Seeking Equilibrium: Exploring Environmental Sustainability and Decision Making in Higher Education

Smiley Smith, Sara Elizabeth Yale University 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

While the term environmental sustainability is widely popular and ostensibly modern, the ideas embodied by this fluid concept are as old as human society. History has repeatedly demonstrated that when communities fail to find a balance between extracting the resources needed to live and promoting the continued healthful function of natural systems, they suffer serious consequences. Examples of this can be seen in fishery collapse, agricultural catastrophe, and chemical mismanagement where human behavior ran unchecked until ecosystems were too stressed to provide the services humans depended on. Themes in historical examples include a difficulty in understanding decision consequences, conflicting values, challenged long term thinking, and struggles to effectively use knowledge. Understanding how to encourage today's decision makers to embrace sustainability as a core value in their decision making process can help to shift the drive for healthy human systems toward greater balance, or equilibrium, with the need for environmental well being. Institutions of higher learning have been early actors in this arena, working to improve the sustainability of their operations while training future leaders. These institutions are making changes to better manage ubiquitous human systems including those for waste management and energy production, and the lessons gleaned in these settings are relevant far beyond campus borders. Institutions of higher learning provide ideal study sites to examine how the expression of sustainability influenced values, held by actors and by the institutions themselves, impact the decision making process. This work explores four cases in three topical areas at Yale University: food, transportation and energy. The first case presents a study of the transition from a campus dining system in which food waste was discarded in wastewater and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), to one boasting a food waste composting program. The second case focuses on the decision to shift from traditional diesel to a biodiesel blended fuel in campus shuttle busses. The third case explores efforts to influence individual commuting decisions to and from campus. Finally, the fourth case details the process of reaching a decision to make a public greenhouse gas reduction commitment. Each of these cases exposes a diversity of variables that interrelate in an evolving fashion. As values change, priorities shift, and actors enter and exit, the relationships between all components of a decision making system adjust. The decision making processes described in each of these cases can be partially explained through the use of theory and literature from fields including the policy sciences, problem definition, and innovation diffusion, among others. Building from this foundation, this work highlighted 18 variables that were expressed as having low, medium or high influence in each case. These variables were organized into four focal groups: Context, Knowledge, Participation and Process. Across the four cases, an increase in the prevalence of high influence variables was found when moving from the simple case of converting to biodiesel fuel to the highly complex example found in shifting to a compost system. A continuum of increasing decision complexity emerged. While the number of high influence variables increased across the continuum, distinct variables demonstrated variability. This analysis found seven key variables, a majority of which fell into the Process group, that were identified as being highly relevant for future sustainability influenced decision making. Understanding organizational structure and having system knowledge were important in navigating decision making in complex institutions. Agenda setting enabled decision makers to provide leadership by understanding who the players were and what motivated them, and using that knowledge to set institutional priorities around sustainability. As the need for behavior change increased, so too did the complexity of decision making overall. Cultural shifts and risk taking demonstrated that having a community understanding of what sustainability is provided support for decision makers, as did acceptance of thoughtful experimentation. Finally, problem definition involvement enabled actors to skillfully communicate that sustainability was enmeshed throughout institutional work. Many of these variables were found in the Process group, underscoring the importance of understanding the functional units of how decision making happens at an institution. Those seeking to improve the impact of sustainability influenced decision making can use this list of key variables to guide their efforts, helping target their focus and enable them to avoid common pitfalls. This work represents the experience at Yale University, and can be strengthened through further verification in other institutional settings.

