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Index to the Archives of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, 1901-1984
Full text linkThe Archives of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks include reports, letters, maps, conference proceedings and other records pertaining to every substantial issue which has confronted the Adirondack Park and the Forest Preserve since 1901, when this Association was formed.
For some 50 years after this Association was established, it maintained an office in New York City at 19 Rector Street. In its earliest decades, it also employed a full time executive secretary, who was extremely active in investigating, reporting and lobbying on a great variety of topics, under direction of the Trustees of the Association. In 1967 the office was disbanded, and the Association records were stored with other library materials in the Schenectady residence of Paul Schaefer. After some 15 years, the Association took further steps to preserve these accumulating materials. The oldest were already suffering from age, mildew and insect infestations because of early storage conditions. The entire collection of documents were microfilmed and xeroxed, and then the originals were placed in the vault of the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, where atmospheric controls afford maximum protection. The Xerox copies were retained by Paul Schaefer, as working records and these were donated to the Adirondack Research Center at Union College, when it was formed in 1979. This central location in the Capital District facilitates public usage of these Archives. When the materials were received by the Adirondack Research Center in 1979, a group of volunteers began to organize and index them. Items were arranged in chronological order, hole-punched, and installed in custom binders, inscribed with the name and logo of the Association. Papers in poor condition were Xeroxed to preserve their contents, and legal-sized documents were reduced photographically.https://digitalworks.union.edu/arl_findingaids/1028/thumbnail.jp
John F. Kennedy: Words Louder Than Actions in Newly-Independent Africa
Full text linkJohn F. Kennedy\u27s polarizing relationship with newly independent African leaders in the middle of the 20th century is one of the lesser-told stories of his career. From an early age, Kennedy developed a strong compassion for the underprivileged and oppressed. In tandem, he became staunchly pragmatic regarding political decisions. This thesis argues that Kennedy\u27s pragmatic Cold War agenda usually overruled his genuine moral compassion to assist newly-independent African countries. Each chapter analyzes an aspect of Kennedy\u27s moral approach towards building relationships with African nationalists, only to show that his fiercely pragmatic Cold War policy prevented these relationships from reaching their full potential. Ultimately, Kennedy\u27s words spoke louder than his actions when it came to his courting of newly-independent African nations and their leaders. His Cold War agenda dictated the final say in every decision he made, holding him back from enacting long-term change in a continent possessing tremendous potential. This thesis consists of an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction analyzes how certain experiences during John F. Kennedy\u27s upbringing instilled genuine moral compassion in him, while also considering other early experiences that made him fiercely pragmatic. Chapter 1 contrasts JFK with his predecessor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Unlike Kennedy, Eisenhower paid little heed to Africa, giving Kennedy an automatic advantage in building relationships. At times, he made active attempts to avoid meeting with African nationalists. Not used to genuine attention from Western powers, African nationalists greatly appreciated Kennedy\u27s interest in their cause. Chapter 2 discusses Kennedy\u27s methods of courting African nationalists. The relationships he cultivated through personal connections, welcome receptions, and charm eased the deployment of numerous aid programs to African nations. However, Kennedy\u27s progressive approach to African countries and the potential for long-term change was stymied by contradictions from his Cold War agenda. This becomes clear upon analysis of Kennedy\u27s policy towards South Africa and the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Guinea-Bissau. Kennedy supported white minority rule in those countries because of his Cold War agenda - Portugal was a NATO ally in possession of the Azores Air Force Base, and South Africa was a stalwart against communism in a key geographic location. Chapter 3 is an in-depth analysis of the most famous aid program Kennedy deployed to Africa: the Peace Corps. Introduced two months into JFK\u27s presidency, the Peace Corps fulfilled the challenge laid out in Kennedy\u27s Inaugural Address: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. However, much like the rest of Kennedy\u27s rhetoric on Africa, there was much positivity and theoretical growth promoted by the Peace Corps, yet few lasting changes achieved. Chapter 4 breaks down the similarities between Kennedy\u27s approach to courting African nationalists and his response to domestic civil rights issues. Kennedy used his success with courting African nationalists to gain support from civil rights leaders, and vice versa. However, Kennedy\u27s lack of response to civil rights crises and hesitancy to meet with civil rights leaders showed that, once again, he fell short of his potential to enact lasting change. Finally, the conclusion ties these four events together and references Robert F. Kennedy\u27s 1966 speech in South Africa. This speech highlights the vision for real change Kennedy wanted to fulfill in Africa if he hadn\u27t given precedence to his Cold War agenda
A Blessing or a Curse: Utilization and Inclusivity in Faith-Based Organizations Servicing the Homeless
