Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Americans Progress Forgot? An Interdisciplinary Study Of The Role Of Media In Opiate Politics, Rachael M. Erickson

Senior Theses

The most recent opioid crisis in the United States was largely described, by politicians, the media, and subsequently members of the voting public, as being an issue primarily affecting rural White communities. This phenomenon is shaped by the fact that the rate at which White Americans use opiates is outpaced by the frequency with which White American use of opiates is described as an issue of human interest in opinion or editorial articles in news media. In this thesis I aim to understand how the racialized public and political perception of opiate use is shaped by local media.

The following …

Fixing The System: A Comparative Review Of The United Kingdom, Germany, And United States’ Healthcare Systems And Lessons Learned For Potential Improvements In The United States, Jessica Goddard

Senior Theses

In an effort to provide recommendations to the United States’ considerations of a universal healthcare system, this thesis analyzes the United States healthcare system alongside the sophisticated systems of the United Kingdom and Germany. Literature review and an analysis of 10 health outcomes and indicators guided the framework for a set of interview questions to be asked of healthcare professionals in all three countries. The interview response data was then organized and used to guide the suggested recommendations to the United States in its path towards universal healthcare. While a limited number of solutions could be provided given the time …

Girls Just Want To Be Safe: An Analysis Of Drugged Drinking And Prevention Amongst Students At The University Of South Carolina, C. Gray Forsberg

Senior Theses

Drink-spiking has become a well-known phenomenon since the turn of the century, especially on college campuses in the United States. Drink-spiking or drugging can be defined as “adding alcohol or drugs into someone’s drink without their knowledge or permission” (Alcohol and Drug Foundation, 2006). Drink-spiking is not just relevant to the concern of an illicit substance being placed into an alcoholic drink, but adding additional alcohol to drinks or adding alcohol or drugs to non-alcoholic drinks is considered drugging as well. This study collected data through a survey sent to 250 current students at the University of South Carolina regarding …

Racial Differences In Hormonal Contraception Use And Accessibility Among University Of South Carolina-Columbia Undergraduate Women, Ian L. Mencken

Senior Theses

The objective of this study is to see if there are racial disparities in hormonal contraception use amongst USC Columbia undergraduate women, similar to nationwide trends noted in previous studies. This research is important as undesired pregnancies are more prevalent for Black and Hispanic women, and recent legislative changes throughout the nation - and specifically in South Carolina - are challenging abortion rights, thereby increasing the importance of birth control in preventing an undesired pregnancy. Increasing access to hormonal birth control serves to increase body autonomy and a woman’s agency over reproduction, specifically in the face of these current challenges …

A Comparative Investigation Of Tonal Memory Improvements With Electronic And Vocal Pitch Stimulus Training, Grayson M. Fletcher

Senior Theses

The study described herein compares improvements in tonal memory for young adults (age 19- 22), specifically retention of pitches, between two groups (n1=8, n2=8) with nearly identical training programs. One group was provided electronic pitch stimuli for the training program, while the other group was given human vocal stimuli. Self-paced computerized training sessions were conducted in a soundproofed testing room and interposed between pre-test and post-test measurements. A pre-test—post-test randomized experimental design allowed for assessment of whether the training was effective for each group in addition to comparing effectiveness of training between groups. Analyses with demographic factors, particularly previous musical …

Understanding Pressures College Women Feel To Have Sex, Hannah L. Mccrone

Senior Theses

On college campuses, there is a culture that revolves around sex. This culture can be referred to as “hookup culture” and is a popular aspect of the college experience. “Hookup culture” can be defined as a culture revolving around casual-sex or short term sexual encounters that are called “hookups”. With more and more exposure to sex, students are also being victimized at even greater rates on college campuses. Understanding this victimization can help us to understand how to stop it. This thesis seeks to understand who is being pressured to have sex they don’t want and how those who are …

Trauma-Informed Workplace Climate, Leadership Style, And Employee Outcomes, Patricia Mowry-Cavanaugh

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Social service organizations face complex challenges in delivering quality care to their clients. In meeting these challenges, organizational culture, leadership style, and agency policies are crucial. Trauma-informed care is an approach to human service that acknowledges the prevalence of trauma and widespread effects of trauma on service users, providers, and organizations. The tenets of trauma-informed care include trauma awareness, safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, a strengths-based approach, and respect for culture and gender. This study is a comparative analysis of servant leadership, trauma-informed workplace climate, and employee factors of compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. Results of the quantitative research indicate that …

