University at Albany, State University of New York
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Freemasonry and Nationalism in the Military Geopolitics of Elite Revolution and Independence: The Insular Cases of 1898
No full textFramed in World Systems Theory and expanding on Elite Revolutions Theory, this research analyzes the role that Freemasonry had within the revolutionary events which shaped Latin America’s future during the 19th century and decisively contributed to the rise of the British Empire.
In doing so, this analysis intends to provide a comprehensive alternative to Dependency Theory by including foreign and marginal elites as geopolitical and geoeconomic actors. Often overseen, these elements may be paramount in explaining the outcomes of these movements, particularly in the implementation of Neocolonial Imperialist systems of domination and its resulting situation of enduring Anglo dependence in the region. Their allegiance to these elite circles of power provides further grounds to understand some of the otherwise unexplainable, military actions and shortcomings of these movements, which ultimately served to propel the rise of the newly born British Empire as it consolidated consolidate its long-lasting grip over Latin America.
Far from vanishing, in lieu of the sound and enduring success of this elite tool of power, Freemasonry became a central and ever more perfected tool for neo imperial domination during the Anglo endeavors of expansion during the insular campaigns of 1898.
Incorporating geopolitical, geoeconomic, geosocial and geostrategic parameters in the comparative analysis of Cuba, PR and Filipinas, this research focuses on the 1898 events, its main actors within the Spanish Government and Armed forces and their actions thereby and explores the degree in which their Freemasonry allegiance may have contributed to the aftermath of the 1898 events
Unlocking Potential: Analyzing the Content, Style, Structure, and Interactivity of Mesonets as Operational Dashboards
Get PDFEmergency managers need data and information to make life-saving decisions on behalf of the public. Operational dashboards, if designed appropriately, can provide this information in a central location and reduce cognitive demands during decision-making. Mesonet websites can serve as a type of operational dashboard that has the potential to provide the meteorological data necessary for emergency managers to make decisions. In this study, we use quantitative content analysis to examine the content, style, structure, and interactivity of 18 Mesonet websites from across the contiguous United States. We find that Mesonet websites vary in the type and amount of content they include. For website style, we find that Mesonet websites primarily present their content with maps and data filters. We find that the structure of the website content was consistent across websites. Finally, we find that most Mesonet websites lacked interactivity, or visual feedback, which inhibits ease of use. We discuss extensions for future work
The Exceptionalist-Normalist Continuum: Contents, Correlates, and Consequences of Beliefs about the Psychological (A)typicality of Perpetrators of Mass Atrocities
Get PDFA consensus view within the literature on perpetrator behavior in mass atrocities holds that perpetrators tend to be psychologically typical rather than atypical and thus, that even “ordinary” people are capable of extreme acts of violence against civilians when the right combination of social-psychological forces is at work. Whereas much prior research speaks in some way to this claim’s validity, no prior study of which I am aware has directly investigated laypeople’s beliefs regarding the truth of this proposition. Here, I report findings from four preregistered studies (total N = 1,256) investigating the contents, correlates, and consequences of lay theories about perpetrators’ psychological (a)typicality. Challenging prior assumptions about these beliefs, I found them to be roughly normally distributed within nationwide U.S. samples, with approximately half of participants reporting relatively neutral or ambivalent views on this topic and similar-sized minorities endorsing clearer “exceptionalist” or “normalist” theories of perpetrator behavior. Variability in these beliefs was found to be related to phenomena including beliefs in pure evil, moral objectivism, the blatant dehumanization of perpetrators, and moral disengagement with respect to political outgroup members and perpetrators of atrocity crimes abroad; however, manipulations of these beliefs failed to yield clear causal effects upon intergroup cognition and behavior in two experiments. Collectively, these findings help address a surprising omission from the extensive literature on the “banality of evil” while opening up several promising avenues for future research on lay conceptions of collective violence and its perpetrators
Maternal Occupation as Janitors/ Maids/ Cleaners during Early Pregnancy and Selected Birth Defects, National Birth Defects Prevention Study, 1997 - 2011
No full textBackground: Cleaning work involves potential exposures to physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial hazards, which may increase the risk of birth defects. Yet, there is limited research focused on maternal occupation cleaning-related jobs and the risk of birth defects. We sought to investigate the association between selected birth defects and maternal occupation as a cleaner during early pregnancy in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS), a case-control study from 1997-2011.
