Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Duality Of Public Procurement: How Can Cities Engage In Ethical And Legal Procurement Procedures?, Michael Andrew Flores

Certified Public Manager® Applied Research

Despite its crucial role, public procurement often suffers from neglect and disregard until a city or public officer commits the misuse or misappropriation of public funds. As stewards of taxpayers’ dollars, public officers are tasked with traversing the often forked paths of ethicality and legality. These paths manifest in every instance and aspect of life, from acts of impulsiveness to the careful consideration of outcomes. Ultimately, a path must be taken, which will carry a consequence subject to criticism and proportionate to its outcome. Yet, despite this notion, unethical and illegal practices are invariably committed. There are few greater opportunities …

Push And Pull Factors That Influence Law Enforcement Officer Turnover: A Qualitative Case Study, Andrew Hunter Kim

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A high frequency of voluntary turnover within a law enforcement organization is problematic due to the potential for an increase in expenditures, a reduction in public safety levels, and an increase in liability. However, research has indicated explicitly that criminal justice professions have a high turnover rate, with many organizations having an annual turnover rate of 10 percent or higher. Investigating employee turnover rates and potential solutions to increase employee retention are significant areas of focus that can reduce expenditures, maintain or improve public safety levels by keeping experienced employees, and create a better working environment. A high employee turnover …

Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson Jr.: Central Pacific Theater Army Commander For Admiral Chester W. Nimitz 1943–45, James D. Scudieri

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

This monograph analyzes Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson Jr.’s service as de facto theater Army commander to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz from August 1943 to June 1945. It focuses on the theater-strategic level when Richardson led US Army Forces in Central Pacific Area and US Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas. This study highlights the context of Richardson’s operating environment beginning with prewar plans, the realities of early wartime defeats, and the state of joint operating procedures. It assesses Richardson’s accomplishments in exercising Landpower in the Pacific, across the entire range of today’s Army war-fighting and Joint functions and discusses the …

Employees Speak Up: Engaging Voices From The Human Services Field, Henry J. Davis, Janna C. Heyman, Linda White-Ryan, Dana Marlowe

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This qualitative study aims to understand the perceptions and experiences of human services professionals working within urban communities with respect to their work experiences, compensation, and work-life balance. Focus groups were used to collect data from direct service staff and executive leadership from diverse agencies. This study examined the words and stories, generating the following overarching themes: (1) dedication to agency model and communities served; (2) compensation and responsibilities; (3) reality of work-life balance; and (4) desire for professional growth and personal growth. The results show that while employees expressed personal fulfillment with their work, the issues of compensation, workload, …

Natural Dialectics: Māori & Sioux Ecosophy Encounters The Rule Of Law, Robert T.F. Downes

The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development

In the age of intensifying anthropogenic climate change, an ecosophical shift is required in the epistemological and ontological comprehension of the interrelations between the human and non-human worlds. This shift is essential for refining existing social scientific approaches to investigating and adjudicating questions of environmental governance, environmental justice, environmental sovereignty, in addition to advancing democratic counters to the effects of ecological degradation and environmental catastrophe that move beyond rigid political-economic constraints. This essay constitutes a novel engagement with discourses of radical democracy and radical ecology that applies the philosophical method of dialectical naturalism to an ecosophical interpretation of the human-nature …

Research Review: "A Novel Mind-Body Podcast Program For Military And Veteran Caregivers", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This research review discusses how mind-body interventions can alleviate stress and enhance health for caregivers, but they are not widely accessible in many communities. To overcome this limitation, a study converted an 8-week mind-body program into a 28-day daily podcast series featuring education on stress response, relaxation techniques, and self-compassion exercises. The program was tested with 55 military caregivers, all cisgender women averaging 42.3 years old, and evaluations at the start, halfway through, and at the end of the program revealed notable reductions in stress, depression, and physical issues, along with improved social role performance, indicating that a daily mind-body …

Atrocity Prevention In The Digital Era: Adapting Norms, Laws, And Code To Changes In The Ways Atrocities Are Committed, David J. Simon, Samhitha Josyula, Joshua Lam, Julian D. Melendi

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Emerging digital technologies have changed some of the ways that genocides are planned and executed. This paper examines those differences, calling attention to how changes in the execution of genocide should prompt a shift in the approaches to atrocity prevention. It develops a conceptual framework addressing how atrocity prevention efforts might adapt to new technology within three realms of potential prevention efforts: the ethical (norms), the legal (laws), and the digital (code).

