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PREDICTing crisis: Using computational methods to forecast crisis conditions
Get PDFThe vast scale of digital information generated daily provides unprecedented opportunities to analyze human behavior in ways that can improve crisis prediction and response. This dissertation introduces PREDICT, a theoretical framework that reconceptualizes crises as predictable phenomena rather than unknowable disruptions. Grounded in chaos theory and complex systems theory, PREDICT operationalizes crisis prediction through three constructs: Perceived Rupture of Equilibrium (PRE), Dynamic Interactions (DI), and Crisis Trajectory (CT). These constructs enable a shift from reactive crisis management to proactive crisis forecasting by identifying early signals of instability, modeling stakeholder interactions, and mapping potential crisis trajectories. To test PREDICT, this study employed an inductive multi-method computational approach, Layered Analytic Crisis Insights (LACI), integrating regression analysis, agent-based modeling, network analysis, time-series forecasting, and decision-tree modeling to provide quantitative results as a baseline for theory refinement. Applying LACI to 108,000 digital traces from TikTok related to the UnitedHealthcare/Luigi Mangioni crisis, this research demonstrated how computational techniques can be layered to detect patterns, simulate stakeholder responses, and identify critical windows for intervention. Findings support PREDICT’s underlying assumptions and offer insights into ways to operationalize social media big data to model system instability. This study challenges the dominant paradigm that treats crises as unpredictable events, arguing that advances in predictive analytics and data science enable researchers and practitioners to anticipate crisis conditions before they destabilize organizations. The findings provide a tailorable framework for both crisis scholars and practitioners, offering new avenues to extend existing theories such as contingency theory, social amplification of risk framework (SARF), situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), and discourse of renewal. Keywords: crisis, chaos theory, PREDICT, computational methods, social media, big dat
(IN)VISIBLE WORK: GENDER, LABOUR, AND AGRICULTURAL MARKETS IN INDIA
No full textIn this dissertation, I examine how the transformation of state-market relations under economic liberalization reshapes gendered institutions like households and labor markets. The research critically interrogates the complex interplay between agricultural policy changes and women’s work, challenging dominant narratives about economic liberalization and the transformation of power structures and resource distribution in agricultural contexts. Through a convergent parallel mixed-methods research design, I investigate the historical and contemporary entrenchment of agricultural markets in social, political, and economic structures, the impacts of specific policy changes on women’s labor force participation, and the emergence of new institutional forms that simultaneously create opportunities and reinforce existing gender hierarchies. Economic liberalization has been a dominant paradigm in global economic policy since the 1980s, with profound implications for gendered institutions across the Global South. Agricultural sectors have been particularly affected by trade liberalization policies, creating contexts where women’s labor, often unrecognized and undervalued, becomes increasingly marginalized as agricultural practices and labor dynamics respond to new market forces. Gendered institutions like households and labor markets serve as critical sites where economic policies manifest in daily life, yet liberalization approaches frequently overlook the distinct ways men and women engage with markets and the structures that perpetuate gender inequalities. My dissertation draws from and contributes to research across economic sociology, feminist political economy, and feminist political ecology. It extends theoretical frameworks regarding market embeddedness by incorporating critiques that highlight the gendered dimensions of economic transformations. The analysis bridges perspectives on market regulation with theories of social reproduction, demonstrating how changes in agricultural policies affect women’s unpaid and paid labor, with economic liberalization reshaping the boundaries between productive and reproductive labor. I apply analysis at the state, labor market, household, and individual levels to understand how global economic processes manifest and affect women’s relationship with agricultural resources. This interdisciplinary approach offers new insights into how economic liberalization processes in agriculture are deeply embedded in social structures, often reinforcing existing gender inequalities while simultaneously creating new spaces for women to redefine their roles and identities. India, particularly the state of Maharashtra, provides an ideal setting for investigating these dynamics due to its complex socio-economic landscape shaped by historical legacies of colonialism, post-colonial state interventionism, and more recent liberalization reforms. Maharashtra’s early adoption of agricultural market reforms, including amendments to the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act and the withdrawal of the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme (MCPS), exemplifies the duality of economic liberalization in dismantling state protections and creation of new governance forms. The promotion of Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs), especially women-focused ones, represents an institutional innovation with the potential to reshape women’s engagement in agricultural markets. Maharashtra’s higher-than-average female labor force participation in agriculture, combined with significant income inequality and agrarian distress, makes it particularly relevant for examining how liberalization policies intersect