Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2018, Christopher R. Bollinger, William H. Hoyt, David Blackwell, Michael T. Childress

Kentucky Annual Economic Report

This report is one of the important ways that the Center for Business and Economic Research fulfills its mission as specified in the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS 164.738) to examine various aspects of the Kentucky economy. The analysis and data presented here cover a variety of topics that range from an economic forecast for Kentucky in 2018 to a broad presentation of factors affecting the economy.

“Beyond Sisterhood There Is Still Racism, Colonialism And Imperialism!” Negotiating Gender, Ethnicity And Power In Madagascar Mangrove Conservation, Manon Lefèvre

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Understanding women’s experiences of mangrove forest conservation in the Global South is important because mangrove forests are a crucial defense against climate change, and are also increasingly the targets of global climate change policies. The intervention of postcolonial feminist theory combined with feminist political ecology has the potential to bring forward women’s seldom-heard experiences of climate change in these valuable ecosystems. This work supports previous feminist political ecology scholarship focused on understanding women’s complicated relationships to the environment and the gendered effects of climate change policies, while challenging dominant conservation discourse around women as a monolithic group. This thesis focuses …

Three Essays On Public Finance And Public Policy: Financial Disclosure And Policy Reinvention In U.S. State And Local Governments, Jinhai Yu

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay, or Chapter 2, advances the literature by examining the conditional effects of lobbying on the relationship between policy learning and policy reinvention. Scholars have consistently shown that learning of successful policies in other states leads to higher likelihood of policy adoption. This essay extends this finding two ways. First, policy learning can also lead to more comprehensive adoption of successful policies. Second, the effect of policy learning on policy comprehensiveness is conditional on lobbying by interest groups, an alternative source of information about policy success. To test these hypotheses, I conduct …

Three Essays On College Earnings Premium And China’S Higher Education Expansion, Chenxu Hu

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the college premium in China and how it has been affected by China’s higher education expansion.

In the first essay, I utilize the high education expansion as exogenous source to estimate the college premium. The rapidly changing access to college provides a rare opportunity to estimate a local treatment effect (LATE) of college education on earnings by utilizing the drastic increase in college admission rate in 1999. I also utilize the yearly admission rate as an instrumental variable for the endogenous college education. Using China Household Income Project 2013, the two IV …

Three Essays On Credit Markets And The Macroeconomy, Timothy P. Bianco

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Historically, credit market conditions have been shown to impact economic activity, at times severely. For instance, in the late 2000s, the United States experienced a financial crisis that seized domestic and foreign credit markets. The ensuing lack of access to credit brought about a steep decline in output and a sluggish recovery. Accordingly, policymakers commonly take steps to mitigate the effects of adverse credit market conditions and, at times, conduct unconventional monetary policy once traditional policy tools become ineffective. This dissertation is a collection of essays regarding monetary policy, the flow of credit, financial crises, and the macroeconomy. Specifically, I …

Client Protection Regulations For Microfinance Institutions In Ghana, Kenya, And Tanzania, Hanna Carlson

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This paper examines the financial sectors of Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania in relation to the regulation of microfinance institutions, specifically looking into client protection policies. The first section introduces the topic of microfinance in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the impact it has on the financial sector. A frame of reference is created by a brief introduction of the financial and regulatory climate in each of the three countries. Following this introduction, regression analyses demonstrate the impact of client protection policies on the performance of microfinance institutions in Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania.

An Assessment Of Disability Access At The University Of Kentucky, Megan S. Coffinbargar

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This study assesses the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) compliance at the University of Kentucky. Twenty buildings frequently used by undergraduates at the University of Kentucky were evaluated using the ADA Checklist for Existing Facilities focusing on Title III, Public Accommodations, and Priority Two, Access to Goods and Services. Data was collected over two weeks (July 20, 2017-August 3, 2017) and then evaluated using descriptive analysis. Data was analyzed looking across checklist items, buildings, checklist categories, and construction dates. Looking across checklist items, compliance ranged from 12-20 buildings out of 20 possible with 18.485 buildings as the average. …

Evaluating The Relationship Between Phq9 And Global Pain Scale (Gps) Scores In Opioid Dependent Adults: A Retrospective Correlational Study, Lori Nolan

DNP Projects

Background: Depression, chronic pain and opioid dependence are conditions commonly encountered in primary care settings. These comorbidities create treatment challenges while negatively influencing outcomes of care. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) and Global Pain Scale (GPS) are valid screening tools used to score depression and pain symptoms. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the PHQ9 and Global Pain Scale (GPS) scores in opioid dependent adults with chronic pain to determine whether both tools are necessary.

