Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The College Experience: Exploring The Relationship Between Sleep, Executive Function, And Alcohol Use, Evelyn R. Conner

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Environmental Gentrification And Development In A Rural Appalachian Community: Blending Critical Theory And Ethnography, Rhiannon A. Leebrick

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is twofold: first, to explore the relevance of environmental gentrification, a concept largely applied to urban settings, as a means to understand social change in rural and small town Appalachia; and secondly, drawing upon political economy perspectives within environmental sociology and the tradition of early Frankfurt School critical theory, to contextualize the process of environmental gentrification within global capitalism. Conflicts over green economic development, including the maintenance of idyllic vistas, appear to have arisen among various groups with opposing interests and perceptions. These conflicts are complex, affected by the rise of gentrification accompanying uneven development …

An Experiment To Chronometrically Examine The Effects Of Self-Controlled Feedback On The Performance And Learning Of A Sequential Timing Task, Andrew Duvier Bass

Masters Theses

Research in the motor learning domain regarding the underlying mechanism of self-controlled feedback has speculated that learners who are given the option to control their feedback schedule may engage in deeper levels of information processing, yet no study has measured information processing during a self-controlled protocol. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of self-controlled feedback on information processing during the learning of a sequential timing task. Little known about the underlying mechanism of the self-control benefit. Participants were randomly assigned to self-control (SC) (n = 10) and yoked (YK) (n = 10) groups. SC …

A Comparative Faunal Analysis Of British Military Contexts At Brimstone Hill Fortress, St. Kitts, West Indies, Callie Roller Bennett

Masters Theses

The Caribbean island of St. Kitts was one of the wealthiest colonies in the British Empire during the late 17^th through early 19^th centuries because of its production and export of sugar. The British sought to defend the island from foreign invaders by building a large military fortification on the island called Brimstone Hill Fortress. Built beginning in 1690, the fort was home to a community of enslaved Africans, British army officers, British Royal Engineers, and enlisted soldiers up until its abandonment in the mid 1800s. To feed such a diverse workforce, the British military utilized imported provisions …

4-H Wildlife Habitat Education Program: A Qualitative Study On Career Exploration, Ronnie Lee Cowan

Masters Theses

There are documented studies on the Wildlife Habitat Education Program (WHEP) that relate to building life skills of participants. However, no literature was found that measured the perceptions of the participants towards a career in wildlife after participating in WHEP. To add validity to the program a focus group was conducted at the Tennessee 4-H wildlife judging contest to describe the WHEP participants’ perceptions of careers in wildlife after the completion of the annual program. Focus group participants indicated that participating in WHEP peaked their interest in wildlife and provided an opportunity to experience the importance of natural resource management.

Gender, Coping Style, And Depression Severity In Emerging Adult University Students, Dennis Allen Donahue

Masters Theses

Much research has examined coping styles and their possible positive or negative relationship with psychological health and well-being in various populations. Many studies have identified coping methods that may be associated with lower levels of specific psychological symptomatology as well as those that may predict an exacerbation of distress. The current study replicated some of these findings in a population of emerging-adult college students. Using Tobin and colleagues (1989) hierarchical model of coping and the Coping Strategies Inventory, we examined the potential links between coping style, gender, and depression. Gender was found to be a weak predictor of depression prevalence …

Effect Of Maternal Borderline Personality Disorder On Adolescents’ Experience Of Maltreatment And Adolescent Borderline Features, Gretchen Kurdziel

Masters Theses

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe mental illness characterized by dysfunction and instability across a variety of domains including interpersonal relations, behavior, emotion, and cognitions. The current study assessed maltreatment in the adolescent offspring of mothers’ with BPD, who may be more at risk for experiencing maltreatment compared to adolescents who do not have a mother with the disorder. Participants were adolescents age 14-18 years (M = 15.78, SD = 1.21) who were a part of a larger study examining offspring of mothers with BPD. Groups were divided into adolescents whose mothers’ were diagnosed with BPD (n = …

