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The Human Problem: How Anthropogenic Climate Change is Leading to Malnutrition and Famine in Madagascar
Get PDFA wide range of anthropogenic effects to the environment including the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and harmful agricultural activities have contributed to the rapid increase in climate change globally, with particularly devastating effects in Madagascar. These changes have added to the accelerating levels of malnutrition and famine amongst the Malagasy people. The implications of famine and malnutrition are extensive, resulting in starvation, stunting of growth in children, and a lack of adequate resources to support the population. Altogether, these threats have resulted in one of the most dangerous humanitarian crises in our modern world. This research aims to identify the main pathways by which climate change affects food availability in Madagascar resulting in famine and malnutrition. Using data sets that document global CO2 emissions, I assess which countries have the largest carbon emission and how they contribute to global climate change. There is an urgent need to hold countries with a large carbon footprint accountable for the harm they are doing to countries such as Madagascar. It is crucial to understand why Madagascar is at a greater risk of experiencing the effects of climate change and to develop methods in which aid can be brought to them.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1012/thumbnail.jp
Reversing the Trend of Study Drug Use in College Students
Get PDFMisinformation regarding the effects of illicit ADHD medication use is common among college-aged students, with about 25.5% of our survey respondents using such drugs without a prescription. There are many theoretical models that conceptualize effective methods for changing health behavior in student populations. The Health Belief Model focuses on perceived benefits and perceived barriers to changing one’s maladaptive health behavior (Champion & Skinner, 2008). Additionally, the transtheoretical model emphasizes designing interventions tailored to individuals’ current motivation level (precontemplation, contemplation, action, etc.) (Prochaska & Velicer, 1997). There are few studies that investigate possible interventions for curbing study drug use in college populations. This study has collected survey responses from 761 undergraduate students. The survey has gathered data on participants’ self-reported dietary patterns, mental and physical health, ADHD medication use, and perceptions regarding illicit study drug use. Data collection is ongoing and utilizes a Google Survey, with responses to be analyzed using Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient in SPSS, Version 25.0. Thus far, our data has indicated that the most effective means by which to dissuade the use of study drugs among students include “real-life stories of lives affected by abuse of Adderall” (38.8%) and education on “negative physiological and psychological effects” (37.5%). Importantly, 74.2% of respondents indicated that they have never sought out information regarding the risk factors of ADHD medications. The results of this study can inform how information on illicit drug use can be presented to at-risk groups to increase the likelihood of positive behavior change.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1032/thumbnail.jp
Not a One Night Review: How Sexual Hookups Have Changed Over the Past 10 Years: A Review
Get PDFIn 2012 Garcia et al. reviewed the existing hookup literature and concluded that hookups were an engrained behavior driven by both biological factors as well as ever-changing social scripts (Garcia et al 2012). Ten years have passed by and there have been substantial cultural changes, there have been shifts in attitudes about sexual orientation to gender roles. This current work is focused on a 10-year follow-up on how hookup research has changed. The term “hooking up” refers to uncommitted sexual encounters, which can include a range of sexual activities such as kissing, oral sex, and penetrative intercourse. The previous review suggested that hookup encounters were increasing among adolescents and young adults in North America, representing a shift in acceptance of uncommitted sex. This review will evaluate the literature across the past 10 years and determine what has changed in hookup culture. This literature will investigate the effects of social media, alcohol/ pregame culture, and dating apps on hookup culture. In addition, broader influences such as COVID-19, the #MeToo movement, and the legalization of gay marriage will also be taken into consideration. The review will also investigate whether sexual minorities have been included in the literature since the last review, as well as whether heteronormative scripts have shifted. We argue that, while things still appear somewhat negative in the hookup literature, positive research on sexual expression and hooking up has begun to appear. There is still a long way to go within the research of sexual hookup culture, but the presence of new, more positive research may be a step in the right direction to a more accepting and sex-positive culture.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1039/thumbnail.jp
Speed Artists and Value Production
Get PDFIn 1988 Morris Katz obtained the World Record for being the fastest and most prolific painter in the world. Katz popularized his instant art, creating paintings in mere seconds applying oil paint with only toilet paper and a palette knife. Recently, artists have questioned the traditional notions of who art is for and what gives it value. A new wave of celebrity artists emerged in the second half of the 20th century, gaining an audience by making art more accessible to the general public. For centuries art had been presented more or less exclusively to insiders, and its merit was, as a result, judged only by those prestigious enough to view it. However, public media has made it possible for unconventional artists to make an instant connection with their audience. Through Katz, I examine how a celebrity artist can give value to their work by establishing a connection with the public. This is evident through Katz’s many television appearances, live studio performances, and direct communication with his audience. The complete transparency of process for Katz, and artists like him, created a new means by which artists and their art could gain value. I show how Katz achieved status by using media and performance to gain public appeal, as well as developing a distinct gimmick to differentiate himself from the conventional artworld, and from other speed artists too, thereby transforming how the commercialized artist can popularize themselves to gain worth.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1046/thumbnail.jp
COVID-19 Media Narratives in the Era of Hyperreality: A Paradigmatic Analysis of Polarized Media Content
