Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Black Food Geographies And The Politics Of Resistance In The Brick City. An Intersectional Analysis Of Black Food Provisioning Practices, Food Access, And Racial Food Inequities In Newark, New Jersey From 1666 – 2020, Angelika Winner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work studied Black food geographies in Newark, NJ, which represent alternative food provisioning practices and strategies working within but also parallel to traditional food geographies and exist within and despite of foodscapes of domination. Black food geographies not only include the spatial agency of Black residents but also entail the structural intersectionality and organized abandonment that Black residents currently experience as well as their historical production. Thus, food access of Newark’s Black resident was analyzed with a three-pronged mixed methods research design, a supply-centered analysis from a Positivistic perspective, a political economy-centered historical analysis from a Marxist perspective, and …

Examining The Factors That Contribute To The Survival And Resilience Of The Al-Shabaab Terrorist Organization, Kevisha R. Kellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the enduring threat posed by Al-Shabaab in Somalia, examining three primary factors contributing to its resilience: the mismanagement of international intervention, inadequate government oversight and resources, and Al-Shabaab’s ability to adapt to Somalia’s socio-political environment. These factors help Al-Shabaab foster direct and indirect relationships that allow the organization to survive. Through an analysis of Al-Shabaab’s organizational structure and strategies, this study sheds light on the exploitation of political, economic, and religious dynamics, and the complexity of combatting Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab’s manipulation of an Islamic identity is a political tool, that fosters business networks, aids in arms acquisitions, evades …

Computational Approaches To Linguistic Challenges In Arabic Speech Recognition, Enas Albasiri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to document the linguistic features of Arabic that pose challenges to speech and language technologies and advance these technologies by developing state-of-the-art computational tools focusing on automatic speech recognition (ASR), text normalization (TN), and corpus development. TN converts expressions such as numbers, dates, and times—named semiotic classes—from their written to their spoken domain, such as converting ‘$84.00’ to ‘eighty-four dollars’, while inverse text normalization (ITN) converts verbalized text to its written form. This conversion is an essential preprocessing step for text-to-speech (TTS), and post-processing step for ASR. Arabic presents a challenge for TN and ITN because one …

Expanding The Corpus Of Vocalized Hebrew Text: Compiling An Unvocalized Text Corpus And Building An Online Interface For Vocalization Annotation, Rachel Shanblatt Bloch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Written modern Hebrew presents a unique challenge for training computational models for language processing because modern Hebrew text often lacks vocalization. The lack of available vocalized Hebrew data can lead to ambiguity in training these models and generally hinders work on natural language processing problems. The goal of this project is to contribute to the collection of vocalized Hebrew text by collecting and preprocessing a large corpus of unvocalized Hebrew text and building an online annotation tool. The annotation tool allows people to upload unvocalized Hebrew text, to annotate by adding Hebrew vocalization, and to download comma-separated values files of …

Pre-Stimulus Anticipation And Unconscious Fear Learning Disparities In Individuals With Varying Levels Of Anxiety, Anastasiya Rumyantseva Kharlamova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current study employed a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm to investigate the influence of pre-stimulus unconscious threat anticipation on subsequent fear responses in associative learning. Additionally, we explored the differences in pre-stimulus anticipation among individuals with varying levels of anxiety. Electrodermal response (EDA) was chosen as a primary measure due to its robustness in fear conditioning paradigms. Moreover, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was utilized to assess anxiety levels in participants. Twenty-seven subjects were recruited to determine if pre-stimulus skin conductance responses (SCR) would exhibit stimulus-specific patterns influenced by implicit cues (L-shaped configurations) that indicated an upcoming face or a house …

Resilience, Resistance, And Nation-Building Among Internally Displaced Persons: Kites As A Means Of Transcending Displacement, Michelle Black