The Economic Implications Of Evolving Aviation Funding Policy In Tennessee, Hunter Pressley Mccracken

Masters Theses

The majority of state funding for capital improvements at Tennessee’s general aviation and commercial airports comes through grants awarded from the Tennessee Transportation Equity Trust Fund (TETF). Through a 4.5 percent sales and use tax on the consumption of aviation fuel, users help to fund the continued improvement and maintenance of aviation facilities around the state. Aircraft refueling operations associated with the FedEx “SuperHub” in Memphis were responsible for two-thirds of the TETF’s revenue for Fiscal Year 2014. In response to speculation that FedEx would relocate its refueling operations to reduce its fuel tax liability, the Tennessee General Assembly passed …

Non-Residential Pedestrian Access To Transit Systems: A Gis Modeling Application, Luis Miguel Taboada

Masters Theses

The success of a city’s urban transit system relies on the efficacy of its pedestrian infrastructure. A functional and access-oriented pedestrian network translates into safer pedestrian travel, increased demand in transit ridership, increases in commerce patronage, and reduced motorized travel (i.e., less congestion, and less vehicle emissions). Prioritization and allocation of sidewalk construction improvements are not always done in conjunction with transit service provisions. As a result, potential destinations are left inaccessible to pedestrians using the transit system. This study is motivated by concurrent research involving sidewalk improvement prioritization methods, within the scope of home-based work pedestrian transit trips. This …

Predictors Of Youth Empathy: Early Adolescents’ Perceptions Of Maternal And Paternal Support, Emily Elizabeth Stone

Doctoral Dissertations

The world in which children develop is becoming increasingly complex and includes exposure to individuals with variations in background and identity. The development of a peaceful global community will demand empathy (compassionate perspective taking and empathic concern for the position of another person). Data examined in this study came from the Ogden Youth and Family Project. A random sample of fifth- and eighth-grade classrooms in the Ogden City School District in 1994 and 1996 provided the data examined on empathy and perceived parental support. The final sample for this study was comprised of 286 cases. Perceived Mother Support and Father …

Labor Unions And Economic Inequality In The Wealthy Democracies, Eric Graig Castater

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research on the determinants of economic inequality in the wealthy democracies has found that differences in the size and constitution of labor unions accounts for much of the cross-national and over time variation in economic inequality. Despite numerous theoretical and empirical reasons to suppose the contrary, most of this research assumes that the union effect on economic inequality is independent of the particular socio-economic and political environment unions are situated within and the types of workers actually unionized. The broad purpose of this dissertation is to push back against these assumptions and examine whether the union effect on economic …

Cirugía Cosmética: Un Análisis De Su Historia Y Prevalencia En Latinoamérica, Elena R. Hamilton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Essays On Analysis Of Electricity-Price Policy, Sanguk Kwon

Masters Theses

This thesis consists of two parts of essays on analysis of electricity-price policy and we choose South Korea as a case study at the both essays. The objective of the first essay was to analyse the effects of electricity-price policy on electricity demand and manufacturing output, focusing on how these relationships change over space. Our findings suggest that the South Korean government’s plan to increase the electricity price should be implemented with a caution. The plan would achieve the objective of mitigating electricity demand to avoid potential power shortages; however, the more rapid increase in electricity prices may trigger a …

An Ethno-Historical Account Of The African American Community In Downtown Knoxville, Tennessee Before And After Urban Renewal, Anne Victoria

Masters Theses

Urban renewal programs that applied large-scale removal of community urban space and structures, have a long history of differential impact to its community members. These effects persist. Furthermore, current redevelopment projects continue to negatively adjust the landscapes for African Americans. Most research on these impacts tends to focus on the economic failure of downtown, or the displacement of community structures, such as businesses, homes, and churches. Less is studied on the human experience before and after the change. Based on an ethno-historical account of three African American communities in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, this thesis examines the memories of the landscape …