Full text linkHomelessness is one of the most pervasive problems society faces today, and the same predicament has held true historically. Throughout time, homeless individuals have utilized different services based on what was made available to them, and what their area of greatest need was. This need has shifted from shelter, to sustenance and emotional support, as well as mental health services and evaluations. No matter the need, since the onset of contemporary homelessness, the sector of faith-based organizations have continuously supported homeless individuals. In this thesis, I explore the utilization of faith-based organizations by the homeless and the motivations of those that deliver these services to understand the experience and rationale for participation among both groups
Text, Taboo, and Pleasure in the Resolution of the Chaotic Narrative
No full textI explore the source of readerly pleasure in the taboo text using post-structuralist theory and literary criticism. Literature is a medium which presses the boundaries of social taboo. When this occurs, how does the author write taboo content in a manner that does not revolt the reader? Taboo themes may be varied and subject to changing preferences, so to focus my project, I define the taboo text as one that interacts directly with the incest prohibition, a kind of universal taboo. I argue that, because of its rare position as a universal prohibition, the incestuous text does not respond to the same thematic oppositions which normally supply the reader with a sense of pleasure. I demonstrate two possible remedies for this and apply these theories across three texts. The first is Lord Byron\u27s Manfred which, in lieu of thematic resolution, provides pleasure to its reader using vigorously structured and poetic language to contrast the taboo subject. I then discuss what occurs in the incestuous text when it is compounded with experimental language, itself a kind of taboo which alters existing linguistic structures and meaning. William Faulkner\u27s The Sound and the Fury embodies these qualities, and I construct a new theory for how the chaos of the text is meaningfully resolved so that pleasure is restored to its reader. I build this theory at the intersection of Roland Barthes\u27s The Pleasure of the Text, Julia Kristeva\u27s Desire in Language, Jacques Derrida\u27s Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, and Gilles Deleuze\u27s Felix Guattari\u27s A Thousand Plateaus. The third and final text is Ralph Ellison\u27s Invisible Man, which utilizes this latter theory, while also challenging conventions which Faulkner, despite his experimentalism, still operated under. Ellison\u27s text also places the taboo in a different position within the narrative, and thus alters the nature of its resolvability
Fast Matrix Multiplication and the Wedderburn-Artin Theorem
Full text linkResearchers Cohn and Umans proposed a framework for fast matrix multiplication algorithms. Their approach is reliant on an application of the Wedderburn-Artin Theorem: a landmark classification result in modern algebra. We show experimental success for algebras whose components all have dimension 1. We advance the Cohn and Umans framework by developing new, extendable tools to couple with their design
Intimate Partner Violence Among College Students: Service Utilization and Quality of College Campus Mental Health Services
Full text linkObjective: About one in four women and almost one in ten men will experience some form of intimate partner violence (IPV) during their lifetime (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Individuals aged 18-24, which is the age range of many college students, are considered a high-risk population for experiencing IPV and its subsequent mental and physical health consequences (Truman et al., 2014). These consequences may be in addition to the increased mental, physical, and emotional risks that attending college already imposes, further emphasizing the need for mental health support on college campuses (Pedrelli et al., 2015). There is also a gap in previous research examining college campus mental health services. Therefore, the current study is unique in examining the quality and accessibility of the college campus mental health services at Union College for students who have experienced IPV. Method: 96 student participants from Union College completed a Qualtrics survey assessing their experience with IPV, attitudes toward help-seeking, and service utilization experiences. Expert clinician interviews were conducted with three clinicians at Union College\u27s counseling center over Zoom in a semi-structured format. Results: A regression analysis ran on the student survey data showed that IPV and attitudes toward help-seeking were not predictors of service utilization. Consistent with the hypothesis, a correlation statistical analysis showed that the relationship between IPV and service utilization was not statistically significant, while the relationship between attitudes toward help-seeking and service utilization was statistically significant. The thematic analysis of the expert clinician interviews showed that the clinicians provide quality services, but do not have the resources to reach everyone on campus in need of these services. Discussion: The findings from this study suggest future research directions looking at other college campuses and including explanatory variables in future similar research. The findings also suggest an increase in staffing and expanded continuity of services to improve services on college campuses
Evaluating the Impacts of Accent and Semantic Context on Listening Effort
Full text linkNonnative accented speech is associated with increased listening effort for English-monolingual listeners, even if the speech signal is intelligible. Semantic context is a global characteristic of English phrases that quantifies the degree to which words communicate a cohesive idea. Previous research suggests that semantic context may be used as a helping factor during speech perception in adverse conditions. The current work examines the relationship between speaker accent and semantic context using global semantic anomalies. Participants performed a randomly prompted recall task during lists of varying semantic context levels recorded by native and nonnative-accented speakers. Results are discussed in terms of two frameworks for understanding listening effort and speech processing: the Ease of Language Understanding Model and the Effortfulness Hypothesis, which differ in their prediction of an interaction between speaker accent and semantic context. A significant interaction was found between Speaker Accent and Context Group, lending support for the Effortfulness Hypothesis