Free Money: The Feasibility Of Implementing A Universal Basic Income In The United States, Chase H. Dorn

Senior Theses

The objective of this thesis is to explore whether a universal basic income paid to all United States citizens is both economically possible and advantageous. A recent surge in popularity of the idea has led to a plethora of universal basic income experiments that have been or are being performed across the world, however there has yet to be a UBI implemented on a national level. Using data from these experiments and existing academic research into the policy, the first part of the thesis details the necessary components of a UBI, documents the history of the idea, notes the justifications …

The Fate Of The Language Is The Fate Of The People: A Cultural Analysis Of Language Education Policy In Central Asia, Bethany A. Reeve

Senior Theses

With a shared history under the Soviet Union, the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have spent the past one hundred years dealing with quickly changing language policy and ethnic relations. Under the policy of the USSR, native languages of Central Asia were repressed, and Russian was introduced as the main language of interethnic communication. After they gained independence in 1991, however, each of the five countries embarked on missions to restore the strength of each of their national languages and de-Russify their political, economic, and educational systems. Throughout the region, one of the main …

That’S My Deity: An Examination Of Online Lokean Cultures Through Log-Linear Modeling, Mary Bernstein

Senior Theses

A rise in online religious communities and the growth of so-called ‘Old World’ religions are reflected in the internet’s subcultures of Neopaganism, a growing religious movement that has been documented in America since the 1960s. The religions under this umbrella movement vary drastically and include belief systems such as Wicca, Druidry, and deity worship. Belief systems under this movement lack the traditional hierarchy found in structured religion and lack a singular sacred text. As such, believers usually find and support one another not through a physical sacred place of meeting, but through an online community that acts as sacred space. …

Moral Injury To Inform Analysis Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Amanda Julia Manea

Senior Theses

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that almost one out of ten veterans struggle with. Although the National Center for PTSD has made extensive progress in characterizing and developing new treatments for PTSD, most veterans still experience symptoms of PTSD following treatment. Novel avenues of investigation, such as developing algorithms to review electronic health record (EHR) data and better understanding moral injury, are being pursued to address the gap that still exists when it comes to treating veterans. Moral injury is the individual evaluation of exposure to a potentially morally injurious event (PMIE) and can lead to …

Reframing The Federal Election Commission: A Nonpartisan Solution, Abby Evans

Public Administration & Policy

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is known for its dysfunction: political gridlock, insufficient funding, and vacancies that hinder enforcement of campaign finance law. This study suggests the root of the problem lies in the agency’s character as a bipartisan institution, and proposes a nonpartisan reframing. This research offers statistical analysis of Supreme Court justice confirmation votes to inform a theory-based restructure of the FEC. The Court’s confirmation process has historically utilized a supermajority cloture vote, however, that threshold was lowered to a simple majority in 2017. The result was an immediate spike of political polarization in the Court. Raising the …

Insights Into The Accuracy Of Social Scientists’ Forecasts Of Societal Change, Sangsuk Yoon

Management and Marketing Faculty Publications

How well can social scientists predict societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? To answer these questions, we ran two forecasting tournaments testing the accuracy of predictions of societal change in domains commonly studied in the social sciences: ideological preferences, political polarization, life satisfaction, sentiment on social media, and gender-career and racial bias. After we provided them with historical trend data on the relevant domain, social scientists submitted pre-registered monthly forecasts for a year (Tournament 1; N = 86 teams and 359 forecasts), with an opportunity to update forecasts on the basis of new data six months later (Tournament …

Nbc Peacock North Spring 2023 Newsletter, Peacock North Staff

NBC Peacock North Newsletter

Highlights include: What's Now -- Peacock Family -- Grey Matters -- Silent Microphones -- Peacock History: How Groucho Saved "You Bet Your Life"

The Future Of Water In Mena Is At Stake, Malak Altaeb

Faculty Journal Articles

The MENA region, one of the driest in the world, is facing unprecedented water management challenges due to the effects of climate change.