Constructing Victimhood: Opposition To Legislation Protecting Lgbt Students Against Bullying, Kiam Loong Daniel Lai

Doctoral Dissertations

The new millennium has seen various initiatives implemented to prevent and curb anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) bullying in the United States. These initiatives include anti-discrimination policies and programs that raise awareness about LGBT identities and diversity in schools. Conservative reaction against these initiatives, in the form of both legislation and rhetoric, has been swift. The dissertation examines how opponents of prevention and intervention (OPI) have used discourse to resist the efforts of curbing and preventing anti-LGBT bullying in schools. Specifically, I undertake an investigation of how opponents of prevention initiatives used diagnostic and motivational frames – concepts from Snow …

A New Adaptive Landscape: Urbanization As A Strong Evolutionary Force, Lauren Christie Breza

Masters Theses

Urbanization is rapidly increasing as human population growth steadily grows, but there is little consensus of the ecological consequence of this population shift and almost no information of the evolutionary consequences for local biodiversity. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will live in city centers by 2050 with profound impacts on landscapes that can act as important agents of selection. This study aims to identify 1) the net effect of urbanization on species richness, 2) how phylogenetic diversity varies between urban and rural sites, and 3) the strength of urbanization as a selection pressure. First, a meta-analysis was conducted in …

The Individual And Relational Role Balance Scale (Irrbs): A Preliminary Scale Development And Validation Study, Jennifer Lynn Bishop

Masters Theses

During emerging adulthood, young people begin the process of balancing individual and relational role commitments. Whereas development within specific domains, primarily career and relationship (work and love), have been explored separately, it is important to understand how emerging adults divide their attention across multiple individual (i.e. education, employment, athletics, organizational membership) and relational (i.e. friendship, family relationship, romantic partnership) domains during this period and how perceived balance impacts psychosocial functioning in terms of life satisfaction, well-being, and mental health. This study reports on the preliminary scale validation of the Individual and Relational Role Balance Scale (IRRBS) using a college student …

The Effects Of Individual And Employer Characteristics On Hourly Employee Retention: An Empirical Study, Robert Allen Cobb

Masters Theses

This paper argues that employee tenure length is a function of not only firm specific characteristics and policies, but also individual characteristics, which can be identified and used in the pre-employment selection process. The information learned from this study can help hiring managers in identifying potentially high-production workers, by looking at several key factors that can be measured in a pre-employment application. This paper quantifies how the tenure length of employees can be influenced by not only the characteristics of the applicant, but also by decisions made by the employer. Some of these decisions include the starting wage, the number …

Spatial And Temporal Impacts Of Incentive Payments For Forest-Based Carbon Sequestration, Juhee Lee

Masters Theses

This thesis consists of two essays on impacts of incentive payments for forest-based carbon sequestration, focusing particularly on spatial and temporal aspects in the first and second essays, respectively. The purpose of the first essay is to determine if a county-level tax-based subsidy approach is a valid alternative to existing subsidy approaches for forest carbon sequestration. A land use change model is used to test the hypothesis based on a case study of Bureau of Economic Analysis Area 88 (BEAA 88). The empirical results show that the increased net return from waiving the property tax increases the share of forestland …

Drinking And Remaking Place: A Study Of The Impact Of Commercial Moonshine In East Tennessee, Helen Rosko

Masters Theses

Moonshine has undergone resurgence in recent years with the passage of the 2009 liquor laws in Tennessee, allowing for 41 counties to open and operate commercial moonshine distilleries. The rise of legalized moonshine is connected to broader economic changes and has already had a significant impact on the cultural landscape and the selling and remaking of place, in both East Tennessee and Appalachia, two historically underserved regions of the United States. Specifically this thesis research asks: How is place being sold, represented, and re-made through the proliferation of moonshine in East Tennessee? I address this question through an analysis of …

“Personas” To Support Development Of Cyberinfrastructure For Scientific Data Sharing, Kevin Crowston

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

Objective: To ensure that cyberinfrastructure for sharing scientific data is useful, system developers need to understand what scientists and other intended users do as well as the attitudes and beliefs that shape their behaviours. This paper introduces personas — detailed descriptions of an “archetypical user of a system” — as an approach for capturing and sharing knowledge about potential system users.