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Once a simple plaything, the kite has evolved into a symbol of hope and defiance. This study explores kite flying in Gaza, specifically among internally displaced people (IDPs), as an act of resilience and resistance. It investigates how kites, amidst conflict and displacement, rise as symbols of solidarity and identity, and contribute to nation-building efforts. The research process begins with an extensive investigation into IDPs, followed by an exploration of key concepts such as resilience, resistance, and nation-building. The study then delves into how these concepts manifest within the IDP population. Additionally, research was conducted on the history and uses …

Incarceration Vs Treatment: Is One More Effective Than The Other In Preventing Recidivism For Drug Abuse?, Scott G. Kang

Student Theses

This study aims to determine the most effective approach for reducing recidivism among drug offenders, comparing incarceration with treatment. Two hypotheses were formulated for this research: 1) Drug offenders undergoing residential treatment will experience lower recidivism rates compared to those sentenced to incarceration. 2) Extended therapeutic treatment is more likely to positively influence behavior change among drug abusers compared to longer prison sentences. These hypotheses were tested using data from 263 participants in the Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison (DTAP) program, analyzed through logistic regression in SPSS. The results indicate that therapeutic interventions, specifically rehabilitative treatment, are more effective than incarceration in …

Investigating The Relationship Between Malingering And Institutional Misconduct: Is Psychopathy The Link?, Lily A. Reed

Student Theses

Despite the established relationships between psychopathy and malingering, and psychopathy and risk for institutional misconduct, little empirical literature has been devoted to examining the interaction of these three constructs. The current study aimed to clarify this relationship by examining data from a sample of male criminal defendants within a federal prison located in a metropolitan area of the Southern United States. Data including the MMPI-2, PCL-R, diagnostic, institutional records, and demographic information was collected. Statistical analyses reinforced previous literature and theoretical conceptualizations that posit a relationship between psychopathy and malingering behaviors, as well as institutional misconduct. Preliminary findings suggest links …

Bystander Intervention In The Workplace Sexual Harassment, Yunjung Lee

Student Theses

Despite increased global attention since the #MeToo movement of 2017, workplace sexual harassment remains a pervasive issue. This is because victims of workplace sexual harassment often react passively, meaning that approaches primarily reliant on victim reporting are less likely to succeed. Given this, bystander intervention has emerged as a promising way to prevent sexual harassment and protect victims. Adopting the previous theoretical framework (Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary‐Kelly, 2005), this study aimed to investigate the decision-making process of bystanders responding to workplace sexual harassment, and to identify the relative frequencies of intervention types and influencing factors. 170 participants from various occupations in …

What Does It Mean To Be Kindergarten "Ready?": Trends In Parents' Expectations And Families' School Experiences Across Ses, Lisa Babel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning of Kindergarten “ready,” especially as the practice interacts with educational inequity. Past research used secondary data to show that SES relates to the prevalence of redshirting where children’s school entry is delayed by one year with the idea that the older they are when they start school, the more advanced they will be, but studies do not explain why children from families with lower incomes are advised to start Kindergarten later than others (Greensburg & Winsler, 2020; Reardon & Portilla, 2016). Moreover, family expectations of the Kindergarten participation process, including …

Uncovering The Mimicry Of Online Review Breadth And Depth And Its Subsequent Effect On Consumer Responses, Andrea Pelaez Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Word-of-mouth (WOM) in marketing occurs when consumers discuss a company's product or service or any consumption experience with their friends, family, and others with whom they have any relationship. With the advent of social media, this phenomenon has expanded rapidly into virtual environments where consumer conversation is enabled through chats, forums, social media posts, and online reviews. In response to this rapid growth of online WOM, academics and practitioners have focused their interest on this phenomenon and its implications on consumers, firms, and society. So far, the evidence of the critical role that online WOM plays in helping consumers make …

Creatively Addressing The Employment Gap: Using Creativity And The Arts To Help Autistic Adolescents And Young Adults Build Skills For Employment, Eliana Rachel Grossman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Neurodiversity-affirmative autism frameworks present a shift from deficit-based models of autism to the recognition that autism is but one of many facets of biodiversity that should be affirmed and embraced. However, there is little research examining links between creativity and autism that has adopted a neurodiversity-affirming approach. The dissertation aimed to expand upon the nascent interdisciplinary link between neurodiversity-affirmative autism research and creativity to 1) understand the creative experiences of autistic adolescents and young adults and 2) address the critical issue of chronic unemployment faced by autistic people.