Cop27 And The Sustainable City: Global Climate Solution Or Mirage?, Patrick J. Bohlen

Faculty Journal Articles

The COP27 meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh highlighted the gap between climate policy goals and climate reality. In the MENA region and globally, cities are key to advancing climate goals

An Examination Of Well-Being Across Theories Of Career Development Using Latent Profile Analysis, Jessica Schultz

Dissertations

Multiple theories have been designed to better understand how elements of working can affect personal well-being (Dawis, 2005; Duffy et al., 2016a; Duffy et al., 2018). The Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawis, 2005), a classic trait-and-factor theory, proposes that job satisfaction is the result of how well the needs and values of the worker fit within the needs and expectations of the workplace. The Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016a) posits that acquiring decent work (i.e., jobs that provide safety, access to healthcare, adequate compensation, hours for rest, and congruent values) will lead to well-being. Additionally, this theory …

Poster Research Days: Preliminary Researching The Potential Cybersecurity Threats By Using Virtual Reality Headsets, Rashaad Couloote

Center for Cybersecurity

This research aims to examine cybersecurity concerns related to Virtual Reality (VR) headsets. Specifically, we will conduct a literature review to identify relevant articles on the topic, which will be analyzed and summarized in detail. In addition, we will explore VR headsets through practical hands-on exercises to better understand their components and general categories. This process will outline potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats associated with VR headsets. This research will provide valuable insights into the current state of cybersecurity for VR technology and inform recommendations for improving security measures to protect users' data and privacy

Navigating The Personal Statement In An Upper-Middle-Class Community, Natalia Abbate , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis examines college application choices, conceptions of pressure and ambition, and parenting styles as they affect personal statement success in an upper-middle-class suburb of Massachusetts. I draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and Adrie Kusserow’s theory of soft individualism to analyze five semi-structured interviews with Eastborough, MA parents, students, and a private college counselor. I show that Eastborough parents and students stigmatize peers with overt college ambitions despite enacting ambition themselves. They represent their soft individualism approach as a potential sacrifice for college chances, but it ultimately provides students with two things that college admissions officers value …

The Guardian The Month Of April 2023, Wright State Student Body

The Guardian Student Newspaper

News articles from The Guardian for the Month of April 2023. The Guardian is the official student-run newspaper for Wright State University. It has been published regularly since March of 1965.

Tracing The History Of Discourses On Professionalism In The “Sister Professions” Of Librarianship And Social Work In The United States, Rachel E. Trnka

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In Whole Person Librarianship: A Social Work Approach to Patron Services (2019), Zettervall and Nienow aptly refer to librarianship and social work as ‘sister professions’, highlighting their gendered histories and similar professional values. Both librarianship and social work emerged as service-oriented, female-dominated professions in the late nineteenth century. Questions about professional identity have concerned librarians and social workers since those early days, with scholars and practitioners in both fields examining markers of professionalism, such as training, associations, and values. This article compares the historical development of professional social work and librarianship by tracing the changing discourses on professionalism, attending to …

Meridians: 22:1 Bipoc Europe, Ginetta Candelario

Sociology: Faculty Books

This special issue, guest edited by leading scholars of BIPOC Europe Nana Osei-Kofi and Shirley Ann Tate, although focused on contemporary populations, prompts us to remember that BIPOC Europe has a long, albeit relatively underrecognized history (Ramey 2016). By definition, to speak of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Europe implies that these populations are distinctive from the presumptively white European. Yet European whiteness is neither natural nor long-standing. Rather, it is an invention resulting from modernity’s settler colonial, colonial, and imperialist projects in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Australia, as are the designations Black …

Analysis Of Ucinet's Application Status In Library And Information Science In China, Xiuping Men, Ruibin Wei, Hui Li, Bowen Li, Dafang Tian

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance]Ucinet is one of the commonly used tools in the process of scientific research using social network analysis methods. This article analyzes the content of the full text of the paper and explores the application of Ucinet's common functions in library and information science papers. [Method/process] This article first sorts out its common functions through Ucinet's menu and related book content. Then this paper uses CNKI as the data source to collect the full text of 449 papers using Ucinet in the field of "library information and digital library", and uses three research methods: bibliometrics, content analysis and social network …