with gendered labor dynamics. I employ three interconnected empirical investigations. First, I analyze historical newspaper coverage of agricultural protests in Maharashtra from 1960-2000 to understand how different actors framed their roles and interests in response to changing agricultural policies, revealing the social, economic, and political embeddedness of state-market relations. Second, I use a difference-in-difference estimation to examine whether and how the 2006 withdrawal of the MCPS affected women’s labor force participation across different socioeconomic backgrounds and age cohorts. Third, I contextualize the emergence of women-focused FPCs by analyzing how these new institutional forms influence women’s agricultural roles and decision-making power. My findings reveal that economic liberalization processes in agriculture are not uniform in their effects but are mediated through existing social structures and norms. The historical analysis demonstrates the persistent embeddedness of agricultural markets in social, political, economic and legal relations. The quantitative analysis shows limited impacts of policy changes on women’s labor force participation across demographic groups, with some women from self-employed agricultural households experiencing decreased participation while older women from agricultural labor households modestly increasing their participation. The qualitative investigation reveals how new institutional frameworks like women’s FPCs can simultaneously create opportunities for women to redefine their identities as farmers while reinforcing existing gender norms, often increasing women’s unpaid labor without corresponding gains in access to productive resources or formal decision-making power. My dissertation makes contributions to understanding the gendered implications of agricultural policy reforms. It demonstrates how liberalization operates through both “roll back” strategies and “roll out” approaches that have complex and sometimes contradictory effects on women’s work. It also highlights the limitations of official statistics in capturing the full spectrum of women’s agricultural contributions and emphasizes the importance of mixed methods approaches in understanding the nuanced dynamics of women’s work. Through its interdisciplinary approach, my dissertation offers insights that can inform more equitable and effective policy approaches. It demonstrates that any meaningful analysis of economic liberalization must account for the complex ways in which markets are embedded in social structures and how these structures shape and are shaped by gender relations across multiple scales and contexts
INVESTIGATING CROSS-MODAL TEMPORAL DYNAMICS AND SEMANTIC INCONGRUENCY IN MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION
Get PDFMultisensory integration is a pervasive phenomenon in daily life, where our senses (commonly visual and auditory) demonstrate a high degree of interdependence in information processing. This integration is often regarded as automatic and pre-attentional. The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential (ERP) component that captures the difference between novel stimuli (deviant, unexpected trials with low frequency) and regularly occurring stimuli (standard, expected trials with high frequency). MMN can detect unexpected sensory inputs and provide information about the timing of how the brain processes information from different modalities. However, limited research has explored MMN’s application in multisensory processing, with most studies focusing on speech perception or letter-sound combinations. The main objective of this study was to assess the extent to which multisensory perceptual processing relied on sensory modalities and semantic congruency by examining MMN effects in semantically meaningful audiovisual contexts. 18 participants completed an oddball task in which animal sounds (ribbit, meow) and pictures (frog, cat) were paired and presented simultaneously. The standard stimulus (meowcat) occurred in 70% of trials, while the three deviants (meowfrog, ribbitcat, ribbitfrog) each occurred in 10% of trials. Three difference waves were calculated by subtracting the standards from the deviants. Results revealed robust visual and audiovisual MMNs within the 100–250 ms time window. These two MMNs exhibited similar onset latency and mean amplitude, though the audiovisual MMN had an earlier offset latency than the visual MMN. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA found a significant main effect of the visual factor for mean amplitude. This indicates a strong Colavita visual dominance effect, and it may lead to a delay in peak timing for the auditory difference wave as evidenced by an N2-like ERP. Additionally, an interaction for 50% fractional area latency indicated a significant difference in processing cost for two semantically incongruent stimuli compared to two semantically congruent stimuli. To further investigate the role of semantic congruence in modulating multisensory processing, difference waves were calculated in the 300–500 ms time window to examine brain responses to semantic violations (e.g., ribbitcat-minus-ribbitfrog). N400 effects were found for both auditory and audiovisual violations. This research suggests a nuanced, two-phase processing pattern for audiovisual deviants, involving a rapid initial detection followed by a later semantic analysis. Processing time windows for visual and auditory deviants were distinctly separated, perhaps reflecting a dominant modality first to efficiently process sensory inputs across modalities in this semantic multisensory context. This study not only highlights the brain’s dynamic adaptability in processing various types of sensory input but also underscores the complex interplay between sensory modalities and semantic contexts in multisensory integration
PREDICTING DETECTION THRESHOLD PERFORMANCE WITH MODALITY-SPECIFIC SENSORY PROFILE SCORES
