Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Stop, Question, And Frisk: A Tool Of Racial Control In New York City, Justice D. Evans

Student Theses

Broken Windows policing through the utilization of Stop, Question, and Frisk has been widely used by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) since the 1990s, as guaranteed by landmark Supreme Court Case Terry v. Ohio (1968). As a result, hundreds of minority citizens have been the victim of routine stops for minor offenses through this aggressive police tactic. This study utilizes 2017 NYPD Stop, Question, and Frisk Data to determine whether broken windows policing, through stop, question, and frisk, operates as a mode of racial control for African Americans in New York City. Through the utilization of chi-square analyses, …

Readability Of Online-Patient Based Information On Bariatric Surgery, Zoë Meleo-Erwin, Corey Basch, Joseph Fera, Danna Ethan, Philip Garcia

Publications and Research

Background: Web-based patient education literature has been shown to be written at reading levels far above what is recommended. Little is known about the overall readability of current internet-based bariatric surgery information. The purpose of this study was to assess the readability of current bariatric material on the internet.

Methods: The term “weight loss surgery” was searched using the Chrome browser on the first 15 pages of URLs that appeared with content written in English. Using five readability measures, scores were generated using Readable.io for written content on a sample of 96 websites. Scores were sorted into the readability categories …

Simultaneous Determination Of Fourteen Antipsychotic Drugs In Whole Blood By Solid Phase Extraction And Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry, Theresa M. Dawe

Student Theses

Anti-psychotic drugs are commonly prescribed to patients to treat several mental conditions, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and manic-depressive disorder. The analysis of anti-psychotic drugs in blood is a common practice in clinical and forensic toxicology, to monitor drug treatment (therapeutic drug monitoring) or to explain the cause of the impairment or intoxication in human performance and in postmortem cases. However, most of the current studies have been performed in plasma, and a limited number in blood. We developed and validated a method to confirm and quantify a panel of commonly prescribed anti-psychotic drugs in whole blood using solid phase extraction …

Fight, Flight, And Free Will: How Knowledge Of Biopsychosocial Effects Of Trauma Influence Free Will Beliefs And Punishment For Juvenile And Adult Offenders, Rachel Lazar

Student Theses

Justifications for punishment are generally grounded in retribution or consequentialism. Retribution presupposes a belief in free will, claiming that offenders freely and rationally choose to commit a criminal act, and are therefore deserving of punishment. Consequentialism does not necessitate a reliance on free will, and views punishment as means to a valuable end. In recent years, neuroscientific research has challenged the notion of free will, providing one pathway for a public shift away from retribution and towards consequentialism. However, methods by which to instill this doubt in laypeople are still being discovered. To date, no studies have attempted to instill …

Researching At The Community-University Borderlands: Using Public Science To Study Policing In The South Bronx, Brett G. Stoudt, María Elena Torre, Paul Bartley, Evan Bissel, Fawn Bracy, Hillary Caldwell, Lauren Dewey, Anthony Downs, Cory Greene, Jan Haldipur, Scott Lizama, Prakriti Hassan, Einat Manoff, Nadine Sheppard, Jacqueline Yates

Publications and Research

This article is a case study of the Morris Justice Project (MJP), a participatory action research (PAR) study in a South Bronx neighborhood of New York City (NYC) designed to understand residents' experiences with and attitudes towards the New York Police Department (NYPD). An illustration of public science, the research was conducted in solidarity with an emerging police reform movement and in response to an ongoing and particularly aggressive set of policing policies that most heavily impacts poor communities and communities of color. The case study describes a set of ongoing participatory, research-action, "sidewalk science" strategies, developed in 42 square …

Collaborative Research For Justice And Multi-Issue Movement Building: Challenging Discriminatory Policing, School Closures, And Youth Unemployment, Ronald David Glass, Brett G. Stoudt

Publications and Research

This special issue engages ethical, epistemic, political, and institutional issues in projects of collaborative research for justice that were designed with movements contesting policing, school closures, and youth disinvestment and unemployment. Three of the articles were collaboratively written by activists and scholars who drew from movements that deployed research for community-driven progressive change. The movements and the research are thus situated at the intersection of struggles against a resurgent anti-immigrant white supremacy, gentrification, a punitive carceral state, low pay and lack of meaningful employment opportunities, and the privatization of the public sector. These articles build upon and are in conversation …

