Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Spouse Violence In Case Of Police Officers In Puerto Rico: Violence In Police Families, Jorge Ismael Suarez

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to explore the relationship between factors related to police work and whether these factors help predict domestic violence in a sample of officers of the Puerto Rico Police. The following factors were explored in this study: external burnout, alcohol abuse, department withdrawal, and authoritarian spillover. This study was based on a previous study by Johnson et al. (2005), which revealed that violence exposure and domestic violence among police officers are linked according to four mediation chains. The mediation chain was a model implemented by the authors to determine the influence of burnout, authoritarian spillover, alcohol …

Examining Digital Hostility Against Black Women: A Thematic Analysis Of The Black Manosphere On Twitter, Nekea Sanders

Theses and Dissertations

The Manosphere is a collective of powerfully influential men who create and control harmful narratives about women online. Individuals within the Manosphere are disseminating their beliefs and garnering support through various online platforms, including social media. This research study sheds light on the Black Manosphere, a group within the Manosphere that has gone under the radar, despite the detrimental and toxic content they publish online about Black women. This qualitative research study examined the hostile rhetoric published by the Black Manosphere on Twitter (now X) about Black women. The research questions guiding this qualitative examination were: (1) What types and …

Are Industry Returns Informative About Other Industries And Fundamentals?, Nikiforos T. Laopodis

Business Faculty Publications

This paper examines the information content of selected US industries focusing on the dynamic linkages among these industries, the stock market and a number of fundamental variables. The period of investigation spans from January 1960 to December 2021. The empirical strategy includes several methodologies such as regressions, vector autoregressions and volatility models. The idea is to investigate the dynamic linkages among these series at both the mean and the volatility levels. The results point to significant industry returns’ explanatory power for many predictors of economic activity including the stock market. Further, time-varying analysis of the linkages among the industries and …

Rain Garden Community Communications Intern, Isabella Jones

College of the Environment Internship Reports

To restore and protect the marine environments of East Jefferson County by raising community awareness of issues, engaging volunteers in stewardship, and generating support for Northwest Straits Commission programs and activities.

Apa Nw Section Intern, Ella Barnard

College of the Environment Internship Reports

At the beginning of the internship we created a loose work plan to follow and as we went things were added to it. Aside from the work plan I also helped draft and send emails to the membership, communicate with the state chapter for information on the membership, create surveys for students, membership, and planning directors (which will be sent out later). I was also responsible for attending the quarterly forums and board meetings both in person and online. Along with this I had weekly meetings with the vice president to go over what I should be working on and …

City Of Granite Falls Intern, Jax Thaxton

College of the Environment Internship Reports

Upon finding the posting for an internship position with Granite Falls, I immediately noticed a strong correlation between the job expectations and my current coursework at the time. One of the listed objectives was to help draft a 2024 Comprehensive Plan update – something I had just gained my first hands-on experience with in Land Use Regulations & Technical Writing, where student teams were tasked with making Comprehensive Plan recommendations for cities and towns in Skagit County. The town I worked with, La Conner, had noticeable parallels with Granite Falls such as the small size and proximity to tribal reservations. …

Kulshan Carbon Trust Communications Intern, Sidra Margaret Sage Miller

College of the Environment Internship Reports

Biochar is a carbon-rich material created through pyrolysis (low oxygen burning) of organic materials. Once mixed in the appropriate ratio with materials such as compost, the resulting biochar mixture can be applied to farm fields. This step is essential, as biochar on its own takes years to inoculate properly with farm soil.

Nwac Snow School Intern, Cayla A. Zobrist

College of the Environment Internship Reports

The Northwest Avalanche Center (NWAC) is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to elevating avalanche awareness, reducing avalanche impacts, and providing important services such as mountain weather and avalanche forecasts, education programs, and data resources to the community. NWAC envisions a Pacific Northwest backcountry user community that is well-informed about avalanche risks and capable of making informed decisions for safe outdoor activities. NWAC holds a 3-year plan that outlines five major goals aimed at meeting the needs of the backcountry community across Washington State as well as Oregon. These goals include various aspects such as improving forecasting capabilities, expanding education …

Nature Preschool Internship, Katie M. Peterson

College of the Environment Internship Reports

My first learning curve was figuring out what it looks like to guide students toward independence. On my first day, a student asked for help packing their lunch, so when they handed me their lunch box, I closed it and put it in their backpack. A teacher kindly corrected my action by asking the student to show me how they can pack up their bag on their own. This is when I realized that my reaction to being asked for help has room for improvement. In past childcare situations I've worked in, there was no work in teaching students independence, …