Educational Impacts of Admissions Mechanisms

Kapor, Adam Joshua Yale University 2015 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

The "Texas Top Ten" law guaranteed admissions to all students ranking in the top decile of their high school class to each public university in the state of Texas, including the state flagship universities. In this dissertation I analyze the effects of the law on individuals who attended high school in Texas. The first two chapters present an evaluation of the effects of Texas Top Ten and associated scholarship programs on the distribution of college applications, admissions, and matriculation and on students' performance in college. I construct a model of students' application portfolios and financial-aid application decisions, colleges' preferences and admissions rules, students' choice of college, and students' grades and persistence in college. I estimate this model using a survey of a cohort of Texas high school seniors, together with administrative records of Texas universities. I find that Texas Top Ten led to a 10% increase in underrepresented minority enrollment at the state flagship universities. Next, I consider a large expansion of the Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship, which provides scholarships at UT Austin. Expanding the program to cover all high schools with poverty rates above 60% would cost an additional $60 per student enrolled at UT Austin and lead to an increase in underrepresented minority enrollment of about 5%. The effects on students from poor high schools are larger than those of purely informational interventions. Relative to Texas Top Ten, a hypothetical race-conscious affirmative action policy that awards points to minority applicants would attract underrepresented minority students with relatively poor class rank from relatively affluent high schools. These students would achieve lower college GPAs at flagship universities than those minority students admitted under Texas Top Ten. In the third chapter I measure the effects of Texas Top Ten on high school achievement as well as on labor market outcomes after college. The guarantee provided by Texas Top Ten changed the return to placing in the top decile at many Texas high schools. Using variation in students' peers and variation in policy affecting the return to class rank, together with administrative data on the universe of Texas public high school students' test scores and attendance linked to college and labor market outcomes, I test the hypothesis that students responded to an increase in the value of class rank with changes in academic effort, and measure the effects on high school exit-level standardized test scores and long-run outcomes. This study is the first study of the incentive effects of a Percent Plan that takes advantage of this student-level source of variation. I find little evidence that high school test scores and eventual wages responded to changes in incentives provided by Texas Top Ten.

A multivariate multilevel discrete-time hazard model for familial aggregation and co-aggregation of psychiatric disorders

Stolar, Marilyn Jane Yale University 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

The familial aggregation and comorbidity of psychiatric disorders is a public health concern studied by psychiatric epidemiologists. Offspring of affected parents are at elevated risk for psychopathology due to familial liability as well as individual liability for disorder. Childhood and adolescent psychopathology and its relationship with the onset and progression of substance use is an especially important issue. Children are appropriate targets of interventions to mitigate disorder onset and the severity of its course. Longitudinal studies of high-risk offspring elucidate the distribution, etiology and course of early-onset psychiatric disorders to inform intervention and prevention. Many statistical models for familial aggregation have appeared in the genetic epidemiology and family study literature. Our aim in this manuscript is to offer a conceptualization of familial aggregation that differentiates variation in familial clustering from that of familial risk, and to develop a multilevel model that operationalizes this approach. Because the outcome of our analysis is the disease status of children who are observed until different ages and thus different points in the period of risk, we use a hazard model. We apply our model to family study data collected by Dr. Kathleen Merikangas of the Genetic Epidemiology Research Unit at Yale University. The Yale Family Study high-risk component examined 203 children of 124 proband parents. Probands were ascertained from clinics and from the New Haven CT community as affected with anxiety and/or substance-related disorders or as healthy controls. To analyze clustered duration data for patterns of familial aggregation and comorbidity, we propose a multivariate multilevel discrete-time hazard model. We apply the model to the reported ages of onset of anxiety disorder and alcohol use in the high-risk sample. We choose these outcomes and a set of related risk factors mainly for the purpose of giving a clear illustration of the modeling process. Although in this manuscript we may not necessarily provide a definitive answer to a substantive clinical question, we develop a tool that we offer to researchers in their quest to do so.