The Dud Effect: The Effect Of Dissimilar Fillers In Eyewitness Lineups, Shannon Booth

Student Theses

Similarity and confidence are often analyzed in relation to eyewitness accuracy. Duds, highly dissimilar fillers, can impact an eyewitness’ accuracy and confidence. This study analyzed the impact of duds, similarity and accuracy in the context of lineup bias. This study found that in target-absent conditions there is a significant positive relationship between lineup bias and confidence. This study also found that highly similar lineups results in a lower proportion of correct identification, even in highly confident witnesses, compared to medium similar and low similar lineups. Further research should look closer at the “sweet spot” of similarity in order to advise …

Mapping In The Humanities: Gis Lessons For Poets, Historians, And Scientists, Emily W. Fairey

Open Educational Resources

User-friendly Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the common thread of this collection of presentations, and activities with full lesson plans. The first section of the site contains an overview of cartography, the art of creating maps, and then looks at historical mapping platforms like Hypercities and Donald Rumsey Historical Mapping Project. In the next section Google Earth Desktop Pro is introduced, with lessons and activities on the basics of GE such as pins, paths, and kml files, as well as a more complex activity on "georeferencing" an historic map over Google Earth imagery. The final section deals with ARCGIS Online …

Developing And Validating A Fast And Accurate Method To Quantify 18 Antidepressants In Oral Fluid Samples Using Spe And Lc-Msms, Sanghee S. Shin

Student Theses

Antidepressant drugs are one of the most widely used medicines for treating major depressive disorders for long time periods. Oral fluid (OF) testing offers an easy and noninvasive sample collection. Detection of antidepressants in OF is important in clinical and forensic settings, such as therapeutic drug monitoring and roadside testing for driving under influence. We developed and validated a comprehensive liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method for 18 antidepressants (amitriptyline, bupropion, citalopram, clomipramine, cyclobenzaprine, desipramine, desvenlafaxine, doxepin, duloxetine, fluoxetine, imipramine, mirtazapine, nortriptyline, paroxetine, sertraline, trazodone, trimipramine, venlafaxine) in oral fluid collected by Quantisal® oral collection devices. 0.5 mL of Quantisal® …

Lessons Of A Failed Study: Lone Research, Media Analysis, And The Limitations Of Bracketing, Katherine Gregory

Publications and Research

Failed research can function as the underbelly of all qualitative research projects that come to fruition. These shadow projects offer invaluable insights to future research and researchers alike. In this article, I trace a failed life history of sex offenders project from its conceptualization to its abandonment, after conducting a series of searches on the online National Sex Offender Registry database. Through the use of preliminary field notes and an analysis of media representations, I examine the role of bracketing of the topic, as a by-product of the phenomenological tradition, and other methodological issues such as physical and emotional vulnerability …

Microdamage As A Bone Quality Component: Practical Guidelines For The Two‐Dimensional Analysis Of Linear Microcracks In Human Cortical Bone, Victoria M. Dominguez, Amanda M. Agnew

Publications and Research

Microdamage is a component of bone quality believed to play an integral role in bone health. However, comparability between existing studies is fraught with issues due to highly variable methods of sample preparation and poorly defined quantification criteria. To address these issues, this article has two aims. First, detailed methods for preparation and analysis of linear microcracks in human ribs, specifically addressing troubleshooting issues cited in previous studies, are laid out. Second, new, partially validated criteria are proposed in an effort to reduce subjective differences in microcrack counts and measures, ensuring more comparable results between studies. Revised definitions based on …

Public Safety Trends In Map Communities And Matched Comparison Areas. Map Evaluation Update Number 3., Sheyla A. Delgado, Richard A. Espinobarros, Gina Moreno, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

This is the third of six updates presenting interim findings from the evaluation of the NYC Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety (MAP). As part of an evaluation of the New York City Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety (MAP), researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice collaborated with survey specialists from NORC at the University of Chicago to track key outcomes in MAP developments and matched comparison sites. Using the NYC Open Data portal and data from NYPD and SPARCS, the research team looked to see if the presence of MAP showed initial impacts in crime and victimization …