The first study examined the perspectives of autistic adolescents and young adults …

Who Do Civilian Review Boards Serve And Protect? Applying Andre Gorz’S Non-Reformist Reform Theoretical Framework To Empirical Analysis From New York State, Jackson Diamond

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the wake of countless high-profile instances of police violence and repression against civilians in the United States, waves of reformation have washed over American police departments. Some have questioned the efficacy of these reforms, as civilians continue to suffer acts of violence at the hands of the police. One such reform measure, adopted broadly in recent years, is the creation of civilian police review boards. To analyze how this reform has affected citizens’ ability to hold their police departments accountable for their actions, I analyzed a sample of 89 municipal police departments in New York state in the year …

Unveiling Iolanta: Blindness In Nineteenth-Century Opera, Nafset Chenib

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the main tropes of representing and narrating blindness in nineteenth-century opera and fictional literature with a particular emphasis on Tchaikovsky’s 1892 one-act opera Iolanta, with its blind protagonist. Examination of the production history of Iolanta reveals that misrepresentations and misconceptions ingrained within Tchaikovsky's libretto and music have governed directorial choices, consequently giving rise to a homogeneous, predominantly unfavorable portrayal of blindness on the stage. I suggest an approach to the opera that is more consonant with the lived experience of blindness.

Online Communities And Offline Criminal Justice: The Digital Fallout Of Major Criminal Incidents, Jacqueline M. Scott

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

User-generated online data has, in recent years, become an important basis for sociological research, and the ubiquity of social media presages the importance of an increased understanding of its inner workings in the spheres of criminology and sociology. This dissertation examines the dynamics of user-generated information on social media and social news in the wake of 53 criminal incidents which generated higher-than-average interest online. Using multiple platforms and analytical techniques, I investigate the dynamics of within- and between-platform information uptake, examine potential avenues and drawbacks of the actionable information available online during a crisis, and describe patterns and focal topics …

Housing Displacement In Corlears Hook: From Naghtongh To One Manhattan Square, Don Macleod

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The displacement of residents from their homes in New York City began with the European settlement of New Amsterdam and continues to this day. This paper focuses on displacement in Corlears Hook, part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side from the violent extirpation of a Lenape settlement in 1643 New Amsterdam to the gentrification of a traditional working-class neighborhood along the East River propelled by the influx of luxury housing development. Throughout Corlears Hook’s long history, displacement has been caused by violence, well-meaning efforts to improve slum conditions, ham-fisted “urban renewal” projects that favored the wealthy and civic improvements that used …

Context In Computer Vision: A Taxonomy, Multi-Stage Integration, And A General Framework, Xuan Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contextual information has been widely used in many computer vision tasks, such as object detection, video action detection, image classification, etc. Recognizing a single object or action out of context could be sometimes very challenging, and context information may help improve the understanding of a scene or an event greatly. However, existing approaches design specific contextual information mechanisms for different detection tasks.

In this research, we first present a comprehensive survey of context understanding in computer vision, with a taxonomy to describe context in different types and levels. Then we proposed MultiCLU, a new multi-stage context learning and utilization framework, …

Evaluating Climate Sentiment In Sec 10-K Filings: S&P 50 Companies, Ruby Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Evaluating Climate Sentiment in SEC 10-K Filings: S&P 50 Companies investigates how climate sentiment is portrayed in corporate financial reporting, focusing on SEC 10-K filings from leading S&P 50 companies. These filings offer detailed insights into financial performance, risks, and management discussions, providing a rich dataset for analyzing corporate behaviors with sustainability and environmental concerns. This study aims to shed light on the extent to which companies address environmental issues and the implications for environmental stewardship by analyzing how these topics are portrayed in their SEC 10-K filings. Drawing inspiration from established greenwashing indicator frameworks, the study develops a climate …

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, Ege Aksu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of two chapters that investigate the effect of public health policies on health outcomes.

