Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Password Strength Analysis: User Coping Mechanisms In Password Selection, Brian Thomas Curnett

Open Access Theses

The security that passwords provide could be seriously flawed due to the way people cope with having to memorize and recall their passwords. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standard that is used to measure the password strength, known as entropy, is designed for a single use and does not consider that users may choose to keep parts of their password across password changes. This study shows that a portion of users keep some information from previous passwords across changes. These habits which will be called coping mechanisms that over time serve to erode the protection provided by …

The Interaction Of Gradient And Categorical Processes Of Long-Distance Vowel-To-Vowel Assimilation In Kazan Tatar, Jenna T. Conklin

Open Access Theses

Vowel harmony and vowel-to-vowel coarticulation are long-distance assimilatory processes wherein certain vowels trigger systematic changes in adjacent vowels; harmony effects phonological change, resulting in phonemic alternation, while coarticulation effects phonetic change. This thesis offers a novel acoustic analysis of the coarticulatory processes present in disharmonic words in Kazan Tatar, a language with left-to-right palatal harmony. While right-to-left palatal coarticulation is found to be widespread, left-to-right palatal coarticulation is virtually nonexistent in Tatar. It is hypothesized that gradient and categorical processes sharing the same triggers, targets, target feature, and direction cannot coexist; the diachronic implication for Tatar is that, once coarticulation …

Seeing People, Seeing Things: Individual Differences In Selective Attention, Miranda May Mcintyre

Open Access Theses

Individuals differ in the extent to which they attend to their physical and social environments, but little empirical work has measured these differences at a cognitive level. To address this gap, two studies explored the association between attentional processes and Person and Thing Orientations. The first study measured visual selective attention toward person- and thing-related image components. In the second study, participants provided written responses about a set of images; linguistic analyses were conducted to assess attentional bias toward interest-congruent content. The results from both studies support motivated attention as a process through which interests in physical and social environments …

Analyzing Emotions On Twitter During The 2014 Purdue University Shooting Crisis, Elaheh Molla Allameh

Open Access Theses

Social media has recently attracted much attention as an emergency management tool. Providing public emotional support is one of the aspects of emergency management where social media can be extremely useful. However, before we can effectively use social media for this purpose, we need to fully understand the dynamics of emotions on social media platforms. This study contributes to this understanding. In this thesis I look into the emotional expressions on Twitter following the 2014 Purdue shooting incident. I analyze how different types of users emotionally reacted to the incident during the critical one and a half hours following the …

Sentence Final Particles In Shanghainese: Navigating The Left Periphery, Ethan C. Myers

Open Access Theses

The purpose of the present study was to provide a modern syntactic analysis of Shanghainese, the regional language spoken in Shanghai, China. While Shanghainese has received significantly less exposure in the published literature compared to other regional counterparts, there is much that the language can contribute to the overall study of human language. In spite of the fact that Shanghainese has been experiencing a decline in first language learners in recent generations, this thesis aims to increase its exposure in the academic discourse and enforce the legitimacy of its standing as a distinct, living language and as a valuable piece …

How Effective Is Group Feedback In Encouraging Occupants Of An Office Building To Reduce Energy Consumption?, Ushik D. Shah

Open Access Theses

Lighting contributes to a high percentage of the total energy use in office buildings. The lack of financial incentive often dissuades office workers from trying to save electricity at their work place. This thesis aims at reducing the total power consumed by an office building by using persuasive technologies on the occupants to promote environmentally conscious and energy saving behavior. ^ A three week field study was conducted by providing occupants of an office building feedback about their energy consumption along with messages to encourage them to save energy. Feedback was provided via television screens and flyers placed strategically at …

English Vocabulary Teaching In Chinese Junior High Schools, Jinghong Zhang

Open Access Theses

Vocabulary learning is an important and indispensable part of the English language learning process. In this paper, the author tried to examine the vocabulary teaching practice in Chinese junior high schools. A questionnaire was used to investigate the problem from the perspectives of in-service teachers. Besides, the National English Curriculum (MOE, 2011) served as another important source of data in this study. The data revealed that progress has been made in English vocabulary teaching in Chinese junior high schools. Teachers are utilizing a wider range of educational resources and vocabulary teaching strategies during their instruction. The methods to assess vocabulary …

Investigation Of Industry Perceptions Of Building Information Modeling (Bim)-Based Estimating Practices In The U.S. And China, Zhihang Yi

Open Access Theses

While the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology has been seen as next revolutionary technology for the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Facility Management (AEC/FM) fields, the AEC/FM industry does not implement BIM technology on the cost estimating practices as widely as expected. The efficiency improvement on cost estimating with BIM could be accomplished through automating quantity take-offs, closely collaborating design with the estimating professionals and so on. This research explores the advantages and barriers of imbedding BIM technology into the estimating practices which enables the industry deepen their understandings on BIM-based cost estimation method. This study also compares the industry perceptions …