Methods: This was a descriptive study using a retrospective correlational research design. Data was obtained from the electronic medical records …

Collaborative Organizational Structures Among Artist Member And Other Related Organizations, Kelsey Shackelford

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Kentucky has a rich cultural and artistic tapestry that is part of the economic future of the state. An important consideration of this future is the artist-member organizations that serve Kentucky creatives and how they work together collaboratively, both internally and externally. The objective of this study was to see how ten different organizations viewed themselves and interacted with their communities in the way in which they are structure, or lack a definite structure as is the case with several different groups. Through web analysis and a series of interviews with organizations that provide benefits to Kentucky artists, we learn …

Three Essays On Local Public Finance, Thomas Daniel Woodbury

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

This dissertation seeks to develop the subject of local public finance in a manner consistent with the political economy of local governments. For ease of description, each essay will be discussed briefly.

The first essay is titled "The Provision of Generalized Local Public Goods Financed by Distortionary Taxation." This essay models the provision of a local public good that is simultaneously utilized as a public consumption good and a public intermediate good. Since the public good can simultaneously enter both utility and production functions, it is considered a "generalized public good." This is done to model the provision of infrastructure …

Medium To Long Term Impacts On Former Participants Of The Shoulder To Shoulder Global Brigades To Ecuador, Craig Borie

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Medium to Long Term Impacts on Former Participants of the Shoulder to Shoulder Global Brigades to Ecuador. International service learning and voluntourism programs in global health evoke benefits for both community and the intervener. While it is clear that the Shoulder to Shoulder Global program at the University of Kentucky provides a service to an economically resource poor community in Santo Domingo, Ecuador, what is unclear is the impact these interprofessional experiences have on the participants that travel with the four times a year health brigades. This study proposes to answer the question of what are the educational, personal and …

Essays On The Role Of Government Regulation And Policy In Health Care Markets, Grayson L. Forlines

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Understanding how health care markets function is important not only because competition has a direct influence on the price and utilization of health care services, but also because the proper functioning, or lack thereof, of health care markets has a very real impact on patients who depend on health care markets and providers for their personal well-being. In this dissertation, I examine the role of government policies and regulation in health care markets, with a focus on the response of health care providers. In Chapter 1, I analyze the impact of Medicare payment rules on hospital ownership of physician practices. …

Diabetes-Related Distress Screening: A Survey Of Primary Care Providers' Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices In Treating Patients With Difficulty Meeting Glycemic Goals., Michele Patrice Paxton

DNP Projects

A patient with diabetes is two to three times more likely to be depressed than the general population. Furthermore, the combination of diabetes and depression is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, research has shown that treatment for depression does not correlate with lower HbA1c levels or a decrease in morbidity and mortality. Recently, a body of evidence has shown that increased HbA1c levels and depression are associated with the emotional burden of managing diabetes. The emotional burden is caused by the constant behavioral and mental demands of managing the disease and the worry and fear of the impending …

A Comparative Study Of Aesthetic And Performance Properties Of Womens T-Shirts Made Of Lyocell, Organic Cotton, And Viscose From Bamboo, Katelyn Eubank

Theses and Dissertations--Retailing and Tourism Management

The purpose of this research was to evaluate and compare the performance, aesthetic and material properties of women’s t-shirts composed of three different sustainable fibers (lyocell, organic cotton, and viscose from bamboo) before and after repeated home laundering. A convenience sample was comprised of thirty-nine t-shirts. Thirteen black t-shirts from each fiber content were used for testing according to ASTM and AATCC standards. The evaluations and measurements were performed initially and after wash intervals one, five, ten, and twenty. The t-shirts were tested for fabric weight, fabric count, color fastness, smoothness appearance, pilling, dimensional stability and skewness.