Methods: Participants self-reported job details, which was classified by experts into cleaners or non-cleaner occupations. Cases were live births or stillbirths ascertained with birth defects from state surveillance systems, while controls were randomly selected live births without structural defects. We obtained adjusted ORs with 95% confidence intervals (CI) from multivariable logistic regression for associations between maternal cleaning occupations and birth defects, controlling for eight confounders identified a priori. We conducted two sensitivity analyses focusing on isolated birth defects and those who worked more than 40 hours.
Results: There were 1109 participants (868 cases/241 controls) with a primary occupational code as a cleaner during early pregnancy. In total, nine of the 19 included birth defects had elevated odds ratios (\u3e1.5), ranging from 1.58 for anophthalmia/microphthalmia to 2.65 for esophageal atresia/stenosis; six had CIs that excluded the null.
Conclusions: Our study found that maternal occupation in cleaning-related jobs was associated with specific birth defects. Further studies are necessary to provide a clearer understanding of how these occupations during early pregnancy might affect infant development
Raw Data for High Entropy Stabilized Platinum Diborides for Poison-Resistant Catalysis
No full textRaw data for the publication High-Entropy-Stabilized Platinum Diborides for Poison-Resistant Catalysis including Powder X-ray Diffraction and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance data.
Abstract for publication:
Alloying and solid-solution formation is a powerful technique that enhances and adds properties through elemental mixing, but unfortunately, some elements simply cannot mix as their chemical nature prevents a thermodynamically stable structure. For example, the inherent nobility of platinum group metals does not favor bond formation and precludes their incorporation into higher (boron-rich) metal borides. Here, we demonstrate that when using five or more constituents, the higher mixing entropy will overcome these chemical limitations and form a stable high entropy alloy, demonstrating the formation of new compounds with substituents that are seemingly impossible with a traditional metal alloying approach. The high entropy boride (HEB) Al0.2Nb0.2Pt0.2Ta0.2Ti0.2B2 was synthesized where platinum was forced to occupy a 12-coordinate site, sandwiched between honeycomb borophene sheets. In addition to the unusual coordination, the boron serves as a poison panacea. Pure platinum is strongly susceptible to sulfur poisoning by adsorption, rendering a platinum catalyst ineffective. Boron is known to be resistant to sulfur poisoning, the boron sheets present in the HEB shield the platinum from sulfur while maintaining high catalytic activity. This is confirmed with the facile hydrogenation of thiol-containing nitro compounds where the HEB resists sulfur poisoning while retaining its high catalytic activity
Inclusive Global Scholarly Communication: Toward a Just and Healthier Information Ecosystem
Get PDFScholarly communication has long been a central topic in the field of information science. However, philosophical, and even perhaps some legal reflections, including the moral and ethical considerations of the health of information ecosystems, are fairly recent developments. In fact, recent topics are propelled by various contextual factors including economic, disciplinary, societal norms, and cultures.This article explores literature discussing the plight of scholars in low- and middle-income countries that struggle to engage in scholarly communications in their fields. This topic has been explored for years, however, has often been addressed in disciplines outside of information science and knowledge management. This study posits that critical investigations lift this issue to one of justice and suggest a new critical lens that would rely on several existing lenses, including those developed to expand epistemic injustice, as well as exploring areas and perspectives that have not yet found their way into the mainstream literature. The analysis provides alternative approaches and discourse around democratization of scholarly communications, all towards achieving a just and healthier global information ecosystem
Categorizing the Societal Impacts from Extreme Rainfall in the New York City Metropolitan Area
