THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATE-LEVEL DYNAMICS, FIREARM POLICIES, AND COUNTY-LEVEL HOMICIDES

This dissertation examines the causes and effects of four major firearm-related policies in the United States: Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW), Stand Your Ground (SYG), Child Access Prevention (CAP), and Universal Background Checks (UBC). Applying a social movement approach, the first research question addresses how a social movement organization (SMO) has employed resources to shape the adoption of (counter-)movement-related legislation. Using the gun rights movement as a case-in-point, I explore how campaign contributions – conceptualized as a professionalized SMO resource – have been employed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to shape the adoption of CCW, SYG, CAP, and UBC laws at the state-level between 1990 and 2016. Employing event-history analyses and mediation models, I find campaign contributions are associated with social movement successes – in this case, policy adoption – albeit indirectly: NRA campaign contributions have no direct association with the adoption of any state-level firearm-related legislation. However, campaign contributions do effectively shape the percentage of Republican legislators in a given state’s legislature which, in turn, increases the adoption of gun rights laws (SYG) and decreases the adoption of gun control laws (CAP). The second research question examines the extent to which state-level firearm-related policies affect local-level homicides above and beyond socio-criminological correlates. Although the majority of homicides are conducted with a firearm and homicides vary greatly across counties, gun policy scholarship has often ignored socio-criminological insights and, in turn, may be making inaccurate inferences about the impact of gun policies on homicides, including firearm-related homicides. Analyses presented in this chapter employ hierarchical (i.e., counties nested in states) logistic and negative-binomial models to address substantive and methodological shortcomings in extant gun policy research. Focusing on recent homicide data (2014-2016), results indicate socio-criminological correlates, specifically at the county-level, robustly explain variation in the number of reported homicides, including those associated with firearms. In contrast, state-level gun policies do not seem to provide any additional explanation of county-level homicide variation above these correlates. Advisors: Regina E. Werum and Philip Schwade

Structural and Stratigraphic Relations Along the Precambrian Front in Southwestern Massachusetts

Guidebook for field trips in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont: 61st annual meeting at the State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York October 10, 11, 12, 1969: Trip

Stratigraphy and Deformation History of Rocks of the Taconic Range Near Great Barrington, MA

Guidebook for field trips in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont: 61st annual meeting at the State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York October 10, 11, 12, 1969: Trip

Investigating decision rules with a new experimental design: the EXACT paradigm.

In the decision-making field, it is important to distinguish between the perceptual process (how information is collected) and the decision rule (the strategy governing decision-making). We propose a new paradigm, called EXogenous ACcumulation Task (EXACT) to disentangle these two components. The paradigm consists of showing a horizontal gauge that represents the probability of receiving a reward at time t and increases with time. The participant is asked to press a button when they want to request a reward. Thus, the perceptual mechanism is hard-coded and does not need to be inferred from the data. Based on this paradigm, we compared four decision rules (Bayes Risk, Reward Rate, Reward/Accuracy, and Modified Reward Rate) and found that participants appeared to behave according to the Modified Reward Rate. We propose a new way of analysing the data by using the accuracy of responses, which can only be inferred in classic RT tasks. Our analysis suggests that several experimental findings such as RT distribution and its relationship with experimental conditions, usually deemed to be the result of a rise-to-threshold process, may be simply explained by the effect of the decision rule employed

Effects of Sex, Race, and Education on the Timing of Coming Out among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults in the U.S.

Sexual identity formation or “coming out” as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) involves a complex process including both private realization and public disclosure. Private realization refers to the process through which an individual becomes aware of their LGB identity, whereas public disclosure reflects when an individual discloses their identity to another person. Sex, race, and class affect the timing of these processes across the life course. While extant research has identified the bivariate nature of these processes, we took a multivariate approach to understand the timing of these sexual identity milestones from a life-course perspective. Using data from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Survey of LGBT Adults (n = 1136), we considered how the timing of private realization and public disclosure of LGB identity is a sexed, racialized, and classed experience. The sample consisted of lesbians (n = 270), gay males (n = 396), bisexual females (n = 342), and bisexual males (n = 127). Results indicated that females uniformly realized and disclosed their identities at later stages in the life course, whereas individuals with at least some college education came out during their prime college-age years. We also found variation in timing between private realization and public disclosure for Black respondents, but not other racial groups. These findings provide insight into how organizations can develop specific programs that allow LGB individuals to safely explore their sexuality and provide support over the life course

Diffusion versus linear ballistic accumulation: different models but the same conclusions about psychological processes?

