Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Precursors Of School Shootings, Branden Harrington

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This paper analyzes mass school shootings in the United States, stressing their root causes, indicators, demographics, and suggestive guidelines for preventable measures. Data draws associations between bullying, social dominance, and devalued masculinity amongst high school boys. Further, these trends emphasize homophobic harassment and the reassertion of lost dominance through violence. Moreover, research upholds media coverage and self-absorbed behavior as an additional precursor for inspired acts of malice. Journalistic representations of mass school shootings are identified as a source of motivation for vengeful and easily malleable youth. Studies also stress the importance of school inclusivity and interconnectedness, emitting a stark correlation …

Justifying Justice: Six Factors Of Wrongful Convictions And Their Solutions, Colby Duncan

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

There have been over 300 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the history of the United States. While this number may initially seem significant, there is still an unfathomable population of wrongfully convicted prisoners who have yet to be considered for retrials. Unaddressed wrongful conviction cases highlight the unacceptable weaknesses in the U.S. justice system, weaknesses that include poor investigative tactics and the acceptance or allowance of inaccurate and unreliable evidence. This paper will dutifully analyze the causes that lead to wrongful convictions and amply discuss potential solutions, all of which includes eyewitness misidentification, improper forensics, false confessions, informants, government misconduct, and …

Physical Match: Uniqueness Of Torn Paper, Marilyn Aguilar

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

In the forensic science field, it is generally accepted that all tears and fractures are unique; however, there is limited scientific evidence to support this. This study tests the claim that all tears are unique, focusing on paper. One-hundred Office Depot brand 3” x 5” blank, white index cards were torn in half by hand. Six halves were randomly removed; the remaining 94 halves were mixed and then matched by a novice using end-match analysis. The removal of the 6 random halves left 44 matching pairs. Of the remaining halves, all 44 pairs were correctly matched. The results show that …

Spartan Daily, May 15, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 44

With A Little Help From My Friends (And Their Friends): Influence Neighborhoods For Social Recommendations, Avni Gulati, Magdalini Eirinaki

Faculty Publications

Social recommendations have been a very intriguing domain for researchers in the past decade. The main premise is that the social network of a user can be leveraged to enhance the rating-based recommendation process. This has been achieved in various ways, and under different assumptions about the network characteristics, structure, and availability of other information (such as trust, content, etc.) In this work, we create neighborhoods of influence leveraging only the social graph structure. These are in turn introduced in the recommendation process both as a pre-processing step and as a social regularization factor of the matrix factorization algorithm. Our …

Thinking Transnationally: Reproductive Justice In A Globalized Era, Tanya Saroj Bakhru

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

[No abstract available]

Spartan Daily, May 9, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 43

Spartan Daily, May 8, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 42

Spartan Daily, May 7, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 41

Visualizing Success: Transforming Disparate Data Into A Dashboard That Tells A Story, Natasha Allen, Karen Schlesser, Micah Jeffries

Faculty and Staff Publications

In 2018, SJSU Library completed a project to revamp our public dashboard, incorporating data visualization best practices using Tableau. This session will focus on the step-by-step process of implementing this project, from the first stages to a successful debut. After some preliminary research, we began by creating a prototype and gathering feedback from stakeholders. Next we cleaned and extracted our data from Alma Analytics and other sources. We’ll talk about how we got our data into Tableau, including the pros and cons of using the Web Data Connector. Next we created our visualizations in Tableau. We’ll explain why we chose …

Spartan Daily, May 2, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 40

Spartan Daily, May 1, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 39

San Jose’S Removing And Preventing Illegal Dumping Program (Rapid): An Evaluation Of Illegal Dumping In San Jose, Rina Laxamana

Master's Projects

Illegal dumping is a major environmental concern throughout the United States and most countries (Ichinose & Yamamoto, 2011). Abandoned items such as household material, dumped garbage or construction debris leave odors and contaminants that can threaten community health, impact the environment, and degrade the city's visual appearance (Dabholkar, Muthiyan, Srinivasan, Ravi, Jeon, & Gao, 2017). To reduce illegal dumping, many cities establish education programs, social-media-based community applications, surveillance camera monitoring, and execute policies with associated penalties and fines (Dabholkar et al., 2017). The City of San Jose is battling an illegal dumping problem and has created the Removing and Preventing …

Older Adults’ Perceptions Regarding Transportation Services In San Jose, Ca: Access, Barriers, And Innovations, Deborah Bolding

Mineta Transportation Institute

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of older adults concerning barriers to the use of public transportation, to identify programs and services that best meet transportation needs, and to obtain suggestions for improvements or innovations in order to enable them to engage more fully in their community. Four focus groups, with a total of 25 participants, were held in three locations in San Jose, CA. While the participants were able to use public transportation to access shopping, medical services and other destinations, they expressed concerns related to physical barriers, frequency of services, the behavior of some …

Value Capture To Fund Public Transportation: The Impact Of Warm Springs Bart Station On The Value Of Neighboring Residential Properties In Fremont, Ca, Shishir Mathur

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study estimates households’ willingness to pay for single-family houses and condominiums/townhouses located within 2 miles of Warm Springs (WS) BART Station in Fremont, CA. The study finds that, compared to the houses sold in the referent category (2 to 5 miles away and sold during the pre-project-announcement period of 2000-2001), an average-priced single-family house within two miles of the WS BART Station was higher in price by 9% to 15%. The total property value increment for the single-family houses is large enough to fund the $802 million Warm Springs BART Extension Project cost five times over.

