13594 research outputs found
Sort by
Determinants of Solar Energy Generation in the Commercial, Industrial, and Utility Sectors of the United States
No full textThis thesis explores the effects that several physical, financial, and political factors have on solar energy generation across the commercial, industrial, and utility sectors of the United States economy. In particular, it sets out to determine whether state policy incentives—net metering, cash incentives, and income tax credits to be exact—have a substantial effect on solar energy generation in those three sectors. The paper also seeks to identify other factors that drive solar generation trends, particularly in the years following the financial crisis. Using OLS, fixed effects and random effects regression analysis, 189 state-level observations were analyzed over the course of a 5-year period, 2010-2014. Findings show that cash incentives and the number of clear days in a year have significant, positive effects on solar generation, and that political party preference has a significant, negative relationship with solar generation
Insider Holdings and Open-Market Share Repurchases in Corporate America
No full textThis research investigates what effect insider ownership has on U.S. firms’ decisions to repurchase shares, as well as on the behavior of those firms’ stock prices following such a decision. I use firm level quarterly panel data stretching from 2011 to 2015, which will include 93 firms from the S&P 100 stock market index to test for the effect that insider holdings has on the decision to announce a buyback, and the outcomes of those announcements. The sample is comprised of firms with relatively large market capitalizations. Using a logistic model to answer the first question and an OLS to answer the second, I do not find evidence that supports insider holdings as a predictor of announcement decisions or returns following an announcement among the firms in our sample. I do not find that many of the other relevant factors cited in the literature prove explanatory either. My results suggest that the nature of the firms in our sample (large and under intense scrutiny) may dispel some of the effects of insider holdings, as well as those of the other relevant factors
Speaking Abortion: Understanding Stigma, Support Networks, and Faith Within the Lives of Abortion Care Providers
No full textAbortion has been a constant of human reproductive life throughout recorded history. Its more recent history in the United States, however, has been extremely contentious. Abortion has turned into a polarizing issue for many in the United States, and this polarization and politicization have had significant impacts on the lives of those who provide abortion care. In this thesis, I use oral histories of abortion care providers in a city on the East Coast in order to explore how stigma, support networks, and faith all play a role in their communities and their work in abortion care. I take an activist scholar approach to this work, in the hopes that sharing the stories and lives of providers will increase public understanding of the importance of their roles in reproductive healthcare and the need to support their work
Popular Music in America
No full textThis course traces the evolution of American popular music from its eighteenth-century origins to the heyday of recorded musical innovation in the twentieth century. Starting in the theaters and print shops of early Philadelphia, we explore the interrelated orchestral, operatic, melodramatic, minstrel, and marching-band repertories of the nineteenth century before encountering the commercial revolution that redefined American music around 1900. We then consider two influential modern genres (the blues and rock) along with case studies (film music and minimalism) at the intersection of the classical and popular traditions. Themes of cultural hierarchy, technology, race, and transnationalism
Intro to Peace, Justice and Human Rights
No full textDear student,\ud
It’s hard to imagine a class more important, exciting, or daunting to teach than an introduction to peace, justice, and human rights. I’ll start just by pointing out that, on the one hand, “introduction” is a bit of a misnomer: it’s highly probable that every single one of you is entering this room with lots of ideas of your own about peace, justice, and human rights—some based on experiences I, your teacher, haven’t had and can’t imagine well. And yet I can say, with equal conviction, that we could spend not just one but four semesters studying peace, justice, and human \ud
rights from various angles only to come away feeling that we were still “introducing” ourselves to new ideas. We have before us a topic that everyone on this planet owns in some way, whether they have studied it formally or not, and also a topic so bottomless that one rarely comes away with a feeling of mastery. In fact, my principle aim this semester is to help you discover new and better questions about peace, justice, and human rights—ones that align with things you already cared about, perhaps, but that you wouldn’t have had the tools to ask before.\ud
\ud
What else is this class trying to accomplish? Really, it is an introduction to the academic study of peace, justice, and especially human rights, mostly through various theoretical lenses. I take it as a given that a) to study aspects of peace, justice, and human rights is a good thing in \ud
itself, and that one need not apologize for taking the time, comfort, and privilege of a college education to think really hard \ud