Outback Farm Intern, Reign M. Head

College of the Environment Internship Reports

For the first four months of working at the Outback Farm I worked as the Engagement/Communication Coordinator. In this position, I was responsible for organizing events, publicizing the farm, managing the community gardens, and being a main point of contact for the farm . A few events I planned, organized, and worked at were our summer Free Farmer’s Markets (see Appendix C) –an event where we gave away our produce to students for no cost. Another I planned –that got canceled due to a sewage leak– was the Fall Harvest Jubilee (see Appendix B). While planning these events I would …

Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group Education Intern, Abbie Joi Niskanen

College of the Environment Internship Reports

was hired as an Education Intern with SFEG for the 2023-2024 school season. I was contracted for 6 months: September through March, to help with both the ‘Salmon in Schools’ and ‘Kids in Creeks’ programs. The Salmon in Schools program is aimed towards 3rd and 5th graders with the intent to teach students about the salmon life cycle and provide the opportunity raise and release their own batch of salmon. The Kids in Creeks program is targeted towards middle and high schoolers, teaching students about watersheds, riparian habitats, and invasive plants. Outside of the classroom, I also helped at various …

Examining Driver Preferences For Intelligent Audiovisual Warnings At Highway-Rail Grade Crossings, Samantha Walker

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Driver noncompliance and poor decision-making are known contributors to highway-rail grade crossing incidents and accidents. Recent advances in intelligent in-vehicle warning systems have provided new opportunities for improved safety at highway-rail grade crossings. Intelligent warning systems that can communicate between connected vehicles and the infrastructure (V2I) have been proposed to improve safety. However, limited human factors research has been conducted regarding how drivers might react to these in-vehicle warnings. This study evaluated driver preferences, use cases, and message design variations for in-vehicle audiovisual warnings for rail crossing warning violations by varying two message factors: message length and whether the message …

“I Got A Migraine And That Sucked”: College Students’ Affective Stance Towards Their Migraine Experiences, Megha Vasudevan

Undergraduate Research Awards

Migraines are a genetically influenced disorder and they are a common cause for disability (Ruschel & Jesus, 2023). This study seeks to examine the affective stance of college students towards their migraines. Affective stance refers to overt expressions of emotions in relation towards a particular entity to convey an emotional position in relation to that entity (Du Bois & Kärkkäinen, 2012, Kiesling 2022). Since this study was seeking to research a specific community, both participants were recruited because of their migraine experience. The findings of this study reveal that college students generally take a negative stance towards their migraine experiences, …

Lofi Hip Hop Beats To Chill/Relax/Analyze To: Examining The Development, Components, And Online Participation Of Lofi Hip Hop, Sam Vasich

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Students across the globe are familiar with the YouTube phenomenon of the ‘Lofi Girl’ and her ‘lofi hip hop radio [beats to relax/study to]’. The YouTube livestream hosting chilled-out music has become a beacon for those trying to accomplish tasks, study for exams, or relax. But, how has this livestream managed to amass a subscription base of over fourteen million? What draws people to this webpage, and what keeps them coming back? This paper examines the development, features, and online participation of lofi hip hop. As explored in the paper, the genre of lofi hip hop is a syncretic soundform …

The Influence Of Financial Literacy, Environmental Literacy, And Environmental Concern On Green Preferences Among Young Adults In Brunei Darussalam, Siti Rafhanah Binti Haji Nor Hasnul, Shaista Wasiuzzaman

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

This study aims to assess the green preferences in Brunei Darussalam among young adults evaluate the level of environmental and financial literacy among Brunei’s young adults and investigate the influence of financial literacy, environmental literacy and environmental con- cern on the green preferences of young adults in Brunei. A survey questionnaire was distrib- uted to youths between the ages of 15 to 40 years old, out of which 192 responses were gath- ered. Various statistical analyses were carried out to achieve the aims. It is found that green preferences were moderate among Bruneian young adults. Environmental literacy is found to …

Automated Update Tools To Augment The Wisdom Of Crowds In Geopolitical Forecasting, Amy Summerville, Cara Widmer, Brandon Minnery, Ion Juvina, Subashini Ganapathy

Psychology Faculty Publications

Despite the importance of predictive judgments, individual human forecasts are frequently less accurate than those of even simple prediction algorithms. At the same time, not all forecasts are amenable to algorithmic prediction. Here, we describe the evaluation of an automated prediction tool that enabled participants to create simple rules that monitored relevant indicators (e.g., commodity prices) to automatically update forecasts. We examined these rules in both a pool of previous participants in a geopolitical forecasting tournament (Study 1) and a naïve sample recruited from Mechanical Turk (Study 2). Across the two studies, we found that automated updates tended to improve …

Aiming For The Goal: Contribution Dynamics Of Crowdfunding, Joyee Deb, Aniko Öry (Oery), Kevin R. Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study a dynamic contribution game where investors seek private benefits that are offered in exchange for contributions and a single, publicly-minded donor values project success. We show that donor contributions serve as costly signals that encour-age socially-productive contributions by investors who face a coordination problem. Investors and the donor prefer different equilibria but all benefit in expectation from the donor’s ability to dynamically signal his valuation. We explore various contexts in which our model can be applied and delve empirically into the case of Kickstarter. We calibrate our model and quantify the coordination benefits of dynamic signaling in counterfactuals.

