Assessing Relations Between Rape Myth Acceptance, Prior Sexual Victimization, and Bystander Intervention Behavior

Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) remains a very prevalent issue in higher education (Koss et al., 2022). Through cultural norms, sexual violence is often normalized, with blame frequently shifted away from perpetrators and onto victims. Rape myth acceptance (RMA) contributes to harmful harmful attitudes that justify or minimize sexual violence (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994). Prior research suggests that lower endorsement of rape myths is associated with greater prosocial bystander intervention behavior (McMahon, 2010); however, findings on the role of prior victimization are mixed. This study used a mix-method approach, including a survey and interviews. Results indicated that members of Greek life reported lower RMA and higher engagement in bystander intervention. Individuals with a history of sexual victimization were also more likely to intervene in risky situations. Interviews revealed themes of increased awareness of sexual violence following personal experiences, as well deeper analysis of subtle victim-blaming narratives and rape myths that may not be fully captured through the self-report survey. The findings from this study suggest that both belief systems and lived experiences shape bystander intervention. There is a need to improve sexual violence prevention efforts that address rape myth acceptance, challenge normalized harmful attitudes, and promote community accountability by enhancing the role of bystanders at Bucknell. Future research can explore these relationships on more diverse college campuses with different social contexts

Finishing How They Started: Evidence of Mean Reversion in the March Madness Tournament

Every year millions of people fill out NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament brackets hoping to select as many winners as possible. While consistently choosing the better seed to win may be a safe strategy, many research efforts have tried to improve upon this approach. Some of these efforts use complex data and advanced statistical methods, making the process inaccessible to the common fan. Other research uses simpler but more understandable data and techniques. We build on this latter approach and introduce a new measurement system to assess underperformance or overperformance of a given team. This research provides a data-informed way to identify possible upsets. Our research identifies one very significant variable in predicting team performance in the tournament: the team’s preseason ranking. We also find that teams who win their conference tournament often underperform, perhaps due to recency bias and receiving an inflated seed

Campus Sexual Assault: Cybersex at Bucknell

Campus sexual assault continues to be a prevalent problem, particularly at Bucknell. The present study is the first study out of Bucknell Campus Sexual Assault Research team to explore the new module of the Sexual Experiences Survey - Victimization (SESV) Cybersex (Koss et al., 2024). This is a mixed methods approach to exploring cybersex at Bucknell. The study explored prevalence rates, differences between gender binary, sexual orientation, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. The first hypothesis was that cybersex victimization will be prevalent at Bucknell. The next hypothesis was that women and sexual minorities would have higher rates of cybersex scores than men and heterosexuals. The study also aimed to explore whether those who indicated experiencing cybersex victimization will report higher overall PTS symptoms as measured by the Globalpsychotrauma scale (GPS). The present study found that cybersex happens at Bucknell, but not at the prevalence rate that Overall SESV happens. The present study also identified that there was not a difference in victimization by gender binary or sexual orientation. The present study did however, find a significant positive relationship between cybersex prevalence and overall GPS scores. These findings indicate that Bucknell students do experience cybersex victimization, but there does not appear to be a difference by gender binary and sexual orientation. However, the experiences of cybersex victimization do appear to have an impact on post traumatic stress, as indicated by the findings of the present study

Barriers to Immunity: Understanding COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Africa