Southeastern Law Librarian Winter 2018, Seaall

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Beyond Big Bird, Binders, And Bayonets: Humor And Visibility Among Connected Viewers Of The 2012 Us Presidential Debates, Kevin Driscoll, Alex Leavitt, Kristen L. Guth, François Bar, Aalok Mehta

Communication Faculty Publications

During the 2012 US presidential debates, more than five million connected viewers turned to social media to respond to the broadcast and talk politics with one another. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examines the prevalence of humor and its relationship to visibility among connected viewers live-tweeting the debates. Based on a content analysis of tweets and accounts, we estimate that approximately one-fifth of the messages sent during the debates consisted of strictly humorous content. Using retweet frequency as a proxy for visibility, we found a positive relationship between the use of humor and the visibility of individual tweets. Not …

“One More Way To Sell New Orleans”: Airbnb And The Commodification Of Authenticity Through Local Emotional Labor, Ian Spangler

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Since 2014, Airbnb has been the poster-child for an impassioned debate over how to best regulate short-term home rentals (STR’s) in New Orleans, Louisiana. As critical perspectives toward on-demand economic practice become increasingly common, it is important to understand how the impacts of STR platforms like Airbnb extend beyond the realm of what is traditionally conceptualized as the economic (i.e., pressure on housing markets). In this thesis, I explore the ways in which Airbnb recalibrates the spatial and temporal rhythms of everyday neighborhood life for people external to the formal trappings of an STR contract. Drawing in particular on theories …

2018 Constitution Day Essay Contest 1st Place--Social Media: Unifier Or Divider, Claire Hilbrecht

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Overhead Imagery For Localization, Mapping, And Understanding, Scott Workman

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Ground-level and overhead images provide complementary viewpoints of the world. This thesis proposes methods which leverage dense overhead imagery, in addition to sparsely distributed ground-level imagery, to advance traditional computer vision problems, such as ground-level image localization and fine-grained urban mapping. Our work focuses on three primary research areas: learning a joint feature representation between ground-level and overhead imagery to enable direct comparison for the task of image geolocalization, incorporating unlabeled overhead images by inferring labels from nearby ground-level images to improve image-driven mapping, and fusing ground-level imagery with overhead imagery to enhance understanding. The ultimate contribution of this thesis …

Exploring Critical Consciousness, Facilitating Black Liberation, Della V. Mosley

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

The current study aimed to uncover processes and experiences that led individuals to critically engage in racial justice activism, specifically the Black Lives Matter movement. A constructivist grounded theory approach was utilized under critical-ideological and Black feminist paradigms in order to build a practical theory related to developing critical consciousness about oppression facing the Black community. Black activists in the movement between the ages of 23 and 60 (N=12) participated in intensive individual interviews. The result of the study is a co-constructed theory of racial justice activism development (the Critical Consciousness of Anti-Black Racism [CCABR] model) that can be used …

Risk And Protective Factors For Sexual Desire Among Women With Children And Their Romantic Partners, Christine E. Leistner

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Romantic couples with children struggle to balance the needs of their romantic relationships with the responsibilities of parenting and mothers report difficulty viewing themselves as sexual beings after having children. Understanding the risk and protective factors for sexual and relational outcomes for couples with children or those that may have children in the future may provide insight into the dynamics of these couples and the ways in which parents can preserve relational health over time. The current study utilized Basson’s Model of Sexual Response (2000) as a conceptual theoretical framework and the Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kenny et al., …

Designing Effective Tsunami Messages: Examining The Role Of Short Messages And Fear In Warning Response, Jeannette Sutton, Sarah C. Vos, Michele M. Wood, Monique Turner

Communication Faculty Publications

Although tsunamis have the potential to be extremely destructive, relatively little research on tsunami messaging has taken place. Discovering whether tsunami warning messages can be written in a way that leads to increased protective response is crucial, particularly given the increased use of mobile message services and the role they play in notifying the public of imminent threats such as tsunami and other hazards. The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility of designing warning messages for tsunamis that improve upon message style and content used by public alerting agencies to date and to gain insight that can …

“Well, Don’T Walk Around Naked... Unless You’Re A Girl”: Gender, Sexuality, And Risk In Jamtronica Festival Subcultural Scenes, Kaitlyne A. Motl

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

The purpose of this study was to explore emerging issues surrounding gendered fear, threat, and violence perpetration at music festivals – particularly events that feature a synthesis of jam band and electronic dance music acts – a genre termed jamtronica by its fans. Though gendered violence perpetration and prevention have been widely studied within other party-oriented settings (i.e., sexual violence perpetration on college campuses), very little research exists to address how wider disparities of gender and sexuality permeate a community whose members frequently claim the scene’s immunity from external inequalities.

