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Social Media Use and Negative Partisanship Among College Students
Get PDFSince the creation of the United States of America, the political climate has vastly changed and adapted, each time period with its own distinct characteristics. Today, the American electorate and Congress are more polarized than ever and “negative partisan-ship” has become a central characteristic in politics. Partisan identities of voters are more homogenous than ever and approval rates of people’s opposing parties are at an all-time low. People’s political decisions have begun to be more driven by dislike of the opposing party than support of their own. Social media has also grown over recent years and has begun to play a role in politics. The American electorate and political officials alike are able to share, discuss, and argue political information with people across the country in a matter of seconds. In this thesis, I examine prior research on polarization, partisanship, negative partisanship and studies that explore the relationship between social media and politics. I also discuss the reasoning behind the design for my survey, which was con-ducted at the University of Mississippi. Last, the thesis concludes with an examination of my original survey, which sheds light on the relationship between negative partisanship and social media use. Among the studies most important findings, is that college students at the University of Mississippi who are more negatively partisan are (1) more likely to find it difficult to befriend someone with different political beliefs than them, (2) more likely to follow people on social media with the same political beliefs, (3) more likely to have blocked or unfriended someone who disagrees with them politically, and (4) more likely to have lost a friend due to a political argument over social media
Terrorism in the Time of Schengen
Get PDFThis paper investigates the relationship between the Schengen area in Europe and terrorism. The Schengen agreement was implemented in 1995; since then, internal borders between the contracting parties have been abolished. This paper emphasizes the rationale that Schengen made member-states more vulnerable to terrorist attacks because the agreement inherently involved less regulation. In order to test this rationale, this study uses James Q. Wilson’s choice theory. This theory refers to the school of thought which maintains that rational wrongdoers act as if they weigh the possible benefits of criminal or delinquent activity against the expected costs of being apprehended. Specifically, I posit that Schengen has lowered the costs that terrorists, who want to commit attacks within the area, associate with being apprehended. This study involves a mixed large-N quantitative analysis and a small-N case study. My sample for the large-N analysis includes the original contracting parties of Schengen: France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The particular case examined in the small-N analysis is France. Overall, this research shows that while terrorist attacks have decreased since Schengen was implemented, the perpetration of said terrorism has experienced shifts.
Keywords: Terrorism, Schengen, Franc
An Exploration into the History and Significance of the 'Planner' and A Comprehensive Business Plan for Launching the new Planner Company, Lala Letter LLC
Get PDFThis thesis accompanies my BFA in Graphic Design visual thesis show debuting the brand and products of Lala Letter™, a planner and stationery company. The written portion of this thesis contains a business plan outlining the operational, financial, and marketing strategies and objectives for Lala Letter. It also includes an overview of the evolution of written planners and stationery and discusses the impact of the digital revolution on the paper industry. Lala Letter is a startup stationery company targeted to young college women who currently use a written planner; its primary product is aesthetically innovative weekly planner. The product line will also include other items such as notebooks, calendars, and cards.
The planner and stationary industry is a highly-saturated market, but other than a variety of decorative design differences, planners have little innovative alterations across brands. Although the digital age has overcome many previously paper intensive duties (such as mail, word documents, financial papers, etc.), written planners have seen a digital resistance in the past few decades, favoring a traditional handheld paper book instead. The Lala Letter planner features a structurally different overall design including a unique die cut corner allowing for a stack of sticky notes to be accessible on every page and a utilization of heavy text weight, recycled, paper which serves an aesthetic, functional, and conservational purpose toward the overall value of the planner.
The Lala Letter brand targets the largest segment of current planner users providing a useful planner design innovation, without sacrificing style and utility at a competitive price. This thesis and business plan will highlight the details of successfully executing and promoting the Lala Letter brand
Measuring the Effects of Prosthetic Tactile Pacing on Overt Stuttering Frequency in Adults Who Stutter
Get PDFWhile the cause has been historically enigmatic, persistent stuttering exhibits distinct behavioral, neural and genetic characteristics. Throughout many years, a variety of motoric treatments have attempted to ameliorate overt stuttering behaviors; however, most therapeutic options provide unstable, effortful, and/or unnatural sounding results with high relapse rates. Conversely, research documents natural sounding speech coupled with stable and effortless reductions in overt stuttering frequency when a person who stutters is exposed to speech feedback of a second speech signal (i.e. choral speech). The most prolific clinical use of this technology is a prosthetically introduced auditory second speech signal; yet its current application has several technological and environmental limitations, and may not be tolerated well by users. Conversely, the tactile modality may be more comfortable relative to prosthetic implementation and thus better suited for activities of daily living. Prosthetic tactile speech feedback, in the form of a tactile second speech signal, is still a young technology and is currently in development. However, an immediate and inexpensive alternative to real-time speech feedback of a tactile second speech signal may be vibrotactile pacing administered through a smartphone application.