The South Bay Water Recycling Program: An Evaluation Of Water Recycling Outcomes In Comparison To Selected Cities And Countries, Shannon Nguyen

Master's Projects

Is the South Bay Water Recycling (SBWR) program achieving its planned recycled water outcomes? This research will compare the SBWR program's 2018 recycled water data with other water reuse programs in Las Vegas, Orange County, Singapore, and Australia. The purpose of the research is to determine whether the SBWR program is achieving its goals for conserving fresh water for beneficial reuse, and how the outcomes compare with selected cities and countries.

An Outcome Analysis Of The Mills Act In Three Exemplar Cities, Sean K. Gallegos

Master's Projects

The purpose of the research was to assess the outcomes of the Mills Act program in the cities of Gilroy, Santa Clara, and Mountain View, and to determine whether they are supporting the legislative intent of the program, including the use of the tax incentive program for its intended purpose of funding maintenance, restoration and preservation of the property, which will require determining the potential effects of the program on historic preservation. The research question for this study was the following: Is use of the Mills Act correlated with positive preservation outcomes of designated historic properties in the cities of …

Food Scrapping Programs And Smart Practices For Sb 1383 Compliance In Ten Selected Bay Area Cities, Alia Rizvi Haque

Master's Projects

The Problem

Thirty five percent of landfill waste in California is made up of organic waste, and 18% of landfill waste is made up of food scraps (City of Santa Clara [CSC], 2019). The buildup and decomposition of food scraps at landfills produce methane (CSC, 2019), a pollutant that heats up the atmosphere thousands of times more than carbon dioxide (California Air Resources Board [CARB], 2018). Senate Bill (SB) 1383 is meant to mitigate pollution by requiring the state to reduce organic waste in its landfills to reduce methane production (CARB, 2018). The bill requires the state to reduce organic …

Graduation Rates At San Jose State University Of Transferring Community College Students With An Associate Degree For Transfer: A Process Evaluation, Alex Cordova

Master's Projects

One area of focus by the state of California to answer the educational needs is community college transfer students. Transfer students are students who begin their college career in a California community college, then transfer to a four-year degree granting institution. The state of California views this group of students as a key part of creating more college-educated Californians for the economy of the future (California Legislative Information, 2010). There are two main issues when evaluating community college transfer students. The first is the complexity of the transfer process. Second is the unreliable data that is being used to determine …

A Process Evaluation Of The Campbell Union High School District Bond Measure Aa, Gabriel Altamirano

Master's Projects

The Board of Trustees at the Campbell Union High School District (CUHSD) completed a district wide facility assessment and created updated facilities master plans (CUHSD, 2015). Consultants were contracted to coordinate focus groups consisting of district students and staff to develop a list of facility needs across the district (CUHSD, 2015). The facilities at all five high schools were in need of major capital projects, from replacement of aging mechanical systems to new classroom spaces for student growth (CUHSD, 2015).

The school district decided to request a general obligation bond measure for the community to approve for the facility improvements …

Student Withdrawals In A Job Training Program, Amy Lawrence

Master's Projects

Within the context of a competitive market, shifting funding sources, and a new regulatory environment, the purpose of this paper is not to examine educational attainment, but rather to research student drop out, or withdrawal, at the post-secondary job training institution of Center for Employment Training (CET). The foremost research questions to be answered are what are the characteristics of students who withdraw from job training programs provided by Center for Employment Training, and what factors may influence withdrawal.

How And Where Should I Ride This Thing? “Rules Of The Road” For Personal Transportation Devices, Kevin Fang, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Ashley M. Hooper

Mineta Transportation Institute

In recent years, “Personal Transportation Devices” (PTDs) have exploded onto streets and sidewalks. These small devices transport individual persons at slow speeds and are either human-powered or motorized. Examples include electric (kick) scooters, skateboards, e-skateboards, roller blades, and Segways. One key to successfully integrating PTDs into community streets will be the implementation of consistent and suitable regulations over user behavior: “rules of the road” for PTD riders. To help local officials identify appropriate rules for rider behavior, this report documents and analyzes existing PTD regulations across 176 jurisdictions and then presents recommendations for a set of state-level “rules of the …

Spartan Daily, April 30, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 38

Spartan Daily, April 25, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 37

Spartan Daily, April 24, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 36

Spartan Daily, April 23, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 35

Spartan Daily, April 18, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 34

Spartan Daily, April 17, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 33

Spartan Daily, April 16, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 32

Spartan Daily, April 11, 2019, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2019

Volume 152, Issue 31