Get PDFThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the media has operated as the filter through which information has been disseminated to the masses. The role of the media is often overlooked due to the presupposition of communicative rationality (Bohman and Rehg, 2007) wherein the media acts a neutral medium to transmit information to guide the masses toward the most rational course of action. This has created echo-chambers have formed around liberal and conservative media outlets, leading to widely different responses among liberals and conservative with respect to the guidelines and procedures recommended by public health experts. This research project intervenes into the existing literature on political polarization in the media by positing the polarization to be a result of a failure to understand the media as a communicative medium. Using Jean Baudrillard’s (1995) theory of simulacra and hyperreality, which posit media representations to no longer have reference to an objective reality, this project understands the media to operate through the production of easily consumable narratives which entrench political echo chambers. That begs the questions: what narratives are produced? How are those narratives produced? And what purpose does the production of those narratives serve? This project aims to resolve this questions through a paradigmatic analysis of media texts from outlets across the ideological spectrum. In doing so, I believe Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality will be validated by exemplifying the fragmented nature of the media’s interpretations of reality.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1060/thumbnail.jp
The Manifestation of Capitalism in the U.S. Healthcare System
Get PDFThis research discusses the relationship between capitalism and effective healthcare, specifically in the United States. Despite being the wealthiest nation in the world the U.S. has demonstrated its lack of an effective healthcare system through its lack of coverage and poor care. While many people are quick to throw the blame on “capitalism,” my research argues that capitalism and healthcare can coexist, though not under the current economic conditions present in the U.S. In order to demonstrate this, I will compare the healthcare systems of Massachusetts and Alabama. Despite both being U.S. states and having a capitalist economy, Massachusetts has proven to have a much better healthcare system than Alabama. In order to explain why their healthcare quality is so different I will analyze the policies of both states, both economic and political, in order to determine why Massachusetts has much better healthcare quality.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1073/thumbnail.jp
Art, Science, and Spirituality: The Paintings of Jay Milder
Get PDFAmerican painter Jay Milder, active from the late 1950s through the present, expresses his beliefs about spirituality and science using thick layers of oil paint and unconventional materials, such as volcanic ash. His experimental approach to painting, which both commentators and Milder himself have described as alchemy, draws upon his lifelong interest in belief systems such as Kabbalah, Theosophy, and various non-Western spiritual traditions. For Milder, art is a bridge connecting reason and the subconscious. His distaste for Western philosophy influences the composition of his artwork, rejecting conventional modes of representation that originated in the Renaissance. He values the material physicality of paint as more than just a means of semiotic representation. For him, the process of shaping paint is internally motivated by personal spirituality, rather than an attempt to mimic reality on a canvas. Through research on Milder’s paintings, I investigate how humans have formed and expressed their responses to the world through art, science, and religion, and how these domains have informed each other.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1076/thumbnail.jp
Abstract Politics
Get PDFLouis Ribak and his wife moved from New York City to Taos, New Mexico, in 1944 to escape the political pressure he and other artists found themselves subject to due to an era of intense surveillance by the U.S. government of artists deemed a socialist threat. Upon his move to Taos, he was inspired by its landscape, people, and culture. He was not the first artist to be influenced by this environment; Taos had a huge impact on the art of visiting artists, like Georgia O\u27Keeffe, and those who took up residence there, coming to form what came to be referred to as the Taos art colony. The first generation of Taos artists in the early 1920s painted the local landscapes and its Native American peoples. The second generation of Taos artists that moved there in the 1940s and 1950s, including Louis Ribak, painted the same subjects but used abstraction and distinguished themselves from the realists of the first generation of artists and are now collectively referred to as the Taos Moderns. Although both generations of artists felt drawn to the landscape and culture, the change from Taos realism to abstraction is due to the experiences the Modernists acquired before moving to the art colony. By looking through the political and social context surrounding Ribak\u27s move to Taos, my examination of his painting explores the way that his shift towards abstraction was the result of his desire to stay under the radar while being watched by the government.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1083/thumbnail.jp
Prunella: An Experimental Musical
Get PDF“Prunella” is a musical theater adaptation of the story of Prunella—an Italian version of the Rapunzel fairy tale from around 1880. It is a two-act, three-principal (soprano, soprano, baritone) show existing somewhere between musical theater and chamber opera, for a small ensemble (strings, percussion, piano, some electronics). For this project I have assembled the script/libretto from nineteenth century source materials, and composed all incidental music and songs in an experimental style somewhere between theatric and operatic. The Prunella story is recognizably similar to that of Rapunzel, popularized by the Brothers Grimm, but the archetypal tale is far more ancient: over a dozen independent versions of the Maiden-in-the-Tower (ATU type 310) story exist (across six countries and more than a millennium), and I find Prunella to be one of the most unique and captivating. Her situation is not one of circumstantial moral luck, but of consequence; there is a garden, but it is not within walls, and not without danger; there is tragedy, but there is greater malevolence; there is a witch, but she is not alone; there is no prince, but instead, the entrapped son of an oedipal mother; there are no healing tears, but there is greater and more catastrophic magic; ultimately, there are the roots of something familiar—something so familiar we have collectively retold its story for hundreds of years, and across continents—but simultaneously, something unique.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1092/thumbnail.jp
The Automotive Market and its Contributions to the American Illusions
Get PDFThe automobile industry is a peak of capitalism, from embodying competition to remaining penny-pinching about the most minor and integral of safety requirements to the quality of trim on a dashboard. The automotive industry is one so intrinsically tied to the capitalist economic system that, throughout the 20th century, the industry\u27s status as a whole was parallel with the human condition. Automobiles have become so deeply entangled with identity and that it is a major phenomenon that corporations prey upon, utilizing automobiles to perpetuate the economic status quo, while also contributing to the American illusions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness via (what is supposed to be) a simple mode of transportation. From the dawn of the popular automobile to the turn of the century, this chronological analysis, going decade by decade, the Model T to the Pontiac GTO, to the Dodge Viper, this research shows how the industry has consistently been at the forefront of advertising and production. Through indoctrination techniques and their products, manufacturers have successfully made themselves continually present in the minds of consumers, convincing people over and over again of the necessity of private automobiles at the cost of public transportation.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1099/thumbnail.jp