This thesis examines the factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine uptake across African countries, with a focus on structural, informational, and behavioral barriers to immunization. Drawing on cross-country data, the study analyzes how access to transportation, reliable information, and healthcare resources shape vaccination rates, alongside the effect of demographics and institutional factors in shaping individual perceptions of risk and vaccine safety. The findings emphasize that the broader strength and preparedness of national health systems strongly influence vaccine uptake. Countries that demonstrated higher coverage of routine childhood immunizations, such as polio and hepatitis B, also tended to perform better in COVID-19 uptake efficiency and overall vaccination coverage. In addition to health system capacity, broader socioeconomic and institutional factors also influenced vaccine distribution and efficiency. Indicators such as healthcare spending, logistics performance, human development levels, and access to basic infrastructure positively influenced vaccine receipt and vaccine coverage, while percent of the population with access to electricity and GDP contributed to efficient COVID vaccine uptake. These results suggest that successful vaccination campaigns depend not only on the availability of vaccines during emergencies, but also on the long-term capacity of countries to manage and sustain immunization programs, highlighting the importance of investing in routine vaccination infrastructure. Further, these findings emphasize the interconnected nature of infrastructure and public health: transportation systems, reliable utilities, and functioning institutions all contribute to the ability of a country to receive and deliver vaccines effectively to their populations. As global disparities in vaccine access persist, with Africa continuing to lag behind much of the world, it is critical to identify the key barriers to vaccine uptake in order to effectively begin closing this gap. By highlighting the interaction between systemic barriers and individual decision-making, this research underscores the importance of targeted public health strategies that improve access while addressing misinformation. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of vaccine uptake in developing contexts and offers policy-relevant insights for increasing immunization coverage in future public health initiatives

Deep Learning Approaches for Voltammetric Analysis of Coffee

This thesis investigates deep learning approaches for voltammetric analysis of brewed coffee using a low-cost electrochemical system and screen-printed electrodes (SPEs). Traditional analytical methods, such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), provide precise quantification of key compounds but require expensive instrumentation and specialized expertise, limiting accessibility. While SPEs offer a more accessible alternative, they yielded poor results with traditional processing; however, when combined with a neural network, the system proved more effective. In experiments with 132 coffee samples, mean errors for caffeine, CGA, and TDS predictions were 52.98 ppm, 70.48 ppm, and 0.08 %, respectively. These findings highlight the potential of low-cost electrochemical methods while emphasizing the need for improved sensor technology and data processing to enhance sensitivity and reduce variability. Finally, this thesis explores predicting subjective cupping attributes and flavor descriptors, showing limited performance due to small, narrow-range sensory datasets and motivating larger, standardized data collection for future systems that approximate human tasting

The Discrepancies in Voter Perception of Male and Female Political Candidates: Biases of Characteristic Traits and Policy Priority

Gender remains a defining factor in how political candidates are perceived by the American electorate, shaping not only evaluations of characteristic traits but also perceived policy priority. These discrepancies are rooted and propelled by traditional gender roles from the 1900s. This thesis shows that the perceptions of female and male political candidates differ depending on the informational environment as well as the voter demographics. I used both a quantitative nationally representative survey and a qualitative interview of students on Bucknell\u27s campus. The date revealed that individuals in lower information environments are more likely to enact gender stereotypes along traditional gender lines. Whereas in higher information environments a pro-female stereotype emerges within specific demographic groups, specifically females, democrats, and younger voters

For what do you hunger? : Metaphors of Consumption and the Gothic Female Experience

“For what do you hunger?”: Metaphors of Consumption and the Gothic Female Experience offers a feminist-forward analysis on the female experience in Gothic literature, specifically through the lens of metaphors of consumption. This thesis examines how, from the Gothic’s inception, women have been the victims of sexual violence and misconduct, rendering them disposable by patriarchal agents. As the Gothic begins to change over the course of the nineteenth century, female protagonists gain agency and move from being completely victimized to playing the villain and, eventually in post-nineteenth-century Gothic, becoming the victor. That is to say that the Gothic both reinforces the oppression of women and, especially in the twenty-first century, leverages that oppression as a critique of traditional gender roles in service of female transformation

Brain Region-Specific Gene Expression Changes Following Social Isolation, Oxytocin Treatment, and Acute Stress, in Prairie Voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

