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- Creator:
- Cousar, Kayleigh
- Description:
- Violence is a part of human life. Consequently, many contemplate how we could mitigate this troubling reality. Virtuous Violence Theory (VVT) suggests that morality may motivate individuals to engage in violence to uphold their moral values and regulate their relationships with others. This theory seems to be supported by archival and correlational research that investigates existing intergroup conflicts. However, there is a lack of experimental research, as tightly-controlled, ethical experiments on violence are difficult to conduct. In response to this need, we asked participants at CSUSM (N = 206) to play a conflict behavioral economic game with an experimental manipulation designed to foster either moral or non-moral judgment; this provided an ethical method for operationalizing violence that is nonetheless indicative of people’s preferred actions in similar real-life situations. We hypothesized that there would be more violence in the moral conflicts than the non-moral conflicts. However, results from our multilevel analysis indicate a more nuanced pattern. Specifically, our experimental manipulation of morality led to decreased violence, while judgments of moral condemnation were associated with increased violence. In fact, condemnation seems to perpetuate conflict spirals of continued violence escalation over time. We discuss these results and their implications for our understanding of violence, as well as how future research might leverage morality to mitigate conflict.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Deeptanshu Jha
- Description:
- Social media sources have generated an explosion of detailed behavioral data. These novel data sources provide us with an exceptional opportunity to devise innovative computational methods to study and characterize drug use and recovery at an unprecedented scale. In this thesis, we describe how novel computational methods encompassing data mining, machine learning, natural language processing, causal analysis, and social network analysis can be used to leverage social media data to understand drug use and recovery. In particular we report the following results: (1) We employ structural equation modeling to quantify how emotional distress, physical pain, relationships, and self-development are associated with addiction recovery behavior. (2) We demonstrate how recurrent neural networks utilizing word embeddings, and other textual features can be used to identify and predict the stages of opioid use and recovery. (3) We describe how computational models can predict addiction recovery inclinations by utilizing propensity score matching and a logistic regression classification model. (4) Finally, we present an open-source web application that analyzes social media posts to identify individuals open to addiction recovery intervention and characterize drug use at an individual and population level.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Computer Science
- Creator:
- Jamie Rose Sibley Yin
- Description:
- This study measured the effect of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) on carbon, ammonium, and nitrate uptake by natural assemblages of phytoplankton from the northern San Francisco Estuary (nSFE). The first part of the study was conducted in the fall of 2017 along a downstream transect in the low salinity zone — characterized by increasing turbidity and decreasing PAR. The second part was done in 2018 at one station (Rio Vista) from the transect. Rates were measured using stable isotope tracers over 4 or 24 hours at six or eight light levels. Carbon and NO3' uptake mostly showed a hyperbolic response to PAR, whereas NH4+ uptake showed little response to increased PAR. All uptake rates were maximal at low irradiances. These results provide direct measurements of primary productivity and nitrogen uptake for the SFE and show that light is not as important for phytoplankton growing on NHC as it is when they are growing on NO3'. This study is relevant to aquatic scientists by helping to explain why the turbid SFE does not exhibit the effects of eutrophication and shows that light is not as important of a constraining factor on these phytoplankton as previously thought.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Interdisciplinary Marine and Estuary Sciences
4. Comparing classification methods for mapping invasive floating vegetation in the Sacramento Delta
- Creator:
- Michael Joseph Tarantino
- Description:
- Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) acrassipes) and water primrose (Ludwigia hexapetala) are aggressive invasive floating aquatic vegetation (FAV) species that cause severe economic and ecological impacts to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California. These two invasive FAV occupy the same ecological niche within the delta ecosystem and form large floating vegetation mats made up of a mixture of both hyacinth and primrose. Remote sensing methods have proven to be successful in mapping and identifying invasive freshwater aquatic vegetation compared to traditional surveying methods. Using three different types of imagery (multispectral 2019 PlanetScope at 3.7m, multispectral 2018 WorldView-2 at 1.8m, and hyperspectral 2007 AVIRIS at 2.4m) four different remote sensing classification methods were performed to mapping invasive FAV - maximum likelihood (ML), support vector machine (SVM), object-based image analysis (OBIA), and spectral angle mapper (SAM) - resulting in six method/imagery combinations (Planet/ML, Planet/SVM, WorldView-2/ML, WorldView-2/OBIA, AVIRIS/ML, AVIRIS/SAM). The six classifications achieved producer’s accuracies from 83% to 91%. The AVIRIS/SAM combination resulted in the highest producer accuracy (91%) and the Planet/SVM combination resulted in the lowest producer accuracy (83%). This study revealed that, when mapping invasive FAV in a freshwater ecosystem, higher spatial resolution results in a higher classification accuracy. This study also revealed that when mapping FAV, hyperspectral imagery results in a higher classification accuracy than multispectral imagery.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Geography
- Creator:
- Divya Subramanian
- Description:
- Some dative verbs appear in both the double object construction (Give me the toy) and the prepositional construction (Give the toy to me), while others can only be used in one construction (Say something to me // *Say me something). Children cannot expect to hear every grammatical possibility, nor can they assume that dative verbs they have not previously heard in a construction can never be used in that construction. This results in a paradox: How do children learn what constructions are ungrammatical in the absence of negative evidence? Yang (2016) proposed a possible explanation to this paradox using the Tolerance Principle, a model that predicts linguistic productivity. In this thesis, we replicate Yang’s analysis of how children learn the dative shift using positive evidence alone. We then conduct a modified analysis to address some of the potential limitations in Yang’s study.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Dawn Louise Spinella
- Description:
- This novel is based on a true story and represents the later period in the life of Reverend Tunis G. Campbell. It begins in 1863 when Tunis Campbell, at age fifty, leaves New York and moves to Georgia to help the freedmen assemble their new lives. The story follows him through the last two years of the Civil War, into Reconstruction and continues through his political struggles as the Democrats regain control of Georgia. The historical events and timeline are factual. Tunis Campbell and the periphery characters are true American historical figures. The author has taken liberties with the two characters who represent St. Catherine's Island - Isata and Vali. These two characters, however, are based on characters culled from Georgia slave narratives and particularly from interviews gathered from former slaves who lived and worked on St. Catherine’s Island prior to, and during the time Reverend Campbell resided on the island.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- English: Creative Writing
- Creator:
- Ashante Shenika Smith
- Description:
- The purpose of this thesis was to examine the effect of using Universal Access (UA) which is small group intervention as a pedagogical strategy to close the reading gap of African American students. This is a teacher research study used a sixth grade classroom consisting of predominantly African American students who were reading below grade level. The study is grounded using Critical Race Theory (CRT), Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) and an Afrocentric learning theory. The critical issues that impact the educational success of African American students are often centered around education and equity in the classroom. This study looks more intently at the UA model within the framework of CRT,CRP and ALT to create a more culturally relevant learning community to help close the reading gap experienced by so many African American students. A mixed methods study design was used to determine the effectiveness of these groups; data such as reading achievement assessments, field notes and journal entries were collected for data analysis. The results of the study revealed that Universal Access groups helped to facilitate an increase in the reading levels of underperforming students. Students increased in reading fluency and reading comprehension.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Michael Thomas Morito Sera
- Description:
- This thesis investigated specific relations between different executive functions and sensorimotor functions in neurologically and physically healthy adults. The secondary aim of this thesis was to examine potential moderating effects of environmental factors, such as demographics, socioeconomic status, loneliness, social isolation, handedness, and engagement in physical activities. The three main findings are that executive functions declined in participants older than 50 years of age, whereas sensorimotor functions were stable across the adult lifespan until 60+ years of age. Furthermore, no associations were found between environmental factors and executive and motor functions. Findings of the present study will assist in developing targeted interventions and preventative programs prior to cognitive-motor declines.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Interdisciplinary Marine and Estuary Sciences
- Creator:
- Joshua William Jose Salazar
- Description:
- The purpose of this thesis is to examine Italy’s and Germany’s contrasting, discursive and physical responses of today’s “European refugee and asylum-seeking crisis.” While some argue that Europe is a full-fledged, securitized garrison, others argue that it is liberalizing and embracing cosmopolitan liberal ideals. This thesis argues that the European Union is doing both. Particularly, it dissects both Angela Merkel’s and Germany’s desecuritization narrative as well as Matteo Salvini’s and Italy’s securitization narrative vis-a-vis the “European refugee and asylum-seeking crisis” between 2016 and 2019. Italy’s liberalism crisis has led to the securitization of refugees and asylum seekers; in contrast, Germany’s spreading of cosmopolitan liberalism had led to the desecuritization of refugees and asylum seekers. The purpose of examining these two approaches is to help us better understand the geopolitical divergences within the European bloc. This thesis develops from the Copenhagen School and supplements their existing de/securitization theories with proximization theory. Last, via both contextual and narrative analyses, this thesis also examines identity(s) (i.e. German-ness/Italian-ness), and how ontological, physical, cultural, or economic (in)securities engender the de-/securitization of immigrant bodies.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- International Relations
- Creator:
- Lily Thuy Pham
- Description:
- This paper will explore a historical timeline of western colonialism and imperialism’s legacy of trauma from Vietnam to the diasporic Vietnamese American community in the United States, specifically its impact on the lives, experiences, and identity formation of postwar (1.5 and second) generation Vietnamese Americans. Following the three chapter outline, the first chapter will begin with a historical overview from the late 1800s during French colonialism in Vietnam leading up to the Vietnam War and contemporary Vietnamese American communities. The second chapter will delve deeper into intergenerational trauma and postmemory. The final chapter will tie this history in with contemporary Vietnamese Americans through a collection of oral histories. This chapter will examine how all the aforementioned can provide context for the transmission of trauma from the affected generation to the next and how it has impacted and shaped the lives of those who are generations removed from these histories. This is a somewhat personal body of work delving into the histories that have shaped the people and societies I see in the present and how we can imagine the possibilities for a Vietnamese American future that bridges intergenerational lives and experiences to bring about the chance to heal and move forward.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Women and Gender Studies