The first chapter evaluates the impact of the extensive health care reforms enacted between 2003–2013 under the Health Transformation Program (HTP) in Turkey on maternal and infant health outcomes for the poor. By focusing on a specific insurance program (Green Card) expansion that was a part of HTP, I explore changes in infant survival, fertility, and children’s vaccination status. Before 2004, all public health insurance beneficiaries (the control group) were covered for outpatient services, including prenatal and postnatal doctor visits, gestational diabetes screenings, …

Diaspora Documentation Of West Albay Bikol, Nhia Borja

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper presents a comprehensive linguistic analysis and cultural documentation of West Albay Bikol, a dialect spoken in Bikol, Philippines. Drawing upon narratives spoken by a native speaker, this study aims to expand the literature on Bikolano language and add the dialects of Balugo and Polangui to the conversation. The motivation for the project stems from a personal aspiration to learn West Albay Bikolano and provide authentic language examples.

The paper comprises six chapters. The first chapter briefly overviews Bikol dialects and Central Philippine languages and reviews existing literature on the overall Bikol language. The second chapter is an examination …

Sexual Selection And Mate Preference In Astatotilapia Burtoni, Anastasia Martashvili

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Social systems provide robust frameworks for the division of labor and the allocation of resources that improve the fitness of a community. These social systems are pervasive across the animal kingdom and are seen in various species of insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish. Within social hierarchies, rank can be dynamic and modulated by changes in molecular and/or physiological substrates. These changes can shape various behavioral outcomes that lead to the reorganization of hierarchies and their communities. Specifically, the role of social behavior in African cichlids has been salient for their adaptive radiations in the East African Great Rift Lakes …

Is Aggression In The Eye Of The Beholder?: An Eye-Tracking Study, Kemar P. Pickering

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study of aggression offers opportunities to more deeply understand criminal behavior, personality and temperament. A deeper understanding of aggression has many implications in applied settings, including work, education and health. The knowledge gained may improve the treatment of behavioral misconduct and antisocial behavior. Additionally, the study of aggression has the potential to inform assessments of quality of life and development while offering information to guide early intervention and improve behavior trajectories.

Understanding aggression has many real-world applications, such as creating a better understanding of criminal activity, identifying who might be more likely to become a criminal, allowing for early …

Measurement Invariance Of The Pandemic Anxiety Inventory In Different Demographic Groups, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Tasmyn Prytherch, Mark Cropley, Jay Verkuilen, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

Background The Pandemic Anxiety Inventory (PAI) was developed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its content allows it to assess anxiety in connection to any pandemic. Previous research has demonstrated the instrument’s reliability and validity. An important question for clinicians and researchers, however, remains open: Does the PAI have similar meaning for members of different demographic groups? The finding of measurement invariance would allow clinicians and researchers to comparatively assess pandemic-related anxiety across demographic groups, including favored and disfavored groups.

Methods We conducted a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to assess the measurement invariance of the PAI using data obtained …

Prosodic Marking Of Focus In Autistic And Neurotypical Adults, Nishtha N. Trivedi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose: This study investigates how adult autistic speakers compare with neurotypical speakers in the manipulation of prosody to mark narrow and contrastive focus in American English. In particular, it explores whether the two groups differ in terms of pitch accent status, pitch accent type, and overall nuclear contour patterns in focus marking.

Methods: We conducted an experiment eliciting speech from autistic and neurotypical adults in which we compared their use of pitch accent in answers to wh-questions and in corrective statements.