Social isolation is a biological stressor that is associated with the dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and increased risk for mental health disorders. While oxytocin has been identified as a protective factor against the physiological and behavioral consequences of isolation, the brain region-specific transcriptional mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear. This thesis characterizes the effects of chronic social isolation and acute stress on gene expression across five brain regions in female sibling prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Female sibling prairie voles were assigned to four groups: paired-vehicle (Pv), paired-oxytocin (Po), isolated-vehicle (Iv), and isolated-oxytocin (Io). After a 42-day chronic treatment period, prairie voles underwent a resident-intruder (R-I) test to simulate acute stress. Transcriptomic analysis using RNA sequencing was performed on the hippocampus (HIPP), paraventricular nucleus (PVN), amygdala (AMY), frontal cortex (FC), and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). Differential gene expression analysis revealed that there was a lot of region specificity. The HIPP was the most transcriptionally responsive region, with 82 differentially expressed genes between Pv and Iv groups of prairie voles. Functional annotation of these hippocampal genes identified pathways related to neuronal signaling, synaptic function, and oxidative stress response. In comparison, the PVN showed minimal changes upon isolation, with only one gene meeting the predetermined thresholds, while AMY, FC, and BNST showed no detectable transcriptional differences across any comparisons. Although gene expression changes were seen between Pv and Iv groups, oxytocin treatment prevented significant transcriptional changes when compared directly to isolated prairie voles in the comparison Iv vs. Io groups. These findings suggest that the effects of social isolation on gene expression in the brain are primarily being driven by the social environment rather than widespread transcriptional regulation from oxytocin

Inequality in the Urban Forest: Modeling Tree Canopy Dynamics through Demographics and Restoration Strategies

Urban tree canopies play an important role in environmental quality, public health, and neighborhood livability, yet their distribution is highly uneven and often reflects historical patterns of inequality. In Brooklyn, long-term processes such as redlining, uneven development, and demographic change have contributed to persistent disparities in access to green space. This thesis examines how urban tree canopy evolves across space and time in Brooklyn and how different restoration strategies affect long-run outcomes. The analysis uses demographic and canopy data from 1990-2020, considering race, income, employment, and educational attainment. Among these, education is the most consistent predictor of canopy coverage, with stronger explanatory power than race or income. To study future dynamics, the thesis develops a spatial simulation model inspired by reaction–diffusion processes, where canopy evolves based on local conditions, neighboring effects, and municipal investment. Two restoration strategies are compared: rapid restoration, which immediately raises canopy to a 25\% target, and gradual restoration, which increases canopy incrementally over a 10-year period. Each strategy is implemented using three allocation methods: random selection, targeting the lowest-canopy areas, and a systematic sweep approach. The results show that rapid restoration leads to the highest overall canopy levels after 10 years, with relatively small differences across allocation strategies. In contrast, gradual restoration results in lower overall canopy but greater sensitivity to how resources are allocated. In this case, more evenly distributed investment tends to produce higher overall canopy, while targeted approaches concentrate gains in lower-canopy areas. Overall, the findings demonstrate that urban tree canopy distribution is shaped not only by environmental processes, but also by demographic structure and policy design. Restoration strategies that account for both spatial dynamics and underlying socioeconomic conditions can lead to more effective and more equitable long-run outcomes

Reading, Writing, and Proving

This book, which assumes only a precalculus background, aids students in their transition to higher-level mathematics. The authors begin by providing a great deal of guidance on how to approach definitions, examples, and theorems in mathematics and end with suggested projects for independent study. The reader will follow Pólya\u27s four step approach to problem solving: analyzing the problem, devising a plan to solve the problem, carrying out that plan, and then determining the implication of the result. Special emphasis is placed on reading proofs carefully and writing them well. The authors have included a wide variety of exercises with solutions, examples, illustrations, and problems, making the book ideal for independent study. The third edition provides the reader with significant changes, all of which have been artfully designed to enhance the learning and teaching experience. The topic of mathematical induction has been modified and moved to an earlier part of the text. Two technical chapters and many proofs have been revised, and a chapter on visualizing complex functions has been added. There are many new problems, an additional spotlight on professional ethics, new projects and some revisions of others. Short videos about each chapter and some solutions are freely available as electronic supplementary material. An instructor solutions manual for all odd-numbered problems is available on Springer Nature’s extra materials archive. While standard texts in this area prepare students for future courses in algebra, this book also includes chapters on sequences, convergence, and metric spaces for those wanting to bridge the gap between courses in calculus and those in analysis.https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/books/1336/thumbnail.jp