Suitability Of Commercial Certification Assessments For Film And Video Editing Courses, Bobby L Chastain

Open Access Dissertations

A study on the microstructure development of as-cast Cu-Mn alloys based around the congruent minimum at 34.6 wt % Mn and 873 °C was performed. Initially, this was to evaluate the alloy as an alternative to wide freezing range Pb and Sn bronzes that are plagued with porosity. The shallow minimum and associated narrow freezing ranges around the congruent point result in a completely cellular (non-dendritic) solidification morphology for a composition range ~3 wt % Mn about the congruent composition (C _c). The degree of cellular solidification was found to depend on the mold material. Increased mold conductivity lead …

Becoming Kin: Modernity, Authenticity, And The Construction Of Spiritual Relatedness In An Evangelical Parachurch Ministry, Brad Codr

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation explores how families are formed and spiritual kinship is created by members of the Body of Christ evangelical parachurch ministry at one public university in the United States. Spiritual relatedness is used to conceptualize members' social relationships and demonstrate the diverse forms of Christian community that emerge in the lives of young adults. Results from this study provide an alternative perspective to social science literature labeling Christianity as an individualistic belief system. It also contributes to continuing dialogue within the anthropology of Christianity, which seeks to describe and understand what it means to be Christian. I argue that …

The Process And Dimensions Of Family Member Marginalization: A Mixed-Method Construct Explication, Elizabeth Dorrace Hall

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation builds upon social psychology, organizational studies (i.e., social identity theory, social network theory), family studies, and interpersonal communication (i.e., hurt, confirmation theory) literature to understand how marginalized family members, or "black sheep," come to live at the edge of their families. In some societies, marginalized family members are called black sheep because they stand out from the rest of the group. Being marginalized refers to feeling different, not included, or not approved of by family. Two studies were conducted to uncover and test the dimensions of family marginalization and explore the process of marginalization in families. Study 1 …

Exploring Knowledge And Beliefs Of Human Papillomavirus (Hpv) Infection And Hpv Vaccination Among U.S. Chinese International Students, Haijuan Gao

Open Access Dissertations

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine provides an effective prevention strategy against HPV infection, cervical cancer, and genital warts. As increasing numbers of Chinese international students (CIS) are living and studying in United States, this specific ethnic group has become the candidate for HPV vaccination promotion. Despite an increased awareness and knowledge of HPV infection and HPV vaccine among U.S. college students, studies focused on CIS as a unique ethnic group regarding HPV vaccine promotion were limited. This project is the first time aimed to examine CIS's awareness, knowledge and beliefs about HPV infection, HPV vaccine, cervical cancer and genital warts. …

International Water And Food Security Development: Performance Evaluation And Assessment Of Research Needs At Multiple Scales, Caitlin Anne Grady

Open Access Dissertations

Water and food security remain the top development challenges of the decade, and perhaps the century. Since the Millennium Development Goals were established in 2000, billions of people have obtained access to more food, better nutrition, improved water, and basic sanitation facilities worldwide. This progress has been accomplished through the dedication of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, country-level governments, private corporations, and individuals at international, regional, and local scales. Truly tremendous strides have been made in water and food provisioning for humans worldwide. These past two decades have also seen the largest population growth on record, the highest rates of childhood …

Communication, Home Bias And Social Capital, Sharon Raszap Skorbiansky

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on the effects of communication, home bias and social capital. The first study analyzes three different laboratory treatments that determine if policies that introduce and improve communication are beneficial to a market. The control treatment has no communication. Then, two different types of communication mechanisms are introduced: cheap communication, where subjects are able to lie, and truthful communication, where only honest messages may be sent. The results demonstrate that truthful communication dramatically improves subjects' ability to trade efficiently, ultimately leading to higher social surplus and lower income inequalities. Cheap communication does not produce the …

An Acoustic And Perceptual Analysis Of Vowels Preceding Final /-S/ Deletion In The Speech Of Granada, Spain And Cartagena, Colombia, Miguel Angel Rincon Perez

Open Access Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to explore the phenomenon ofdesdoblamiento vocálico or tense-lax vowel alternation in eastern Andalusian Spanish, particularly, in Granada Spanish and in the Spanish of Cartagena, Colombia. In previous studies of Eastern Andalusian Spanish (Navarro Tomás, 1939; Alonso et al., 1950; Mondéjar, 1970; Salvador, 1964, 1977) it has been claimed that in this variety of Spanish, vowels preceding deletion of post-nuclear /s/ undergo an open-closed vowel alternation. As a result, this vocalic alternation may serve as a functional marker distinguishing singular from plural in nouns and person-number in certain verbal forms rendered homophonous by the …