Adopting Oer Course Materials: Instructor Experiences, Jenny Ceciliano

Dissertations and Theses

Traditional commercial textbooks used in postsecondary courses are often problematic due to their rigidity, tendency to mirror the dominant culture, and the substantial cost imposed upon students. Although replacing these texts with open educational resources (OER) can facilitate more equitable and inclusive pedagogical practices while removing a significant expense, there has been insufficient research surrounding instructors' experience of transitioning from a commercial textbook to OER course materials. Through semi-structured interviews with nine postsecondary instructors who teach with OER course materials, this basic qualitative study explores the experience of that transition. The findings indicate that adopting OER is a challenging and …

Observing Cairene Narratives And Subjectivities Towards Covid-19: Reflections On The First Year Of The Pandemic, Sarra Moneir

Future Journal of Social Science

Theoretical and methodological toolkits already existing in the field of political science and social science in the grand sense have been challenged by the tremendous impacts of waves and movements of social change since 2010 in the Arab Region. While political and social scientists were, and still remain, engaged in unravelling questions of how to apprehend the forms of social movements (re-)born, not just in the Arab world but also through the Occupy movements in the US and Europe, they soon had to redirect their focus on issues of migration and refugees, only to find themselves once again confronted with …

Back To The Future? How The Global Powers And The Local Militias Hindered Un Multi-Dimensional Mediation In The Libyan And Syrian Civil Wars After 2011, Ahmed S. Mahdi, Melissia Shapib, Noura Gamie

Future Journal of Social Science

UN mediation efforts in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, which followed the Arab Revolutions of 2011, were hampered by the great power intervention, and by the belligerents' insistence on solving the problem through military victory instead of negotiation. There is a shortage in the literature which examines an alternative, or how UN mediation can be improved. One of the few models to assess, and improve, UN mediation in civil wars is the so-called Kane Model (2022). Using the model presented by Kane to assess the procedures of a powerful UN mediation process in internationalized civil wars, this paper argues …

Approaches And Tools Of Peace And Conflict Management Between Two Perspectives, Yasmine Z. Radwan

Future Journal of Social Science

This study aims at pointing out the tools of peace and the approaches to conflict management and resolution presented in the Islamic and Western perspectives. It also searches for clarifying the convergent and divergent zones that could help in finding, analyzing and criticizing the basic concepts on which arguments and debates are constructed. This study concluded that the differences between the Islamic and the Western perspective are a human requirement for acquainting and integrating based on a crucial notion, which is identity. Identity is treated in details in many discourses and occupies a large place in the Western literature on …

Two Houses Divided? The Parallel Histories Of The Casa De Contratación And The Casa Da Índia, 1500-1580, Gustavo L. Romero

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper seeks to investigate the histories of the Spanish Casa de Contratación and the Portuguese Casa da Índia in relation to one another, identifying possible ways in which each drew inspiration, or imitated the other during the period from 1500 to 1580. Though there is existing research into the individual Casas, comparative approaches have generally been avoided. This work synthesizes the literature and tracks interactions or trends between the Iberian empires from both an institutional and interpersonal perspective. Through analysis of bureaucratic charters, letters, and other documents, it outlines the time periods, possible reasons, and results of this …

Design And Evaluation Of An Esa-Based Method Of Ensemble Subsetting For A Wofs (Warn On Forecast-Like System), Daniel J. Butler

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Forecasting severe thunderstorm environments in the southeastern United States can be challenging due to mesoscale heterogeneities such as shortwave troughs, pre-existing airmass boundaries, cold fronts aloft, low-level jets, dry air intrusions, and mesoscale lows. To combat these challenges, ensemble sensitivity analysis (ESA) may be applied to a Warn-on-Forecast (WOF)-like ensemble to improve forecasts of severe convection through ensemble weighting and subsetting. Ensemble-based weighting and subsetting uses ensemble members that most accurately represent the thunderstorm environment in areas of mesoscale heterogeneity. This study creates and evaluates the ensemble-based weighting and subsetting in four cases of severe thunderstorm occurrence. The open parameter …

Stories From The Border: The Covid-19 Pandemic Through The Lives Of Canada-Us Borderlanders, Andréanne Bissonnette

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many changes in our daily lives. Along the Canada- US border, border restrictions had specific impacts on border communities: family separation, disruption of networks of care, lack of access to essential goods, job and revenue losses and others. While the impacts of the pandemic on border communities were covered by both national and local news outlets in Canada and the United States, the share of coverage that focused specifically – or included mentions of border communities – is limited. The aim of this project was to capture, collect and archive the stories from border …

Experimental Investigation Of The Self-Healing Potential Of Bacteria For Sustainable Concrete Structures Phase 2, Andrea Calabrese, Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Nisarg N. Patel, Nanubala Dhruvan, Austin Adams, Michael Hernandez, Douglas S. Lopez-Cruz