Get PDFResearch on tactile psychophysics among autistic people has examined inhibitory pathways within the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). Both adults and children with autism are equally able to detect vibrotactile stimuli in dynamic and static task conditions. In contrast, typically developing peers find dynamic tasks harder than static tasks due to pre-stimulus inhibition. Task performance has been linked to sensory overresponsivity in children with autism (McKernan et al., 2020); however, recent literature suggests that sensory processing (e.g., overresponsivity) in autism may be better defined within sensory modalities. Here, I utilized a cross-sectional design to 1) replicate findings of similarities and differences between neurotypically developing children and children with autism on static and dynamic detection tasks and 2) explore the relationship between dynamic-static processing ratios (D-S ratio) and caregiver-reported tactile processing, both generally and then specifically within overresponsivity. Participants included children with autism (N = 32) and neurotypically developing children (N = 43) between the ages of 6-18, with no group differences in age and WASI-II PRI index scores. Participants completed a tactile psychophysics battery while caregivers completed the Sensory Profile Caregiver report. Age was significantly correlated with D-S ratio. There were no between-group differences in dynamic, static, or D-S ratio thresholds. Differences in within- group task performance for both the autism and neurotypically developing group were marginally significant, with the static task harder than the dynamic task. In addition, prediction models were not significant though age predicted performance. Exploratory analyses revealed a negative correlation between age and static detection threshold as well as a significant positive correlation between age and dynamic detection threshold. Findings suggest that modality- and quadrant-specific sensory processing scores may provide a better model fit and stronger predictive power for D-S ratio threshold; however, replication with larger samples is required
Integrating Digital Escape Room Design into Teacher Education: Cultivating Instructional Creativity in Preservice Teachers
Get PDFThis action research documents how a teacher education program incorporates game-based learning to engage pre-service teachers (PSTs) in developing their instructional creativity. In this project, game-based learning goes beyond playing games; Instead, it allows PSTs to design their own game-a digital escape room created using a website with embedded clues, digital locks, and online challenges. This paper showcases an impressive level of creativity through the variety and complexity of PSTs’ clues, the creative graphics and layout of their websites, and their cleverly written scenarios and context for the game. Moreover, PSTs reflect on their design processes, considering the affordances and challenges of digital escape game design. This action research suggests that game design promotes creativity and motivates PSTs to create learning experiences for their future students that enhance engagement and develop 21st-century skills. Through collaboration, PSTs work together to solve puzzles, find clues, and answer questions-all related to developing their creativity in instructional design. In the end, pedagogical recommendations are provided to better inform teacher education programs on incorporating digital escape rooms to equip PSTs with creativity and other essential skills
Enhancing the Impact and Longevity of Research on Veterans and Military-Connected Populations at Syracuse University
No full textWhat happens to your poster on veterans and military-connected populations after today\u27s presentation? What about future research outputs? Are you seeking a platform that offers persistent access, increased discoverability, and encourages the use and re-use of your work? This poster explores how SURFACE, Syracuse University\u27s digital repository, provides a comprehensive solution to these needs.
SURFACE is a free, open-access resource that ensures long-term preservation of a wide range of content, including digital posters, articles, books, journals, and more. For example, the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) has leveraged SURFACE to store their Applied Research outputs. This partnership has facilitated multiple promotional avenues, including a novel Digital Library, and has enhanced tracking and usage data of research objects, leading to increased viewership since its inception.
Are you looking for a reliable, long-term repository with diverse promotional opportunities for your work? Discover how SURFACE can meet your needs and amplify the impact of your research
Challenging the Black Female Monolith in Film
No full textThis thesis examines the lack of prominent Black female representation in film. This is a call to diversify the representation of Black female protagonists and characters in modern film, and to include Black female filmmakers in the industry as well. The exploration of films from the early twentieth century to present day shows both the progression and decline of diversifying Black female characters and giving them the jurisdiction to expand and express their identity; this includes an analysis of my own works and the themes that I explore. Through in-depth research of particular topics that relate to my overall statement, this thesis promotes the overall initiative of promoting stories centered around Black women, girls, and teens, and encourages stories from a female centered perspective
FROM DESCENT TO CREATION – WOMEN DESCENDERS IN KATABASIS STORIES