Results: We found neurotypical speakers to primarily use H* to mark narrow focus on subjects and L+H* to mark …

Flanker Task Performance In Young And Older Adults: A Behavioral And Erp Study, Fatima Medrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research suggests that as we get older, executive function abilities decline (Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Salthouse, 1996). One affected ability is that of inhibitory control, which aids in monitoring our responses to non-target stimuli or information. Current research on inhibition reveals inconsistencies across studies. Monitoring brain responses during the Flanker (used to measure inhibitory control) task may add valuable insight into the processes underlying group differences behaviorally, by studying the N200 and P300 event-related potentials which have been associated with inhibitory control processes. This study investigated whether there are differences between older and younger adults in inhibitory control and whether …

Altruistic Imperialism: The Co-Optation Of Mutual Aid By The Nonprofit Industrial Complex, Kelly T. Waltz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis assesses the role of the nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC) in neoliberalism’s material destruction of global community development and its exploitation of human benevolence. An examination of the institutionalization of high-profile social movements such as BLM and #MeToo demonstrates that the nonprofit industrial complex is built upon a misappropriation of feminist and liberation ideologies and practices, an insidious weaponization of our collectivist tendencies, and the systematic subjugation of mutual aid networks originally created and operated independent of systems of capital. The systemic and conceptual limitations of mainstream methods and the criteria by which nonprofit organizations’ effectiveness is evaluated are …

Social Workers Working With Intimate Partner Violence Survivors: The Influence Of Trauma Work On The Social Worker’S Intimate Relationships, Claire T. Mccue

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Working therapeutically with trauma survivors, such as survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) carries a risk of vicarious traumatization (VT) for social workers, as well as the potential for vicarious post-traumatic growth (VPTG). This phenomenological study sought to explore and understand how vicarious exposure to trauma affects social workers who treat survivors of IPV and their intimate relationships positively and negatively. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 15 social workers working directly with survivors of IPV in New York while being involved in their intimate relationships.

Utilizing the constructivist self-development perspective, the study found social workers experienced physical, emotional, …

Essays On Monopoly Power In Housing Rental Markets, Goncalo Filipe Pessa Figueiredo Costa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters on market power in housing rental markets. It introduces the concept of dynamic monopoly power in housing rental markets, develops methods to estimate that form of market power, and uses its analytical lense over the New York City (NYC) housing rental market.

In the first chapter, I formulate a search model in which market frictions give landlords rent-setting (dynamic monopoly) power. This model incorporates search frictions in the spirit of Manning’s (2003) monopsonistic labor market framework. In this setting, the demand faced by individual landlords (i.e., residual demand) results from an equilibrium between tenants’ …

Exploration Of Phenomenological Geospatial Analysis For The Late Archaic In The Esopus Drainage Of The Hudson Valley, Glenn Kolyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Esopus Drainage of the Hudson Valley, New York, has been utilized by the Indigenous population for its vast resources embedded within the landscape. Consequently, the changing climate and warming trends of the Holocene transformed the landscape, shifting rivers, fauna, and floral resources. Relevantly, due to the prehistoric nature of these populations, the archaeological record is pointedly incomplete. The landscape’s geographical features are still within reach of archaeological and phenomenological study to fill in some of the interruptions.

This dissertation focuses on the Late Archaic hunter-gatherer population of the Snook Kill phase of the Esopus Drainage running west of the …

Chipping The Blue Wall: The Effect Of Dogs On Police Officer Receptivity To An Employee Assistance Program, Kenneth M. Quick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is substantial evidence that demonstrates the negative impact of stress on police officer mental health is increasing due in large part to perceived societal shifts in support for the police and trends in criminal justice reform efforts. While employee assistance programs (EAP) are the dominant mechanism for police agencies to address officer mental health, officers are reluctant to use them due to a combination of mental health stigma and organizational distrust. This dissertation studied police officer perceptions of an employee assistance program (EAP) and the effect of exposure to professionally trained dogs during an outreach session on indicators of …