Promoting Discipline Specific Literacy For Law & Paralegal Studies Students: Libguides As Transitional & Professional Tools, Marissa Moran, Kimberly Abrams

Publications and Research

Developing LibGuides for Law and Paralegal Studies students at New York City College of Technology arose from the following question: how do we change the way legal studies students think of the Library as a resource to better assist them in their transition to college level-research and a future career as a paralegal. At the heart of this question is the importance of discipline-specific information literacy at the college and professional levels. Many students have difficulty with locating relevant information to complete course assignments partly because library resources are both fragmented and cohesive. Thus, while part of the transition to …

Flexi Discs: The Audio Format That Time Forgot And Remembered Again, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

Flexi discs, also known as phonosheets and Soundsheets, are “flexible” plastic sheets that can be played on turntables. This audio format was used for a wide variety of purposes including promotional materials, giveaways, and inserts into magazines, stemming from their origins in playable chocolate discs in the early 1900s (Parks, 2018). At one point in time it was a $9 million dollar business, with the U.S. government as one of the top users of the technology (Penchansky, 1979). Their disposable nature, weight, ability to print directly on material, and affordable manufacturing made the flexi disc an alternative to vinyl pressings. …

Awareness Of Emotions Leads To Self-Efficacy Among College Students, Amy Lee, Emily M. Delacruz

Publications and Research

Self-efficacy is one’s belief in their own ability to succeed in a particular situation or accomplish a task (Bandura, 1977). Previous research has shown that the effort one puts into achieving goals, coping abilities, and behavior in the face of opposition are all heavily influenced by efficacy beliefs. Self reflection and knowledge of inner feelings, areas in which one excel, areas in which one do poorly, and areas in which one need to improve aid in the establishment of goals (Bandura, 1977 & Cervone, 2004). Inner feelings are bound to occur when one make sense of what one can and …

Examining Witness Testimony In Domestic Homicides, Hana Chae

Student Theses

The present study investigated the effects of varying witness testimony on mock jurors’ perceptions of a case where a woman utilizes self-defense as a reason for killing her husband during a domestic dispute. A 3 (expert witness) x 3 (child witness) design was used to examine the effects of two different forms of expert testimony (Battered Woman Syndrome [BWS] & Social Agency [SA]) and its interaction with presence of child witness [age 5 & age 8]. Jury eligible participants (N = 245) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). It was hypothesized that the presence of an expert witness would …

The Influences Of Education, Antisocial Behavior, And Involvement In The Criminal Justice System On Adult Legal Understanding, Lily Alpers, Mark Fondacaro

Student Theses

The current study examined the legal understanding and decision-making capacities of young adults compared to older adults. Furthermore, the current study examined these two age groups on the basis of a history of criminal justice involvement, antisocial behavior, and education level, in order to determine whether these variables also affect legal understanding and decision-making. One hundred and one subjects participated in this study, grouped by age into younger adults (18-34 years old) and older adults (35 years and older). The results of the current study found that participants with the lowest levels of education performed more poorly on the measure …

Fortifying Lower Manhattan's Shoreline, Krystel Campuzano, Mathlyn Mckie

Publications and Research

Lower Manhattan comprises less than 1% of the entire city’s land area, but generates almost 10% of the city’s total economic output, as measured by Gross City Product, and is the location of over 10% of all New York City jobs. Workers in Lower Manhattan come from all parts of the city. The District’s growth is supported by excellent access to transit, with 19 out of 25 subway lines and 26 ferry lines passing through the District. Any climate impacts in the District will resonate across the city as a whole and beyond. Because Lower Manhattan is a critical economic, …

An Evaluation Of The Impact Of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals In Nyc, Jeremy J. Sze

Theses and Dissertations

I evaluated the impact of the phased introduction of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals (LPIs) on collision and injury outcomes at 12,987 signalized traffic intersections in New York City over the course of 25 quarters from 2012 to 2018. An intersection is treated when a LPIs is installed to give pedestrians lead time to cross the street before vehicles are allowed to move. Outcomes from NYPD’s Motor Vehicle Collisions data were matched to signalized intersections. I hypothesize that LPIs would reduce collisions and reduce injuries for pedestrians at intersections. A difference in difference fixed effects panel regression was used to identify …

