Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons^™

Beyond The Lines, Miranda-Max De Beer

Masters Theses

Long-held frameworks and philosophies developed over human history have rarely accounted for dynamic flux or shifts between parallel states of being; they’ve ignored the glaring consequences humanity’s brief occupation of the Geologic Timeline will have on the planet. These beliefs have enabled societies to operate through life as if there was no tomorrow, (ab)using the Earth without considering those who eventually reap what’s sown. Beyond the Lines identifies manifestations of the mindset that restricts how we understand living systems and the world around us as so much of what exists in tandem with contemporary society does not adhere to the …

Ghost Hotel, George Acosta

Masters Theses

The home, once a private space, now serves as a site of representation and consumerist consumption in the digital age. The thesis investigates the current public sphere surrounding home sharing - a development in the commodification of the home.

The thesis explores a housing typology in New York City - where impermanence and tourism have contributed to hyper-generic conditions of commodified spaces dictated and influenced by media, trends, and ideals. The project narrative presents the uncanny and generic qualities of the home through the rendered image. The satirical images reveal the difference between the illusion and reality of housing imagery …

The Politics Of Expertise And The Articulation Of Authority In Democracy: Cognitive Style And Intelligibility In The Education Of Problem-Solving And Professional Decision-Making In The Domain Of Law, Michael W. Raphael

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Computational complexity refers to the representational aspect of problem-solving. This representational aspect is commonly understood to describe the regularities that organize the definition of the problem-situation, the qualities that designate its difficulty, either in terms of the process of arriving at a definition of the problem or in the process of arriving at a solution. It is for this reason, that it is commonly said that “representational design precedes computational efficacy.” The point of this maxim is to serve as a reminder that an efficient use of resources begins with the design of near decomposability, the specification of the properties …

Operation Summer Care: Territories Of The Stewardship-Hospitality Complex, George Papamattheakis

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Operation Summer Care studies the expanding interest that the hospitality industry takes in the biogeophysical environment. Natural surroundings have long been an essential operational precondition of tourism in the global sunbelt, but contemporary environmental anxieties increasingly motivate different strata of hosts to take a more active role in environmental management. Usually the domain of the state, biogeophysical entities and their spaces—plants and animals, sand formations, wetlands, entire ecosystems and protected areas—are measured, ordered, and managed by actors adjacent to the tourism industry. At the same time, the socio-technical mechanisms of environmental intervention and calculation are conveniently framed as practices of …

Anxiety In The Capitalism Of Late Modernity, Toyo Kawabata

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The logic of capitalism affects both individuals and society. Alienation augments existential anxiety in the current precarity capitalism, which keeps urging competition among individuals to survive in capitalism and grow more. Excessive individualism, materialism, and consumerism in capitalism may weaken social ties and lower self-recognition, augmenting the existential anxiety of individuals. Losers in capitalism aggravate their anxiety whereas even winners may keep being anxious in the never-ending competition in capitalism. As long as people are kept engaged in capitalism, the pressure of the competition leads to a vicious cycle that keeps inducing anxiety, which signifies the precarity of capitalism. Existential …

Dismodernizing The Working Class And Social Reproduction, After The Pandemic Lumpenproletariat: Towards An Autonomist Disability Perspective, Arianna Introna Dr

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Capitalism establishes a fundamental connection between the constitution of society and the sphere of production. Whether in the form of direct participation or indirectly through the performance of social reproduction, the working class is expected to be working. The universals of capitalist society as a work-based society revolve around the material and symbolic centrality of the working class, its struggle and its social reproduction. This association is reinforced by the othering effect that the definitional politics of the universal working class has on subjects defined by their non-relation to the sphere of production, but also by the categories we …

Cultural Lag Does Not Exist: An Exposition And Critical Evaluation Of W.F. Ogburn’S Hypothesis, Heather L. Osborne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite a century of scholarly critique, William Fielding Ogburn’s cultural lag hypothesis (CLH) endures. The inclusion of Ogburn’s hypothesis in introductory sociology textbooks, reference books, and histories of technology lends an unwarranted authority to its scientific credibility. I critically assess Ogburn’s CLH and find that it is neither scientifically nor theoretically sound. Specifically, I discover presumptions of cultural integration and normative progressivism, the fallacy of ambiguity, problems of causal explanation, operationalization, and selective bias, which renders the CLH unmeasurable, unfalsifiable, and non-replicable. Finally, I briefly discuss the implications and make suggestions for future research.