Setting: Personas were developed to support development of the ‘DataONE’ (Data Observation Network for Earth) project, which has developed and deployed a sustainable long-term data preservation and access network to ensure the preservation and access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and …

Data Sharing And Re-Use: Barriers And Incentives., Carol Tenopir, Suzie Allard, Mike Frame

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

No abstract provided.

Ux Report: Dataone Toolbox For Matlab User-Experience Test Results, Uawg

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

The DataONE Usability and Assessment Working Group with members of the Cyberinfrastructure Working Group conducted a user-experience study of the DataONE toolbox for MatLab during the DataONE All-Hands Meeting in October 2015.

Municipal E-News: Issue 77: November 2015, Mtas

Municipal E-News

The “Municipal E-News” was created by MTAS in 2009 as part of our continuing efforts to meet our mission of providing timely, valuable information and assistance to Tennessee cities.

Ux Report: Reviewing The Onemercury Search, Uawg

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

The Leadership group tasked the UA group with reviewing why the ONEMercury search and the DataONE search were returning different result sets. This document discusses the reason behind the discrepancy and options for addressing it.

‘Capitalism A Nuh’ Wi Frien’. The Formatting Of Farming Into An Asset, From Financial Speculation To International Aid, Luigi Russi, Tomaso Ferrando

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

This paper deciphers the formatting of farming into an asset by tracking the modalities by which financial calculation is enabled across different sites of agency.

The first focus of our analysis are commodity futures markets, which have witnessed a double spike in prices in 2008 and in 2012. In the paper, we look at these hikes as the outcome of endogenous dynamics, caused by the changing makeup of market participants after 2000, which turned futures markets into resources for hedging commodity index-linked derivative products.

We subsequently analyse the increasing reliance on financial actors placed by public development agencies that channel …

Praxis With Self-Advocates: Exploring Participatory Video As Radical Incrementalism, Kathleen C. Sitter, Amy C. Burke

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

In this article, the authors report selected findings from a larger study where self-advocates from the disability rights movement created a series of short videos as part of a participatory research project. Self-advocates subsequently integrated these videos into a greater community organizing initiative. While the research process of this study has been published elsewhere, this piece will explore the idea of bridging participatory video, a collaborative research methodology, with community-based advocacy initiatives. The authors contend that this presents an opportunity for radical incrementalism in which to create a praxis driven predominantly by the voices on the margins versus the academic …

The Liberal As An Enemy Of Queer Justice, Craig Schamel

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Abstract

Liberalism as a historical mode of the political is the context in which the movement and ensuing struggle for queer justice emerged in most Western countries. The terminology, practices, tendencies, beliefs, ethics, laws, and patterns of political and social life which have been determined by this mode of the political, it is argued, are inimical to queer justice and render its achievement impossible. Liberalism as a mode of the political is approached from below, from knowledge gained in practical experience in queer groups which considered themselves revolutionary at least to some degree, and from the effects on such groups …

Editor's Introduction, Craig R. Schamel

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

When the theme for this issue of Catalyst was conceived, it was imagined that contributions might present both defenses and critiques of liberal justice, that is, one might say, that these contributions would either promote reformist or revolutionary modes of justice. Instead, all of the submissions took a fairly decisive position of critique of liberal modes of justice, though they are not necessarily in agreement about what constitutes a revolutionary mode of social justice, and they do not always adopt the term 'revolution' itself as a description of the critique they present and the direction in which they point.

Municipal E-News: Issue 76: October 2015, Mtas

Municipal E-News

The “Municipal E-News” was created by MTAS in 2009 as part of our continuing efforts to meet our mission of providing timely, valuable information and assistance to Tennessee cities.