Thirteen adults with persistent stuttering participated in this study, which included data collection sessions once a week for four weeks over videoconference. Participants read three ~300 syllable, junior high passages under three different speaking conditions, including a control, a deactivated phone, and a activated smartphone application; moments of overt stuttering were counted by the primary investigator as well as a trained research assistant. The results of this study demonstrate a main effect of the tactile pacing smartphone application on overt stuttering frequency. Bonferroni post hoc analysis reveals significant differences between the control speaking condition and the vibrotactile smartphone application (p=.000) as well as between the deactivated smartphone and the vibrotactile smartphone application (p=.033). Based on these data, an inexpensive tactile pacing smartphone application, such as the StutterLess application used in this study, might be an inexpensive and beneficial prosthetic treatment option
Classifying #MeToo Hash-tagged Tweets by Semantics to Understand the Extent of Sexual Harassment
Get PDFThis thesis contains a program that will process tweets from Twitter that use the hashtag "#MeToo" and categorize them by their relevance to the movement, their stance on the movement, and the type of sexual harassment expressed (if applicable). Being able to work with a narrowed set of tweets belonging to a specific category creates the capacity to do more in-depth research and analysis, exploring Twitter as a special platform for discussing these sensitive topics and showing that this online space for expressing personal experiences has delivered unprecedented potential avenues of study. This thesis also contains research into additional solutions towards addressing sexual harassment online, exploring the needs of society through the results to a questionnaire that was administered to university students asking for opinions on how sexual harassment is addressed on social media as well as through a literature review of current obstacles for victims
Raman Spectroscopic and Computational Study of Hydrogen Bond Interactions between Guanidine Hydrochloride, Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), Urea, and Water
Get PDFProteins are broken down in the body and produce water, CO2, and ammonia as by-products. Ammonia is toxic to cells, making it a priority to be excreted. Urea is the key route for the transportation of ammonia out of the body and is the main component of urine. Guanidine is another important nitrogen-containing molecule that is structural like urea and plays important biological roles in the stabilization of proteins. Guanidine hydrochloride and Urea are known to denature proteins and this functionality continues to be a topic of great interest. Urea and guanidine contain many hydrogen bonding sites and interactions with water are important to their biological functionality and their abilities to affect protein stability. Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is known to counteract the effects that urea and guanidine hydrochloride have at destabilizing proteins. Here, we use Raman spectroscopy to study how urea, guanidine hydrochloride, and TMAO affect the hydrogen bonded network of water both in solution at room temperature and in a frozen crystal state. The experiment confirmed previous research that showed a blue shift in the HNH bending region of urea when TMAO was added. Raman spectra of guanidine hydrochloride and TMAO was found to have two different blue shifts in the HNH bending region. Another perspective result for future research is that the low temperature Raman spectra of urea water was found show multiple peaks
Process Design and Optimization: Analysis of an Ethylbenzene Production Plant
Get PDFThis thesis will cover the steps I took to evaluate an ethylbenzene production plant. I, along with my senior design team, was first tasked with optimizing a vapor-phase ethylbenzene production plant based off of a given base case. Our team was able to improve the net present value of the plant from -70.4 million through discrete optimization. After the vapor-phase plant was evaluated, I was tasked with creating a base case, liquid-phase ethylbenzene production plant. I explain the theory behind process flow diagram development, then explain how I produced the process flow diagram and stream table for the base case
Personal Space: Explorations of Environment, Surroundings, and Sense of Place
Get PDFThis thesis is a mixed collection of prose poetry and creative nonfiction focused on the author’s relationship to her surroundings and environment. The poems and essays that make up this thesis are divided into three separate sections based on a shift in environment: childhood in Madison, MS, college in Oxford, MS, and travels outside of the state of Mississippi. While much of this thesis concerns natural environment and landscape in terms of its relationship to the author, the term “environment” also includes relationships with friends, family and lovers, abstract environments of educational institutions like Catholic school and public university, and social and educational pressures that affect the author’s mental state. As this thesis includes nonfiction, the author has tried to recreate events, locations and conversations to the best of her ability from her own memories, journal entries and follow-up conversations with family and friends
A Study of the Product Development Process for the Stackable Shelf, Stool, and Table
Get PDFThe purpose of this project was to create a viable furniture product by utilizing the various phases of the product development process. The project began in Phase 0 with market research, formulation of an initial idea, and a product pitch to an “executive” board to check the viability of the idea. Then, the idea was developed into a concept with Phase 1 by finalizing an initial concept and looking into the potential customer. Next, the product concept was prototyped through several iterations of trial and error in Phase 2. By Phase 3, the product design was finalized, and an initial costing estimate and production process layout was generated. Lastly, production trials began in Phase 4. Various production layouts and process flows were designed, implemented, and studied until an optimal layout and process flow was achieved based on an assigned customer demand. Though production ramp-up, Phase 5, was not fully carried out, future considerations for the product as well as important conclusions from the product development process were considered instead. An important conclusion of the project was the merits of lean manufacturing and the importance of the product development process when designing a new product
The Fundamentals of GAAP: Case Studies of Accounting Principles
Get PDFThe following paper consists of solutions to case studies that provide an overview of accounting principles in accordance with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principle set forth by the Financial Standards Accounting Board. Each case addresses a different area of financial reporting within a specific company, and demonstrates comprehension and practice of accounting concepts, financial analysis, and preparation of financial statements. These cases were completed under the direction of Dr. Victoria Dickinson in fulfillment of the requirements for the University of Mississippi ACCY 420 honors course in the 2016-2017 academic year