A Cultural Analysis Of Ethnic Identity, Socialization, And Familism From The Perspective Of Latino Csumb Students, Angelica Gutierrez Del Toro

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone aims to study the gender differences within Latino communities from the perspective of California State University, Monterey Bay students and whether these gender differences affect their ethnic identity/pride. This research intends on exploring two questions 1) Are there gender differences among college-going students and the way they are socialized to understand their ethnic identity? 2) If so, Are the respondents' ethnic identity index score and Familism index scores influenced based on their gender? These research questions will be tested by a convenience sample survey by two replicated survey scales. The first replicated study involved surveying 127 Latino adults …

Understanding Involuntary Illegal Online Gamblers In The U.S.: Framing In Misleading Information By Online Casino Reviews, Sinyong Choi

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Although there are many illegal online gamblers in the United States who use offshore gambling sites while falsely believing that their activity is legitimate, few studies have focused on the role of online casino reviews (OCR) who facilitate this activity. These reviews, for a variety of reasons, may present misleading information designed to encourage U.S. players to use offshore gambling sites. Using framing theory and neutralization techniques, we conducted a content analysis of multiple OCR to examine how they present information and justifications regarding the use of offshore gambling sites in the U.S. The findings indicate that many OCR positively …

Exploring Hapi Incidence In Patients Admitted Through The Ed: A Quality Improvement Initiative, Alexa L. Tietgens

DNP Projects

Each year in the U.S., pressure injuries, or PIs, are responsible for more than 60,000 patient deaths and billions of dollars’ worth of treatment costs. Research shows that roughly 95% of all PIs are preventable by following evidence-based practice guidelines which include early identification of patients at risk, frequent skin assessments, and implementation of prevention strategies. However, the ED environment creates unique risks for PI development due to the routine use of hard surfaces (i.e., stretchers, backboards, exam tables) and frequent hospital overcrowding. Although nurses play a pivotal role in PI prevention, frequent staffing shortages, high patient acuity levels, and …

Beyond The Bmi: Expanding Quantitative Methods To Study Health For All Bodies, Kieran Chase, Daniel Oron

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

The public health field is beginning to reckon with its role in perpetuating and reinforcing systemic anti-fatness. Emerging evidence for the devastating health impacts of stigma call into question decades of research and policy that labels the size of people’s bodies as diseased. However, even as we acknowledge the harmful effects of stigma, the field is materially and institutionally invested in a health paradigm that centers weight loss and size-related proxies for health, such as the BMI. Public health scholars interested in questions related to nutrition, chronic disease, and exercise must begin to expand their research focus to imagine non-stigmatizing …

(Un)Weighted Assumptions: Anti-Fatness & Health, Kieran Chase, Nell Carpenter, Madysen Schreiber

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

This lecture/discussion session aims to expand and add nuance to public health students’, professors’, and practitioners’ understanding of the interplay between body size and health. We will begin by naming and challenging common assumptions about the relationship between bodyweight and health outcomes. We will then argue for the consideration of weight-related stigma as a Fundamental Cause of Disease as defined by Phelan and Link, and for institutionally embedded anti-fat bias at the policy level (e.g., insurance policy, medical equipment) as a cause of population health inequity as defined in Whitehead’s Health Equity Framework. We offer these frameworks in contrast to, …

Chatgpt As Metamorphosis Designer For The Future Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai): A Conceptual Investigation, Amarjit Kumar Singh (Library Assistant), Dr. Pankaj Mathur (Deputy Librarian)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to explore ChatGPT’s potential as an innovative designer tool for the future development of artificial intelligence. Specifically, this conceptual investigation aims to analyze ChatGPT’s capabilities as a tool for designing and developing near about human intelligent systems for futuristic used and developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Also with the helps of this paper, researchers are analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT as a tool, and identify possible areas for improvement in its development and implementation. This investigation focused on the various features and functions of ChatGPT that …