Mineta Transportation Institute

Concrete is a critical component of so much of the modern construction industry. This material, well known for its versatility, robustness, longevity, and strength, is well-suited for a wide range of structural applications. Nonetheless, the widespread occurrence of cracks in concrete structures, primarily attributed to its limited tensile strength, shrinkage, and overstain, imposes a considerable economic and environmental challenge when it comes to retrofitting these fissures. This study tackles this problem by harnessing bacteria tolerant to high alkaline conditions to enable Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) for the self-repair of concrete. This is achieved through an external application method, …

Testing For Spatial Correlation Under A Complete Bipartite Network, Badi H. Baltagi, Long Liu

Center for Policy Research

This note shows that for a spatial regression with a weight matrix depicting a complete bipartite network, the Moran I test for zero spatial correlation is never rejected when the alternative is positive spatial correlation no matter how large the true value of the spatial correlation coefficient. In contrast, the null hypothesis of zero spatial correlation is always rejected (with probability one asymptotically) when the alternative is negative spatial correlation and the true value of the spatial correlation coefficient is near -1.

Evaluating Use Of Evidence In U.S. State Governments: A Conjoint Analysis, Chengxin Xu, Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, Shuping Wang, Weston Merrick, Patrick Carter

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief provides a summary of "Evaluating Use of Evidence in U.S. State Governments: A Conjoint Analysis," co-authored by Chengxin Xu, Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, Shuping Wang, Weston Merrick, and Patrick Carter in SSRN.

Enhancing Water Sustainability In North Africa: Literature Review And Synthesis Of Current Knowledge Gaps In Sudan, Osman M. A. Adam, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Derek M. Heeren, Troy E. Gilmore

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Conference Presentations and White Papers

This study delves into the critical role of groundwater in addressing global water challenges, with a focus on the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) in North Africa. Groundwater constitutes a source of potable water, irrigation, and industrial use, especially in arid regions where surface water is limited. We analyzed the status of water quantity, withdrawals, recharge, and geological characteristics in the NSAS, specifically in Sudan, Egypt, Libya, and Chad. Though the NSAS is largely an untapped resource, we evaluated various scenarios to determine the quantity of cropland that can be sustainably irrigated. The NSAS is located in an arid region, …

2024 July, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for July of 2024.

2024 O'Callahan Society Newsletter, O'Callahan Society, College Of The Holy Cross

O'Callahan Society Newsletters

This annual newsletter of the O'Callahan Society includes articles about the 2023 Annual Dinner. Admiral James G. Stavridis, United States Navy (Retired) was guest speaker. President of the College of the Holy Cross, Vincent D. Rougeau, made introductory remarks. VADM Peter Daly, US Navy (Ret) was 2024 Annual Meeting Speaker.

Adopt: An Environmentally-Friendly System For Alerting Drivers To Occluded Pedestrians Traffic, Abrar Abdulrahman Alali

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The emergence of sensing technologies and vehicular communications has brought significant opportunities for enhancing pedestrian safety on city streets. However, existing solutions rely on costly technologies such as computer vision and trajectory prediction to detect crossing pedestrians, while they have limits in detecting pedestrians who are occluded by parked cars. Despite the presence of collaborative perception by surrounding vehicles and infrastructure, there is a notable absence of incorporating existing parked cars themselves due to their insufficiency in detecting pedestrians and communicating with other cars while they are turned off. Furthermore, accommodating pedestrians on streets has been linked to an additional …

Navigating Identity Through Social Media: Twitter Use Of Muslim-American Nonprofits, Rafeel Wasif, Shariq Siddiqui, Zeeshan Noor

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social media enables nonprofits to communicate with stakeholders. Literature has primarily focused on the social media communication of mostly large and secular nonprofit organisations. This study contributes to this literature by looking at nonprofits’ social media activity belonging to religious minorities, specifically the Muslim-American nonprofit sector. Using Lovejoy and Saxton’s (2012) Hierarchy of Engagement framework, we find that Muslim-American nonprofits conventionally use social media for information, community, and action messaging. However, these nonprofits also utilise social media to encourage religious practices and strongly advocate for Muslim rights. We also find that organisational identity affects social media framing as organisational type …

Impact Of Rainfall On Air Temperature, Humidity And Thermal Comfort In Tropical Urban Parks, Juan A. Acero, Philip Carl Kestel, Hieu T. Dang, Leslie K. Norford

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Urban areas in hot and humid tropical regions are frequently exposed to uncomfortable thermal levels. A well-developed urban heat mitigation strategy is increasing vegetation infrastructure, even though the impact differs based on regional climate. In this study we have evaluated the impact of rainfall on air temperature, humidity and thermal comfort inside a large urban park in Singapore, based on measurement campaigns. A comparison between the park and an urban site is presented. Results show that rainfall significantly reduces air temperature and improves thermal comfort levels, not only right after the rain event but also in the after-event dry period. …