about these things for a semester (unless, of course, one is forgetting to acknowledge the ways in which \ud
that time, comfort, and privilege can lead to blind spots, and require both humility and self-‐critique); and b) that academic study of these topics can equip you better to do the things you want to do with your life and make demonstrable changes in how you see the world around \ud
you—current events, yes, but also friendships, family relationships, everyday choices, and so on. In other words, what I’m saying is: if you are here because you want to read and think, without necessarily knowing what you plan to do for peace, justice, and human rights in the \ud
world—welcome, I’m glad to have you here. If you get impatient with the idea of reading and thinking divorced from action, and want to make plans (or have plans already) for making change in the world—welcome, I’m glad to have you here.\ud
\ud
Among the specific topics we’ll grapple with are: influential philosophies of human rights and the nature of justice; historic and contemporary ways of explaining peace, war, and nonviolence; clashes between the struggle for individual rights and the work of conflict resolution; the role of human rights prior to, during, and after violent conflict; and critical perspectives on how peace, justice and human rights are generally described and pursued. Throughout the class, we will demonstrate—all of us, not just me— reasons why the study of human rights demands the linking together of different forms of disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge (in other words, this is not a philosophy class, history class, or political science class: it is a class in peace, justice, and human rights).\ud
\ud
This class cannot possibly be the same every semester it is taught, in part because you are an essential ingredient. I look forward to discovering all that we have to teach each other.\ud
Sincerely,\ud
Ada
Classical and Modern Physics II
No full textThis is the second semester of a one-‐year introductory physics sequence geared toward students majoring in the life sciences. In this semester, we cover electricity, magnetism, light, waves, and optics. Calculus I is a prerequisite and \ud
Calculus II is a co-‐requisite
Race, Poverty, and the U.S. Welfare State
No full textThis course is designed to help you gain a deeper understanding of the contours and politics of the U.S. welfare state – the cluster of policies that are typically thought of as designed to promote the economic and social wellbeing of U.S. citizens. Throughout the course, we will use the lens of race to understand these policies and their related politics. We will address questions like: What counts as a welfare policy? Who benefits from welfare policies? How do U.S. welfare policies compare to those in use in other advanced nations? How does program design affect welfare politics
Foundations of Psychology
No full textThe course focuses on the scientific study of human behavior, thought, and emotion. We will integrate a variety of theoretical perspectives in this effort including evolutionary, learning, social, and multicultural lenses. Across the course we will pay close attention to the methods, rationale, and principles guiding such efforts. The end of the course will focus on applications of psychology including clinical treatments and policy implications
Foundations of Psychology
No full textThe purpose of this course is to provide students with an appreciation for the scientific approach to the study of human behavior, and to expose students to the range of topics that comprise modern scientific psychology. It is not intended to be a general overview of the field, or any of its disciplines, but rather to prepare students for later work in the Haverford Psychology department by introducing concepts, themes, and methodologies that are covered in advanced courses in the department. We will investigate human thought and behavior from a variety of different theoretical perspectives, including the biological (evolutionary and physiological), cognitive, social, and personality perspectives. We will also consider the history and methodology of the science of psychology and conclude with an integrative examination of selected topics in psychopathology and health
Memory and Cognition
No full textRelative to other areas of psychology, cognitive psychology is a relatively young sub-discipline that emerged in the late 1950’s in response to various problems associated with the behaviorist paradigm. In the research which has followed, a primary goal has been to discover the basic underlying mechanisms mediating the processes of selective attention, perception, learning, remembering, forgetting, and both the representation and use of various types of knowledge systems. More recently, however, the trend has been to investigate various ways in which cognitive behavior manifests itself within everyday life. As illustrated in the syllabus below, this covers a broad range of topics that includes the memory for faces and geographical locations, eyewitness testimony, advertising, decision-making, the use of language, and modifying the environment to make it optimally compatible with cognitive resources. In addition, we will also consider some recent developments in the areas of autobiographical memory, meta-cognition, the biological bases of memory, mood and emotion, and cognitive diversity. The overall intent is to address cognitive behavior from a more ecological perspective and to not only consider some of the practical implications of this endeavor but the subsequent influence on certain theoretical constructs