Salty: A Diffractive Inquiry Of Visceral Knowing And Embodied Aesthetics, Mei Ling Chua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes a diffractive, onto-epistemological approach to everyday practices with salt in order to articulate an expanded understanding of meaning making and knowledge production. This research reckons with and challenges dominant modes of knowing that engage a Cartesian perspective to situate knowing as the exclusive domain of the mind in both form and topic of inquiry. This research acts simultaneously as both a direct practice of and metacognition about knowledge production by examining 1. the embodied (including sensory and emotional aspects) and 2. the relational (including interpersonal and socio-cultural) dimensions of experience as visceral knowing. This articulation of …

From Extractivism To Adjacency. A Research Manifesto, Margarita Palacios, Anette Baldauf

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

This essay concerns with the ways in which extractivism continues to be reproduced in academic frameworks despite innumerous initiatives of decolonization. Engaging with artistic research and embracing a materialist approach that emphasizes embeddedness and embodiment, as well as acknowledging the affective-aesthetic flows that accompany research, the authors locate the heart of the problem at the disjuncture between critical epistemology and research practices. This disavowed space of knowledge production, they argue, is where the logics of extractivism and its racialized epistemic dualism are reproduced. The authors put forward the notion of adjacency, as in their view, dwelling on the power of …

Queer Ecologies: A Final Syllabus/Zine Product Of Our Independent Study, Yeh Seo Jung, Ray Craig

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This zine is the product of our independent study course Queer Ecologies, which is an exploration of bio-social systems using a queer and feminist theoretical lens. We aim to look critically at knowledge formation and construct alternative visions for more just and sustainable relationships between science, nature, and ourselves. While queer theory most directly interrogates the normative structure of heterosexuality both in humans and in biology more broadly, these studies include analyses of hierarchy, power, and value. Queer Ecology can be used to examine phenomena such as climate change, extinction, pollution, species hierarchies, agricultural practices, resource extraction, and human population …

Seeing And Unlearning Whiteness: A Mindfulness Workshop For Racial Justice, Emily Haranas

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Racism is a deeply embedded, foundational aspect of American society. However, because the privilege of Whiteness insulates White individuals from the workings of systemic injustice and oppression and enables them to choose the conditions of their accountability in the movement for racial justice, many remain painfully blind to this fact. As such, there is a significant need for those who have been racialized White to develop a critical awareness of the powers and privileges ascribed to their racial identity. The working premise of this thesis is that mindfulness can assist White individuals in unlinking the socialized habits of mind that …

Libraries As Community: Investigating Social Infrastructure And Community Cohesion, Mora N. Rehm

Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Libraries are a form of public infrastructure that guide, protect, and preserve the spirit of community. Established as the guarantor of a peaceful, well-informed society, this research evaluates the library's methods and degree of influence over citizens' feelings of community alongside other social phenomena; looking both within and without existing systems, the researcher posits a model of critical librarianship, acknowledging that current practices reinforce existing structures of inequity and privilege. A methodological investigation is then made into the link between library and community through use of secondary data analysis, concluding that strong library systems positively associate with community cohesion on …

Investigating Intellectual Diversity: A Critical Examination Of Academic Publishing Practices And Their Effects On Wildlife Conservation, Madeline M. Damon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Academic publishing processes and standards play a fundamental role in communicating, reviewing, and expanding scientific knowledge in wildlife conservation. However, various publishing biases privilege some research perspectives and worldviews while limiting others. These biases directly impact intellectual diversity, or differences in ontology, axiology, and epistemology. This study aims to quantify intellectual diversity in the field of wildlife conservation and identify how publishing biases affect knowledge available to researchers and decision-makers worldwide.

The study employed a sample of 50,000 articles published between 2018 and 2022, collected from the Web of Science database. To analyze the vast amount of article records, natural …

Rebranding The Battle Against Clinician Burnout, Taylor Albitar

DSW Capstone Projects

The purpose of this capstone project is to take a deep dive into the issue of burnout among marginalized healthcare providers. This paper will dissect key points in history that target wellness and define terms that are relevant to understanding the effects of burnout on a person’s work-life balance. It will be divided into several sections, including an overview of the problem and contributing factors, a thorough review of relevant literature, a conceptual idea that will explore both the problem at hand and theories that can help with its effects, and finally a practice application that will serve as the …