Reinforcement Learning For Strategic Airport Slot Scheduling: Analysis Of State Observations And Reward Designs, Anh Nguyen-Duy, Duc-Thinh Pham, Jian-Yi Lye, Nguyen Binh Duong Ta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the NP-hard nature, the strategic airport slot scheduling problem is calling for exploring sub-optimal approaches, such as heuristics and learning-based approaches. Moreover, the continuous increase in air traffic demand requires approaches that can work well in new scenarios. While heuristics rely on a fixed set of rules, which limits the ability to explore new solutions, Reinforcement Learning offers a versatile framework to automate the search and generalize to unseen scenarios. Finding a suitable state observation and reward structure design is essential in using Reinforcement Learning. In this paper, we investigate the impact of providing the Reinforcement Learning agent …

From Academia To Action: The Aligncare Journey In Pet Health Equity, Michael J. Blackwell Dvm, Mph, Candice Hinkle Mba, Katy H. Carpenter, Linda Daugherty Mpa, T' Fisher, Kayla Anderson Mssw, Jamie Clanin Dvm, Brittany Permaul Mph, Beth Fagiola

Social Work Publications and Other Works

Imagine a future where every family, regardless of their financial situation, has access to the veterinary care their beloved pets need, along with essential services such as housing and transportation. In this vision of aligned communities, pets are recognized as integral family members, and their well-being is vital to the entire family's health and happiness. AlignCare offers a pathway to this future by providing a comprehensive, community based One Health system that aligns resources and services to support families holistically.

This report details the research, development, and testing of AlignCare by the Program for Pet Health Equity at the University …

Mental Health In Price: A Report On Community Perspectives, Kristen Koci, Jessica Ulrich-Schad

Publications

This report is from a research project conducted at the end 2022 that focuses on mental health in Price. Dr. Kristen Koci conducted interviews in Price to understand community members’ perspectives on and factors affecting mental health in the area. Community leaders from government and local organizations were interviewed along with general community residents, for a total of 27 interviews. The report that follows summarizes themes and perspectives gathered during these interviews.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of The Roadside Transportation-Related Air Quality (Startraq 2022): Data-Driven Exposure Analysis By Transportation Modes, Jaymin Kwon, Yushin Ahn, Steve Chung

Mineta Transportation Institute

Particulate matter (PM) pollution poses significant health risks, influenced by various meteorological factors and seasonal variations. This study investigates the impact of temperature and other meteorological variables on PM10 and PM2.5 levels in Fresno County, known for high air pollution. Multiple linear regression (MLR) and generalized additive models (GAMs) assess the significance of these relationships. Analyzing data from Fresno County, we examine PM10 and PM2.5 levels across "hot" (June to August) and "cool" (September to May) seasons. Findings indicate PM10, both MLR and GAM models identify statistically significant variables, excluding temperature and wind direction in each season. However, during the …

Building Partnerships Through Third-Party Facilitation: Best Practices From The Community Collaborative Initiative, Shariq Siddiqui, Abdul Samad, Rafeel Wasif

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Small minority group organisations rarely collaborate with other nonprofits owing to a lack of expertise and resources. Third-party facilitators can help these groups navigate the process of collaboration. However, the literature has largely ignored their role in the process. We address this gap by studying the challenges third-party facilitators face in the collaboration process and best practices they can apply using the Community Collaboration Initiative (CCI), a unique third-party-facilitated collaboration process working with Muslim American nonprofits.

Examining Dietary Disparities And Associated Factors Among Young Children Across Diverse Racial, Ethnic And Immigrant Households In Nebraska, Naveta Bhatti

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Early childhood is a crucial stage for developing eating behaviors which in turn plays a major role in determining health outcomes. Assessing children’s diet plays a crucial role in tackling the obesity epidemic. One of the ways to assess children’s dietary intake is by evaluating their dietary quality. Dietary quality refers to the overall healthfulness and nutritional value of an individual's diet, considering the combination of foods consumed over time. Research has consistently demonstrated that a high-quality diet is associated with a reduced risk of several health issues, such as all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence or mortality, cancer incidence or …

Transportation, Healthcare Seeking, And Outcomes, Xiao Lin Ong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Advancements in engineering and transportation technology have integrated commuting into modern living. Most studies on transportation infrastructure, such as roads and railways, focus on economic outcomes. This paper examines an overlooked outcome of transportation connectivity: access to medical care. We study the role transportation networks play in determining patients’ treatment location choices. Specifically, we aim to study 1) why patients travel to begin with, 2) how do patients choose where to go for treatment, and 3) how travel times can affect patients’ travel decisions. To do so, we develop a dynamic discrete choice, spatial model and provide empirical estimates. We …