Link Link Circus, Isabella Rossellini

Theses and Dissertations

Link Link Circus is a theatrical script that presents historical, philosophical and scientific perspectives on the evolutionary, cognitive, behavioral and communicative links between humans and other animals. On stage two actors and a trained dog address the core question “Can animals think and feel?“

Contagious Yawning In The Domestic Cat (Felis Catus), Ariel M. Lombardo Aghishian

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates contagious yawning in domestic cats towards their owners, looking at potential links with empathy. Results showed no significant difference in yawning between conditions. The solitary nature of wildcats and their shared ancestor, and the unique social behavior in domesticated cats may explain these findings.

The Impact Of Step Parenting On The Health, Behavior And Development Of School-Aged Children, Emmanuel Botwe

Theses and Dissertations

The American family structure has changed rapidly over the years, from the traditional two-biological-parent household to a variety of other family configurations, leading to a substantial number of children growing up in step-families. This paper examines the impact of step-parenting on child health outcomes among school-aged children.

The Effect Of Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (Daca) Attainment On Risky Health Behaviors: Alcohol Consumption And Smoking, Xiomara D. Camacho

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the effects of receiving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status on the recipients’ risky health behaviors. I explore the effect of obtaining DACA on the individual’s likelihood to consume alcohol and smoke in the past year using data from the US National Health Interview Survey.

Observation Of Visitors At A Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Schweinfurthii) Ecotourism Site Reveals Opportunity For Multiple Modes Of Pathogen Transmission, Darcey Glasser

Theses and Dissertations

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) tracking is a popular ecotourism activity across Sub-Saharan Africa, offering visitors a personal wildlife experience. However, chimpanzee ecotourism may increase the risk of disease transmission between chimpanzees and people. This study assessed how tourist behaviors might facilitate cross-species disease transmission in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Naloxone And Ethanol Addiction Reinforcement, Roland T. Smith Iii

Theses and Dissertations

A study was carried out examining how naloxone administered after high-incentive ethanol exposure can interrupt the reinforcing effect of drugs of abuse in C57BL/6 mice. Naloxone was shown to be an effective tool for blunting preferential and motivational behaviors associated with ethanol addiction.

A Smartphone App Survey To Encourage Sustainable And Healthy Travel Mode Choices, Paul Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Can access to carbon footprint and health [calorie and fat burn] information influence transportation behavior? Survey methods are used in conjunction with a smartphone GPS mobile app to measure transportation tendencies in weekdays – weekends, and willingness to undertake modal shift based on app experience over one week.

The Quality Of Xbrl Structured Financial Statements: An Empirical Examination Of Custom Tags, Aidana Razhap Kyzy

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) system to improve the process by which financial statements can be used. Interactive financial data filed with the SEC using XBRL provides easily readable and comparable financial data, thereby improving transparency and efficiency in the corporate market. SEC rules permit companies to use custom tags in their financial reports in cases when an appropriate element cannot be found in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) standard XBRL taxonomy. The inordinate use of custom tags may result in a reduction of financial report quality by …

Repurposed Spaces In Berlin And Johannesburg, Rebecca Kukla

Theses and Dissertations

Berlin and Johannesburg are repurposed cities, which were spatially designed to enforce a defunct social order, and which now must be used in new ways by new residents. Through a reading of several sites in each city, I examine how repurposed urban spaces and their inhabitants shape one another.

Dependability Of Referees’ Decision Making On Discretionary Penalties In The Nfl, Anthony Stefanidis

Theses and Dissertations

This paper predicts the possibilities of specific penalty types occurring, using a logistic regression model, and evaluates whether there is any possible bias towards teams by referees' decision making. Using penalties that occurred from 2009 until 2018, there seems to be a bias towards teams which are part of larger markets. How successful the team is and how famous some of the players are can also possibly affect the odds of a referee making a penalty call. Due to how underdeveloped the area of research is, there are many ways to expand it to essentially bring further light to whether …

Civil Rights In America: Since 1954, Peter Kolozi

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.