In this three-year multi-sited ethnography, I incorporate participant observations, group …

#Hashtags: A Look At The Evaluative Roles Of Hashtags On Twitter, Leah Rose Schaede

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Social media has become a large part of today’s pop culture and keeping up with what is going on not only in our social circles, but around the world. It has given many a platform to unite their causes, build fandoms, and share their commentary with the world. A tool in helping group posts together or give commentary on a thought is the hashtag. In this paper I explore the evaluative roles of hashtags in social media discourse, specifically on Twitter. I use a sample of randomly selected tweets from the Twitter API stream I collected and compiled myself. I …

Using Psychological Theories To Understand Citizen Attitudes Toward Government Performance And Collaborative Behaviors In The Public Sector, Jue Young Mok

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

There have been various approaches to studying the effectiveness of government performance in public administration. While some have focused on broad organizational factors, others have taken an individual level approach by applying concepts and methods from psychology and behavioral economics. This three-essay dissertation continues this latter approach by examining the role of cognitive mechanisms in explaining citizen attitudes toward government performance as well as collaborative behaviors in the public sector.

The first essay explored the role of detailed versus abstract mental construals in understanding the relationship between expectations of public service performance and attitudes toward a government. Type of thinking, …

Identifying Perceived Risks To Environmental Pollutants And Needs For Risk Communication In A Rural Appalachian Community, Elizabeth H. Travis

Theses and Dissertations--Nutrition and Food Systems

The goal of this study is to determine issues rural Appalachian residents consider most important, their perceived environmental health risk, and how community engagement can potentially improve those issues. The University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center held the Appalachian Community Health and Well-being Forum at the Letcher County Cooperative Extension Office in Eastern Kentucky. A four-member panel consisted of two local health officials, a nutrition expert, and a federal scientist; answered questions from community members. The expert panel and audience members shared concerns, success stories, and highlighted efforts to promote health in the region. Community members completed a questionnaire collecting …

Attachment Styles And The Michelangelo Phenomenon: Role Of Individual Differences In Interpersonal Growth Striving, Laura Marika Patrick

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

Michelangelo Phenomenon provides an interpersonal model of goal pursuits and suggests that close partners sculpt one another and help them move toward their ideal selves. Attachment theory also provides a parallel explanation of how close others can help one another move toward their goals. The purpose of the current research was to look at the influence of attachment on the Michelangelo Phenomenon and test whether it best fit as a predictor, mediator, or moderator. The hypotheses were tested across three studies (two longitudinal and one cross-sectional) using a maximum likelihood estimation path analysis following APIM assumptions. The results provided strong …

Exploring Spatial And Temporal Variability Of Soil And Crop Processes For Irrigation Management, Javier Reyes

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Irrigation needs to be applied to soils in relatively humid regions such as western Kentucky to supply water for crop uptake to optimize and stabilize yields. Characterization of soil and crop variability at the field scale is needed to apply site specific management and to optimize water application. The objective of this work is to propose a characterization and modeling of soil and crop processes to improve irrigation management. Through an analysis of spatial and temporal behavior of soil and crop variables the variability in the field was identified. Integrative analysis of soil, crop, proximal and remote sensing data was …

“Listening With An Attitude”: The Role Of Attitude On Native And Non-Native Intergroup Communication, Aidah N. Aljuran

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

People tend to draw their own conclusions about similarities and differences between who they are and the “other.” Having perceptions of being similar to the in-group and being different from the out-group “satisfies psychological needs” (Robbins & Krueger, 2005). Based on this social perception, individuals show communication variations as a way of expressing their identities (Giles 1973). This study implements quantitative and qualitative methods in order to examine the attitude of native speakers (NSs), as well as the potential impact of these attitudes on their communication with non-native speakers (NNSs). The potential impact of NSs’ interactions on NNSs’ interactions was …

A Markedly Different Approach: Investigating Pie Stops Using Modern Empirical Methods, Phillip Barnett

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

In this thesis, I investigate a decades-old problem found in the stop system of Proto-Indo-European (PIE). More specifically, I will be investigating the paucity of */b/ in the forms reconstructed for the ancient, hypothetical language. As cross-linguistic evidence and phonological theory alone have fallen short of providing a satisfactory answer, herein will I employ modern empirical methods of linguistic investigation, namely laboratory phonology experiments and computational database analysis. Following Byrd 2015, I advocate for an examination of synchronic phenomena and behavior as a method for investigating diachronic change.

In Chapter 1, I present an overview of the various proposed phonological …