Quantitative models for response time and accuracy are increasingly used as tools to draw conclusions about psychological processes. Here we investigate the extent to which these substantive conclusions depend on whether researchers use the Ratcliff diffusion model or the Linear Ballistic Accumulator model. Simulations show that the models agree on the effects of changes in the rate of information accumulation and changes in non-decision time, but that they disagree on the effects of changes in response caution. In fits to empirical data, however, the models tend to agree closely on the effects of an experimental manipulation of response caution. We discuss the implications of these conflicting results, concluding that real manipulations of caution map closely, but not perfectly to response caution in either model. Importantly, we conclude that inferences about psychological processes made from real data are unlikely to depend on the model that is used

Occupational Therapy Students’ Experiential and Self-Regulated Learning in a Community Program for Breast Cancer Survivors

Occupational therapy educators utilize varied educational theories to prepare occupational therapy students to develop the knowledge, clinical reasoning, and professionalism necessary for successful Level II fieldwork completion. Students need to be equipped to apply didactic knowledge to patient intervention and care. Students can benefit by engaging in authentic experiences that extend didactic learning to real life challenges. Providing such experiences requires careful thought and consideration of course design by faculty. This manuscript describes the use of experiential learning and self-regulated learning theory to design and implement a student-run, community-based cognitive rehabilitation program for breast cancer survivors. This program afforded the students the opportunity for real life experiences requiring adjustment and adaptation to the situational demands of occupational therapy practice

Temperature-dependent properties of the magnetic order in single-crystal BiFeO3

We report neutron diffraction and magnetization studies of the magnetic order in multiferroic BiFeO3. In ferroelectric monodomain single crystals, there are three magnetic cycloidal domains with propagation vectors equivalent by crystallographic symmetry. The cycloid period slowly grows with increasing temperature. The magnetic domain populations do not change with temperature except in the close vicinity of the N{\P}eel temperature, at which, in addition, a small jump in magneti- zation is observed. No evidence for the spin-reorientation transitions proposed in previous Raman and dielectric studies is found. The magnetic cycloid is slightly anharmonic for T=5 K. The an- harmonicity is much smaller than previously reported in NMR studies. At room temperature, a circular cycloid is observed, within errors. We argue that the observed anharmonicity provides important clues for understanding electromagnons in BiFeO3.Comment: In Press at PR

Optical Properties of the DIRC Fused Silica Cherenkov Radiator

The DIRC is a new type of Cherenkov detector that is successfully operating as the hadronic particle identification system for the BABAR experiment at SLAC. The fused silica bars that serve as the DIRC's Cherenkov radiators must transmit the light over long optical pathlengths with a large number of internal reflections. This imposes a number of stringent and novel requirements on the bar properties. This note summarizes a large amount of R&D that was performed both to develop specifications and production methods and to determine whether commercially produced bars could meet the requirements. One of the major outcomes of this R&D work is an understanding of methods to select radiation hard and optically uniform fused silica material. Others include measurement of the wavelength dependency of the internal reflection coefficient, and its sensitivity to surface contaminants, development of radiator support methods, and selection of good optical glue.Comment: 36 pages, submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Methods

Short-range incommensurate magnetic order near the superconducting phase boundary in Fe(1+d)Te(1-x)Se(x)

We performed elastic neutron scattering and magnetization measurements on Fe(1.07)Te(0.75)Se(0.25) and FeTe(0.7)Se(0.3). Short-range incommensurate magnetic order is observed in both samples. In the former sample with higher Fe content, a broad magnetic peak appears around (0.46,0,0.5) at low temperature, while in FeTe(0.7)Se(0.3) the broad magnetic peak is found to be closer to the antiferromagnetic (AFM) wave-vector (0.5,0,0.5). The incommensurate peaks are only observed on one side of the AFM wave-vector for both samples, which can be modeled in terms of an imbalance of ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic correlations between nearest-neighbor spins. We also find that with higher Se (and lower Fe) concentration, the magnetic order becomes weaker while the superconducting temperature and volume increase.Comment: Version as appeared in PR