No full textKatabasis, the journey to the underworld and back, is a classic narrative in mythologies and modern literature around the world. However, the uniqueness of the women descenders and the connection between the underworld and femininity remain underexamined. This thesis examines the differences between men and women descenders in Katabasis narratives, including their different narrative structures, relationship with the underworld, and psychological needs in this journey. Using a comparative analysis of classical and modern katabasis narratives, this study employs a feminine perspective to examine the classic descent stories across different cultures and time periods. The student reveals the unexamined reasons why women descenders aren’t motivated to return home at the end of the story like their male counterparts. By highlighting the gendered dynamics of katabasis, this thesis challenges traditional readings and proposes a re-evaluation of women\u27s descent narratives in myth and literature, offering new insights into creating future katabasis stories
“Me siento como en Puerto Rico” : Puerto Rican diaspora communities’ placemaking through Urban Agri-Culture
No full textPuerto Ricans have a long history of migrating to the U.S., historically laboring as farmworkers, a result of colonial displacement and economic restructuring. Some Puerto Ricans who migrated to the U.S. engage in Urban Agriculture, helping them maintain ties to their cultural identity by growing Puerto Rican foods and creating gardening and farming spaces that resemble the Puerto Rican landscape. While critical food and UA scholars have vastly studied the connections between placemaking and food justice through the experiences of immigrants, the Puerto Rican diaspora has been largely overlooked. Drawing from interviews and landscape analysis from field visits in Puerto Rican gardens and fincas in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, I show that 1) Puerto Ricans practice UA to remember and re-create an agrarian past through everyday practices such as growing aji dulce (sweet) peppers and communally cooking al fogón (on the fire); 2) Puerto Rican foodways reveal that notions of Puerto Rican culture are contested and complex. 3) Puerto Ricans engaging in UA utilize material cultures to create places that remind them of home. By foregrounding material cultures in gardens, often overlooked by scholars, this research suggests rethinking Urban Agriculture as Urban Agri-Culture, highlighting the interplay of material cultures and agri-food components produce the sentiment of “Me siento como en Puerto Rico.
Indoor Airborne Pathogen Transmission and Control: A Role of Environmental Factors and Material Properties
No full textThe transmission of infectious airborne pathogens has severe implications on human health and economic stability. This is evidenced by the re-emergence of global pandemics with high mortality rates, various respiratory diseases, crop damage, incurred nationwide financial costs, etc. These causative pathogens, encompassing viruses, fungal spores, etc., attach to aerosol and droplet particles, enabling their aerial dispersal and leading to a cascade of detrimental events. Developing interventions to control pathogenic transmission requires an in-depth understanding of the various modes of disease transmission. However, existential gaps within the respective disease transmission modalities remained. For instance, while viruses are predominantly transmitted via aerosols, droplets, and fomites (i.e., materials), fomite-mediated viral transmission is not well understood. Additionally, airborne fungal spore irradiation-based control strategies necessitated increased efficacy with higher temporal resolutions. In this study, the dichotomy of aerosols (\u3c 5 μm; 5 – 100 μm) vs. droplets (\u3e 100 μm) in relation to indoor viral persistence on fomites was investigated. In light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, this study was conducted with a SARS-CoV-2 surrogate, Phi6. Preceding the investigation, empirical methodologies were developed to understand the bio-colloidal behavior of Phi6 and effectively sample the viral aerosols and droplets. A full-scale aerobiological chamber with well-controlled aerosol generation was also utilized to adequately mimic the built environment. Levitated viral aerosols were then pre-exposed to the ambient environmental stressor of humidity, followed by their deposition on test materials. The resultant infectivity was in juxtaposition with that from conventional viral droplet inoculation on similar test materials. Specifically, we found that there was a 1 – 4 log10 decrease in infectivity on the porous materials relative to the nonporous materials when the test materials were inoculated with conventional viral droplets. However, with viral aerosols, infectivity was similar across both the porous and nonporous materials, revealing the dominant role of local humidity over material porosity. These findings unraveled new mechanistic insights into the role of local humidity in determining fomite-mediated viral infection risk. Considering the heterogeneity of the indoor microbiome, we further explored the transmission of airborne fungal spores, particularly under reflectivity-modulated ultraviolet irradiation. We traversed aerosolized spores of Botrytis cinerea, a necrotrophic fungus, via a single pass across a flow-through UV-C reactor with tunable reactor wall material reflectivity. We observed that airborne B. cinerea spores are resistant to high-powered UV-C irradiation induced with specular reflectance. This was demonstrated by the minimal 30% spore inactivation despite the high UV-C irradiation power output of 200 W, as the reactor wall material only provided 85% specular reflectance. However, when the reactor wall material was replaced with one that provided 95% diffuse reflectance, 2 log10 spore inactivation was observed despite the similar irradiation power output. The results emphasize the significance of reflectivity in assessing the viability and transmissibility of airborne fungal spores in the presence of ultraviolet irradiation. The findings from this study provide new knowledge on the influence of material properties such as porosity and reflectivity on airborne viral and fungal transmission, respectively. These insights will help guide control strategies for mitigating infectious disease transmission within the built environment