Data From: Active Transportation Counts From Existing On-Street Signal And Detection Infrastructure, Sirisha Kothuri, Patrick Allen Singleton, Mahyar Vahedi Saheli, Elizabeth Yates, Joseph P. Broach

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Datasets

This study’s objective was to use data from existing traffic signal infrastructure to estimate pedestrian volumes. Pedestrian push-button actuations were collected from signal controller logs at 49 intersections in western Oregon and an additional 16 intersections in eastern Oregon. These actuations were then compared to observed pedestrian counts, totaling over 34,000 people, obtained from video recordings. After exploring various options, a simple quadratic relationship was modeled using a single measure of pedestrian signal activity: the number of push-button presses (filtered to remove multiple presses within 15 seconds). The model’s predictions showed a correlation of 0.86 with observed pedestrian volumes and …

The Mouse In The Museum, Maggie Colangelo, Bernard Means

Virtual Curation Lab's Comic Publications

Find out about America's first successful public museum of art and natural history from a unique perspective: a mouse! The museum mouse guides you through Charles Willson Peale's Philadelphia Museum from its founding in his own home to its eventual establishment in what is now called Independence Hall. You will encounter a killer bear, an eagle that has seen better days, and the massive bones of an extinct elephant: the mastodon. This gripping tale is brought to you by Maggie Colangelo and Bernard K. Means, co-creators of Founding Monsters, Founding Monsters Tales, Mystery of the Missing Megafauna, and Tales from …

The Past As A Colonialist Resource, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Originalism’s critics have failed to block its rise. For many jurists and legal scholars, the question is no longer whether to espouse originalism but how to espouse it. This Article argues that critics have ceded too much ground by focusing on discrediting originalism as either bad history or shoddy linguistics. To disrupt the cycle of endless “methodological” refinements and effectively address originalism’s continued popularity, critics must do two things: identify a better disciplinary analogue for originalist interpretation and advance an argument that moves beyond methods.

Anthropology can assist with both tasks. Both anthropological analysis and originalist interpretation are premised on …

Developing Countries And External Debt: What Is Wrong?, Jesus Felipe, Jose Antonio Perez Montiel

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

LAST DECEMBER, the World Bank published its annual report on international debt (https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/debt-statistics/idr/products). The report indicates that, in 2022, the developing countries spent $443 billion on debt-service repayment (principal plus interest) of their external public and publicly guaranteed debt, 5% more than in 2021. These payments are expected to rise in 2023 and 2024 due to the increase in interest rates. The report indicates that debt levels and high interest rates have set many countries on a path to crisis.

Ua12/2/83 Pi Kappa Phi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Pi Kappa Phi fraternity.

Ua12/2/82 Phi Beta Sigma, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Ua12/2/81 Omega Psi Phi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Ua12/2/85 Sigma Gamma Rho, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Sigma Gamma Rho sorority.

Ua12/2/86 Zeta Phi Beta, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Zeta Phi Beta sorority.

Ua94/6/18 Stephen Flora Student / Alumni Papers, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Stephen Flora during his years as a student at Western Kentucky University.

Worst Practices: Departmental Predictors Of Police-Involved Deaths In Minnesota, 2013–2022, Joseph D. Ramlet

Capstone Projects

For decades, police departments in every part of the United States have been scrutinized for incidents of excessive and unjustified force. Some departments kill more of the citizenry than others, both with and without justification. Attention is drawn to Minnesota in the decade since the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, through and after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent racial reckoning. Existing scholarship categorizes factors as individual and contextual, both of which are included in partial least squares regression performed on crowdsourced data and responses to Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics surveys from 29 departments in …

Expanding Medication-Assisted Treatment In Drug Courts: A Comprehensive Examination And Proposed Solution To Expand Maud And Moud Programs In The United States, Katelin Carter

Research Awards

This article examines the relationships between substance abuse, criminal justice, and public health in the United States, with a specific focus on Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) within drug treatment courts. The analysis uncovers the limitations of punitive measures, particularly within the framework of President Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs," revealing the need for evidence-based solutions like MAT in criminal justice. The pivotal role of MAT in addressing opioid addiction within drug courts is explored in detail, and data is presented supporting its effectiveness. Despite this efficacy, persistent barriers to its implementation are identified, including stigma, policy constraints, and healthcare disparities. Legal …

Completely Optional: Rethinking Synchronous Graduate Workshops As Asynchronous Youtube Videos, Julie Arendt

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

After the session, attendees will be aware of the “best practices” recommended for academic library videos in general. Attendees will observe a process for prioritizing goals in library workshops and for getting inspiration from sources outside the library.