Get PDFNumerous studies have shown that the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events have increased significantly across the contiguous United States (CONUS) over the past several decades associated with warming global temperatures. This surge in extreme rainfall has resulted in the loss of life and property within vulnerable communities due to widespread river and flash flooding. For example, 11 of the 14 fatalities in New York City associated with Tropical Cyclone Ida’s remnants in September 2021 occurred in flooded basement apartments. The creation of a scale to differentiate extreme rainfall events with higher societal impacts from those with lower impacts is crucial to identify the locations most susceptible to flooding. Furthermore, while there has been extensive research to quantify the societal impact of winter storms through the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale and the Regional Snowfall Index, similar indices have yet to be developed for extreme rainfall. This research aims to develop a metric for distinguishing the diverse societal impacts resulting from extreme precipitation events across the CONUS by considering the population density and rainfall distribution. As part of this effort, numerous case studies from several high-impact rainfall and flood events were conducted for the New York City Metropolitan Area. The areal distribution of the rainfall and the rate of precipitation from these events were carefully analyzed in the implementation of this extreme rainfall metric
Protect Your Youth: Anti-Vaping Campaign for Adolescent Girls
Get PDFSince 2014, e-cigarettes have been more common among US youth than traditional cigarettes (Dinardo, P. et al., 2019). This switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping comes from a variety of aspects such as convenience, positive advertising, and the flavors of vapes available. Vaping can be done discreetly almost anywhere, allowing for much more frequent nicotine consumption than using traditional cigarettes (Dinardo, P. et al., 2019). 75% of students in 2022 reported seeing vapes in ads, television shows, and other forms of media. Furthermore, e-cigarette companies utilize sponsorships to showcase their companies and brands (ALA, 2024). An estimated 7,700 vaping flavors exist, predominantly affecting youth (Dinardo, P. et al., 2019). 90% of middle and high school students who vaped reported using flavored e-cigarettes (FDA, 2023). Vape flavors and marketing strategies are attracting middle school and high school age students to vaping, putting their health at risk. Throughout NYS, 18.7 percent of highschoolers vaped in 2022 (NYSDOH, 2024). This is detrimental due to the negative health effects associated with vaping. Vaping in adolescents is currently a much larger public health issue than cigarette usage. E-cigarettes are the most used tobacco product in high school students in NYS. Nearly 1 in 5 highschool students reported vaping nicotine compared to 1 in 50 who reported smoking cigarettes in 2022 (NYSDOH, 2024). E-cigarettes were originally marketed as a healthier alternative to help individuals quit smoking traditional cigarettes. Unfortunately, Vaping is a common gateway to tobacco and marijuana use for adolescents, and has similar negative health effects of vaping that are very similar to smoking cigarettes (Dinardo, P. et al., 2019). Vaping during adolescence can cause addiction, brain damage, lung damage and a decrease in overall health (NYSDOH, 2024)
Interacting with Korean Sijo Poetry Through Stereoscopic Reading
Get PDFThe process of stereoscopic reading highlights different aspects of a piece by using multiple translations and the source text in the same space. When applied to sijo, stereoscopic reading provides insight into both the meaning and art form of the poems, which could not be achieved through a single translation. Stereoscopic reading was introduced by translator and professor Jo Anne Engelbert as a method of reading and teaching foreign language texts. I argue that the stereoscopic reading method is compatible with Korean sijo in a way that reveals the complexity of the poems on both linguistic and stylistic levels and allows for a deeper understanding of the poems than would be offered by a single translation
Putting Women Up: Promoting Gender Equality in Myanmar Politics
No full textBook abstract:
For the duration of Myanmar’s experiment with electoral democracy, why did some women run for political office, and not others? What role did gatekeepers such as party leaders play in those decisions, and using what criteria in selecting candidates? How did experience of domestic violence or harassment affect women’s likelihood to participate in politics, especially beyond the local level? And what implications might these earlier patterns have for a post-coup Myanmar, should meaningful elections be restored?
The contributors to Putting Women Up: Gender Equality and Politics in Myanmar answer these questions by examining the internal politics of nine political parties in Myanmar and both men’s and women’s attitudes towards and experiences of political leadership. Drawing on extensive interview, survey, and focus-group discussion data collected from across Myanmar in 2017 and 2020, this book offers a mixed-methods approach to explain how factors from party rules to formative personal trauma to patriarchal biases to ethno-religious context shape women’s and men’s likelihood to join local and national politics. The findings expand on culturalist insights on gender inequality to provide context-sensitive, evidence-backed policy recommendations to promote women’s political leadership, despite militarization and violence in post-coup Myanmar