Strategic Public Diplomacy: Cultivating Relationships With Foreign Publics And Measuring Relationship Outcomes Using The Relationship Assessment Of Diplomatic Interaction Outcome (Radio) Scale, Lai Shan Tam

Open Access Dissertations

In response to calls for a tool to measure public diplomacy effectiveness, this study was inspired by the organization-public relationship assessment (OPRA) scale in public relations to develop the Relationship Assessment of Diplomatic Interaction Outcome (RADIO) scale. Its purpose is to measure the perceived relationship quality between a country and its foreign publics.Political, economic, cultural, interpersonal and corporate interactions are proposed to be antecedents whereas positive and negative megaphoningbehaviors are proposed to be outcomes. Perceived relationship quality in between the antecedents and outcomes classifies relationships into two types: experiential (those with direct experiences in terms of having visited …

Modeling The Impacts Of Hospitality And Tourism Enterprises On Community Quality Of Life, Sangchoul Yi

Open Access Dissertations

The present research examined the impacts of hospitality and tourism businesses on community quality of life using existing public domain databases. In the tourism literature, various methodological approaches have been proposed to investigate the impacts of tourism on a host community and its residents. However, these approaches are limited because of innate methodological constraints such as the bias of the survey respondents' perceptions. To overcome such a limitation, alternative research constructs have been proposed. Among them, Quality of Life (QOL) has become a good alternative for measuring tourism impacts. Accordingly, the present researcher introduced QOL as a research tool for …

University Of The Future Colombia-Purdue Workshop Report, Suresh V. Garimella, David B. Janes, Liliana Gómez Díaz

PPRI Digital Library

The University of the Future Workshop, a joint Colombia-Purdue event, was held at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, October 28-29, 2014. Participants included rectors and board members from six top universities in Colombia, along with executive directors of NGOs, government representatives from the U.S. and Colombia, and Purdue faculty and administrators. The workshop was focused on a dialog among participants on key programs and focuses that will allow universities to be responsive to the 21st century needs of the Americas.

This report is a summary of the workshop and is based on the contributions of all the participants. Key …

Documento Conceptual Sobre Redes De Excelencia Para La Investigación Y La Educación, Suresh V. Garimella, David B. Janes, Anne Slaughter Andrew

PPRI Digital Library

“Redes de Excelencia” focalizadas permitirán que las instituciones en América Latina desarrollen ecosistemas de investigación y educación de un modo mucho más rápido que si siguieran procesos "orgánicos" o locales. Una vez implementados, estos ecosistemas no solo permitirán profundas transformaciones que lleven a economías basadas en el conocimiento, sino que también desempeñarán roles claves en las redes necesarias para los sistemas de innovación regionales.

Para acelerar el desarrollo de ecosistemas de investigación y educación en toda América, los autores proponen establecer “Redes de Excelencia” en las áreas claves. Cada Red de Excelencia será multiinstitucional, multisectorial (universidad, empresa, gobierno, ONG) y …

Consumer Inferences Of Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) Claims On Packaged Foods, Gaeul Kim

Open Access Theses

With the growing public demands in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the food industry, CSR claims have begun to appear on food packages, as companies started communicating their CSR initiatives to consumers. Although food packages emerged as an important CSR communication tool, consumers' processing of CSR claims and the effects of these claims on product evaluations still remain unknown. In this regard, the present study carries two important research questions. First, do non-health/nutrition-related CSR claims influence consumers' product evaluations, such as perceived health benefits or tastes? If so, how does the effect of CSR claims differ by type of CSR …

A Probabilistic Model Of Benefit-Cost Analysis For Highway Construction Projects, Yue He

Open Access Theses

Deterministic method occupies the predominant position in economic analysis. However, by using a single value to estimate the project value, deterministic method would hide the risk under it. Analysts may make incorrect judgments by looking at a value without knowing the likelihood of its occurrence and the consequences of its occurrence. A probabilistic model was developed in this study to address this problem. It was found in this study that the traffic flows on Indiana highways follow logistic distributions rather than normal distributions as generally believed. The application of the probabilistic model was illustrated through a case study. The results …

The Theory Of Imaginative Resistance: Narrative Conflict & Contested Realities In The Right To Die Versus Disability Studies Perspectives On Medical Euthanasia, Jessica Fawley