Childhood Perceptions of Interparental Conflict Predicts College Students\u27 Friendship Quality and Social Support
Full text linkMost children are exposed to some form of interparental conflict; when the interparental conflict is elevated and unresolved, and the children\u27s exposure to conflict is high and sustained over time, there are a variety of negative consequences (deficits in romantic relationships, lower social support, and psychological distress). My study expands connections established in the literature by focusing on how perceptions of interparental conflict relates to friendship quality and perceived levels of social support. 114 college undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire about their childhood perceptions of conflict between their parents, and their relationship with their best friends currently. They also responded to questions about their perceived levels of social support from both family and larger network of friends. Based on previous studies, I hypothesized that college students who reported higher exposure to interparental conflict would report more negative features within their friendships, and this hypothesis was supported. As predicted, poor conflict resolution and high conflict frequency between parents were both predictive of more negative features in college students\u27 friendships. Further, students who had been exposed to more interparental conflict as children reported receiving less social support from family members. Students who reported lower levels of social support also experienced more negative features in their friendships. Overall, this study suggests that children\u27s exposure to unresolved interparental conflict extends to college years and beyond romantic relationships into friendship dynamics. Future work should investigate the possible mediating effects of therapy for children exposed to high levels of interparental conflict
Effect of interest rates on firms\u27 performance in developing European countries
No full textThe central bank uses monetary policy to maintain the balance of the economy in the country. Each country in Europe has a central body that regulates the total supply of money and supports economic expansion. By using expansionary and contractionary monetary policies the central bank in each country targets inflation and keeps unemployment low. The central bank frequently employs the discount rate, open market operations, and reserve requirements as its three primary monetary policy tools. Through monetary policy, the central bank affects the profits, revenue, income, investment, turnover, and long-term and short-term liabilities of businesses. Adjusting interest rates influences the borrowing and expectations of firms. In order to grow, firms need to focus on labor, technology, marketing, investing, capital, and customers. This research focuses on the effect that interest rates have on businesses\u27 performance in European countries, particularly in nations that are members of the European Union but are not in the Eurozone such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden as well as East European nations that are neither members of the EU nor the Eurozone such as Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine. Using 1995-2019 data from the statistical websites of each country and the World Bank, this study finds that interest rates have a negative effect on firms\u27 performance in these European countries
The Impact of Weight and Race on Perceptions of Anorexia Nervosa
No full textObjective: This study examined how weight and race impact stigma, perceived need for treatment, and perceived severity of the condition for individuals with anorexia nervosa. Method: Four hundred eighty-one participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk; 311 were used in analysis. Participants completed two scales (RIBS and CAMI) that measured previous exposure to mental illness. Participants were randomly assigned to one of five conditions in which they read a passage (vignette) about a White or Black woman with anorexia nervosa (underweight), atypical anorexia nervosa (overweight) or major depressive disorder (control condition). Participants completed three post-vignette scales that assessed stigma toward the woman in the vignette, perceived need for treatment and perceived severity of the condition, and fat-phobia beliefs. Results: Two separate linear regressions were run to examine the effect of the demographic characteristics of the participants on the items that measured stigma (stigma assessment) and perceived need for treatment and perceived severity of the disorder (mental health literacy scale). Post-hoc MANOVAs were run with the significant demographic variables as covariates alongside the RIBS, CAMI, and Fat Phobia scales; vignette weight and race were assessed as independent variables and the stigma assessment and mental health literacy scale were assessed as dependent variables. Neither analyses yielded significant results for Vignette Weight, Vignette Race, or for Vignette Weight x Vignette Race. The BMI of participants had a significant effect on the stigma assessment and mental health literacy scales, and education level had a significant effect on the mental health literacy scale. Discussion: Future research should examine how other factors or identities (such as gender and sexual orientation) impact stigma and perceptions of eating disorder severity. Future research should extend the current study by using different study designs and providing participants with visual stimuli. The current study has important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of anorexia nervosa