The Effectiveness Of The University Of Southern Mississippi's Marketing And Branding Efforts Among Prospective Students, Amy Clevenger

Honors Theses

With enrollment rates expected to surge over the next decade, the competition

between institutions of higher learning will also increase. Because of this, marketing

material produced by all institutions will need to adjust to become more effective at

establishing brand identity to attract the attention of prospective students. Using Aaker’s

brand identity model as a framework to understand branding methods, this research aims

to identify marketing communication strategies that are more effective in a prospective

student’s decision-making process. The thesis also investigates prospective students’

recall and perception of marketing material produced by USM to determine its overall

effectiveness and differences …

Comparison Result For The Prediction Accuracy Of Seawater Intrusion Based On Different Sample Sizes And Land Cover Characteristics Using Inverse Distance Weighting And Kriging, Ni Made Mega Melliana Suastini, Mochammad Firman Ghazali, Ananda Dermawan, Choirunnisa Salsabila, Lauditta Zahra, Mila Aulia

Jurnal Geografi Lingkungan Tropik (Journal of Geography of Tropical Environments)

This study aims to determine seawater intrusion (SWI) based on sample sizes' contribution to land cover characteristics' accuracy using inverse distance weighting (IDW) and Kriging. The SWI is explained based on the extracted salt concentration from the dissolved soil. Here, this study used 24 samples of salt concentration, namely salinity samples collected by systematic random sampling and divided into two groups: ground control points (GCP) and independent checkpoints (ICP). Two interpolation methods, namely IDW and Kriging, are used to make a spatial prediction of the SWI, and their results are evaluated based on their accuracy by observing the root mean …

Beyond Reading And Writing: Information Literacy In Higher Education For Lifelong Success, Marta A. Mercado-Sierra, Sarah H. Northam

Faculty Publications

Information Literacy is critical to finding, evaluating, using, and creating information. It also influences how we navigate daily life, workplace environments, and civic participation. Several Information Literacy standards state that it is a human right. Everyone should have access to the necessary tools to develop their information literacy skills. We argue that students transitioning from high school to college are not college prepared for practicing information literacy. Faculty and Librarians both undertake the work to teach information literacy. Still, it would be more effective for Faculty-Librarian partnerships to utilize strengths in their discipline areas to teach information literacy skills.

The Future Of Banking: Consumer Protection And Contagion Risks Of Cryptocurrency, Anthony Choi

Student Publications

The emergence of digital assets in the financial services industry in the 21st century raised concerns pertaining to consumer protection, regulatory oversight, and the safety and soundness of the United States financial system. In the efforts to foster digital assets in financial markets, lawmakers at both state and federal governments have begun spearheading regulatory initiatives aimed at protecting investors and consumers. This paper considers historical and current issues surrounding cryptocurrency, as well as existing policy and regulatory responses at the federal level. Among a wide array of policy issues regarding digital assets, this paper examines the consumer protection and contagion …

The Global North And Global South In Political Dilemma: Postmaterialist Effects Of Age On Government Trust, Anthony Choi

Student Publications

The ever-changing nature of the population in different age cohorts creates a variance in issue priorities between and among younger and older generations. This relationship can be explained by the theory of postmaterialism, which insists that there is a rising attachment among young people to postmaterialist values and goals, such as self-expression, especially within the society of younger age cohorts. As younger generations have become more prevalent in demanding the United States government and other nations in the Global North to engage in lawmaking that nourishes their postmaterialist values and needs, I attempt to examine the relationship between one’s age …

Resources, Amy J. Hirshman, Madison Mccormick, Riley Bowers, Bonnie M. Brown

Hidden No More: The Enduring Impact of Native American and Enslaved People on the Evansdale Neighborhood and WVU Campus

No abstract provided.

Research Days Poster: Cyber Threats On The Manufacturing Sector, Afifa Ghouse

Center for Cybersecurity

Manufacturing companies are more vulnerable to internet attacks now that they are more reliant on technology and digital infrastructure. Cyberattacks on the manufacturing industry can have serious consequences, such as production delays, the theft of intellectual property, and damage to one's reputation. At least 437 ransomware assaults occurred in the manufacturing sector in 2022, making up more than 70% of these expensive and disruptive attacks.