Open Access Theses

In this thesis, I introduce a philosophic concept termed "imaginative resistance," a concept which targets the unimaginability of narratives, which I argue offers new insights into polarized communication. I discuss the philosophic debate on imaginative resistance to date, and piece out central puzzles and approaches. I show that imaginative resistance can be applied to broader types of communication than those currently being discussed by philosophers, and indicate that polarized debates are especially likely places to uncover imaginative resistance. I discuss, and respond to, a recent article by Susan M. Behuniak (2011) in which she analyzes a subsection of the contemporary …

Irc Channel Data Analysis Using Apache Solr, Nikhil Reddy Boreddy

Open Access Theses

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was one of the first real-time communication protocols over the internet. It was not designed with any form of Authentication, Authorization and Accounting features. This made IRC channels a place to conduct transactions in complete anonymity. On the other hand with the advent of Big Data we are now able to process large quantities of data in a very short period of time. This research presents a method to use Apache Solr, a text indexing server built on top of Lucene to index and search large quantities of IRC data collected over months from public IRC …

Marital Conflict And Child-Mother Attachment Relationships, Laura Y. Anaya

Open Access Theses

The present study explored the relations between marital conflict and child-mother attachment relationships. A nonclinical sample of 86 non-Hispanic Caucasian mother-child dyads participated in the study when children were approximately 3.5 years old (M = 3.73). Maternal sensitivity and children's attachment security were observed across three visits: one visit was in the home, and two visits were in the park. Mothers completed a series of questionnaires measuring a global index of marital discord, spousal verbal aggression, spousal physical aggression, and childrearing disagreements. The relations between the aspects of marital conflict on maternal sensitivity and children's attachment security with their …

Digital Forensics And Community Supervision: Making A Case For Field Based Digital Forensics Training, Christopher Michael Flory

Open Access Theses

In this paper I will review the literature concerning investigator digital forensics models and how they apply to field investigators. A brief history of community supervision and how offenders are supervised will be established. I will also cover the difference between community supervision standards and police standards concerning searches, evidence, standards of proof, and the difference between parole boards and courts. Currently, the burden for digital forensics for community supervision officers is placed on local or state law enforcement offices, with personnel trained in forensics, but may not place a high priority on outside cases. Forensic field training for community …

Less Than Human: Dehumanization Underlies Prejudice Toward People With Developmental Disabilities, Laura Ruth Murry Parker

Open Access Theses

The present research examined the nature of prejudice toward people with developmental disabilities, its underlying root in dehumanization and implication for opposition to social policies, and the efficacy of two strategies for reducing this bias. In Study 1 and Study 2, dehumanization significantly predicted both greater prejudice and greater opposition to social policies benefiting people with Autism and Down Syndrome. Furthermore, prejudice significantly mediated the effect of dehumanization on social policy support. Dehumanization predicted greater prejudice, which led to less support for social policies. Building on the consistent association between dehumanization and prejudice in the first two studies, Study 3 …

Accessing Information And Social Capital On Facebook: A Theoretical And Empirical Investigation Of An Accelerated Knowledge Gap Model, Emily A. Sidnam

Open Access Theses

The goal of this thesis is to develop and begin to test a modified knowledge gap model that builds upon the assumptions of the knowledge gap hypothesis, incorporates findings of recent digital divide research and accounts for the unique affordances of new media. This thesis draws upon information behavior and social capital theory and builds off past findings on knowledge and usage gaps in order to develop and explain a knowledge gap model for a new media setting. The traditional knowledge gap hypothesis explains that people of a high socioeconomic status (SES) gain more knowledge from exposure to media messages …

The Role Of Attention In Retrieval Practice, Joshua W. Whiffen

Open Access Theses

Dividing attention during encoding is detrimental to learning. In contrast, dividing attention during retrieval appears to have very little effect on recall. However, very few studies have investigated whether dividing attention during initial recall has an impact on subsequent retrieval attempts. ^ Research on retrieval practice has clearly shown that retrieval is an active process that leads to important changes in memory that ultimately enhance long term retention. However, it has yet to be established exactly how retrieval practice derives its benefits. One possibility is that retrieval involves the reinstatement of temporal context, which leads to the updating or encoding …

Negotiating Trans Activism In Guatemala City: The Case Of Redmmutrans, Maria Alejandra Wundram Pimentel

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this ethnographic project is to investigate how the activists in REDMMUTRANS, a trans women rights activist group in Guatemala City, understand their individual and collective identity as trans. By analyzing the way REDMMUTRANS navigates and negotiates national and transnational discourses on gender, this thesis takes particular attention to the influence that activist practice has had in individual's adoption of 'trans' as an identity category. By looking at the way REDMMUTRANS's members construct their collective identity, I explore the interactions between the transnational development industry, localized experiences, and activist practice has in constructing what 'trans' means in the …

Table Of Contents

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.