experts in the early 1990s.
Although GIS in libraries has been a source of successful collaborations, the demands are often overwhelming for library staff. Over time, the scale, formats, and methods of data sharing have evolved significantly, requiring skills beyond many traditional library competencies.

Exploring Electric Bicycle Safety Performance Data And Policy Options For California, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Kevin Fang

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study was conducted as directed by California Senate Bill 381 (2023), which called for research to help policymakers develop effective laws and policy to support the twin goals of expanding electric bicycle use and protecting the safety of electric bicycle riders and other road users. The three major strands of findings presented in this report are (1) a review of how California and other states (and countries) regulate electric bicycle use, (2) a review of the electric bicycle safety literature, including original analysis of primary data on crashes, injuries, and deaths, and (3) strategies that the state could adopt …

Atheist Values And The Religious Other: Negotiating Morality In Indonesia, Malaysia, And The Philippines, Timo Duile, Prince Kennex R. Aldama

Antropologi Indonesia

As being religious is often seen in religious societies as a precondition for having values, atheists often face prejudice as they are seen as people without values. However, as they conceptualize and construct their values with and against the religious other, they are part of society as an arena in which what counts as values is constantly negotiated. Drawing on David Graeber’s concept of society as an arena for the realization of value production, this article sheds light on the values of atheists in religious plural societies in Southeast Asia, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. It analyzes how atheism …

Sztuczna Inteligencja W Systemach Informatycznych Zarządzania W Środowisku Procesowym, Małgorzata Oleś-Filiks

Monografie/Monographs

Współczesne systemy informacyjne zarządzania wraz z procesami biznesowymi odgrywają kluczową rolę w funkcjonowaniu organizacji, wspierając zarówno codzienne operacje, jak i podejmowanie strategicznych decyzji. Monografia przybliża problematykę integracji sztucznej inteligencji z wybranymi typami systemów informatycznych zarządzania ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Business Process Management jako środowiska sprzyjającego implementacji sztucznej inteligencji jako narzędzia wspomagającego sterowanie, analizę i optymalizację procesów biznesowych. Szeroko prezentuje m.in. typy systemów informacyjnych zarządzania, w których wdrożenie AI przynosi największe korzyści, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Business Process Management jako środowiska, w którym sztuczna inteligencja może być skutecznie osadzona jako komponent sterujący i analityczny.

Artificial Intelligence in IT Management Systems in a Process …

Consequences Of Secondary Traumatic Stress On Individuals Without Formal Psychological Training Working With Trauma-Exposed Children, Juan F. Valdez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Literature has suggested that secondary traumatic stress could cause various adverse effects for individuals working with trauma-exposed populations. However, direct care workers performing in shelters designed to serve unaccompanied immigrant children are faced with the task of caring for these minors who may have been exposed to trauma in their home countries, while traveling to the United States, or after arriving in the country. This qualitative case study was conducted to understand and describe the experiences of 15 current employees and five ex-employees who have worked with unaccompanied children for at least a year. These individuals participated in in-depth personal …

Sex, Riots, And Holy Water: How Modern Society Desecrates And Reconsecrates The Sacred, Jodeyah J. Mills

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how modern societies desecrate and reconsecrate the sacred through rhetoric, ritual, and visual performance. Using three case studies, Nazi Germany’s transformation of Quedlinburg Abbey, the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Sabrina Carpenter’s controversial church music video, “Feather,” this project analyzes how sacred meaning is violated and restored in religious, civic, and popular contexts. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic cycle and postsecular theory, it argues that desecration and reconsecration are dialogic acts that expose competing moral vocabularies within culture. Each event demonstrates that even in a secular age, people respond to ruptures of ultimate meaning …