A study of transitional collective behavior in heavy nuclei

Williams, Elizabeth Tamera Yale University 2009 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Throughout the nuclear landscape, regions of structural transition have provided a sensitive means of testing our understanding of nuclear structure. In this work, two aspects of transitional behavior in nuclear structure will be examined, using both theoretical and experimental methods. In the weakly vibrational nucleus 140Nd, mixed symmetry states -- collective excitations in which the protons and neutrons behave collectively, but out of phase -- are sought via beta decay experiments at the Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale University. Angular correlations techniques are used to identify 2+ states near 2 MeV that decay to the 2+1 state via a predominant M1 transition, and two low-lying mixed symmetry candidates are identified. The relationship between underlying shell structure and the fragmentation of mixed symmetry states in the N = 80 isotones is discussed. To study of transitions between spherical and deformed collective structures, internal conversion electron measurements of the deformed nucleus 158Dy have been carried out at the Australian National University. Measurements in the deformed region, where data are scarce, may hold the key to understanding the physics behind observed E0 transition strengths in the transitional region. To that end, the E0 transition between the 0+2 and 0+1 states in 158Dy has been measured, and an X(E0/E2) value for this transition is presented. Finally, the Interacting Boson Model-1 is used to study the evolution of quantum (shape) phase transitional behavior in collective nuclei. Energies, transition strengths, and shape invariants in yrast states are studied over a large range of system sizes. The roles that system size, angular momentum, excitation energy, and even choice of observable play in our discussion of such systems are explored through a variety of methods. Angular momentum, in particular, is found to play a significant role in the evolution of ground state band energies in finite nuclear systems, but does not have an effect on the evolution of any observables in the large boson limit.

Closer to a pluralist heaven? Women's, racial minority, and economic justice advocacy groups and the politics of representation

Strolovitch, Dara Zippora Yale University 2002 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Much work suggests that advocacy organizations do not represent their disadvantaged constituents, but many organizations claim to champion the interests of their most disadvantaged subpopulations. I assess how successfully interest groups that represent women, racial minorities, and low-income people incorporate advocacy on issues that affect disadvantaged members of their constituencies. For example, to what extent are women's groups active on policy issues affecting poor women; civil rights groups on issues affecting women of color; and economic justice groups on issues affecting homeless poor people?. I develop a typology highlighting the size and power of target groups, distinguishing between: (1) <italic>majority</italic> issues, that impact with equal probability all group members; (2) <italic>advantaged minority </italic> issues, that impact an advantaged sub-group of the larger marginal population; (3) <italic>disadvantaged minority</italic> issues, that impact a disadvantaged sub-group of the larger marginal population; and (4) <italic> universal</italic> issues. Using this policy typology, data from an original survey of 286 organizations, and information from forty interviews, I test two hypotheses. First, I hypothesize that groups are most active on majority issues, moderately active on advantaged minority issues, and not very active on policy issues that affect disadvantaged minorities of their constituency. The second hypothesis is that groups target the courts and agencies, rather than Congress, when policy issues affect minorities of their constituency. I find major differences in the form and extent of the advocacy on issues affecting disadvantaged groups. First, organizations are more active on majority issues than they are on minority issues. Second, organizations are more active on issues that affect an <italic>advantaged</italic> minority of their larger constituency than they are on issues that impact a <italic>disadvantaged</italic> minority. Third, organizations target the courts much more often to pursue minority issues than to pursue majority issues. Finally, organizations enter coalitions most often around disadvantaged minority and universal issues. I argue that while these findings are logical from a strategic point of view, what is necessary to avoid reinforcing the weak positions of disadvantaged sub-groups is what I call affirmative representation within which organizations devote <italic>extra</italic> resources to issues affecting disadvantaged minorities.

The corporate eye: Photography and the rationalization of American culture, 1884--1929

Brown, Elspeth H Yale University 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

This dissertation explores managers' instrumental uses of photography to rationalize spheres of production, distribution, and consumption in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I look at the intersections among the rationalization of work, the standardization of modern consumer culture, and the emergence of photography as a mass technology in order to understand how business and industry harnessed photographic meaning to naturalize corporate and industrial relations. Chapter One examines the turn to photographic technologies as a means of making industrial production more efficient during the Progressive era. After a brief discussion of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Eadweard Muybridge, I discuss industrial consultants Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, who photographed and filmed industrial workers in order to isolate individual movements, which could then be reconfigured to model the “one best way” to perform a given task. Chapter Two considers the work of an early personnel consultant, Dr. Katherine Blackford who used the still photograph as a means of selecting appropriate employees for a variety of vocations. A popularizer of classical and modern scientific assumptions concerning the relationship between external features and character, Blackford's substantial influence was challenged, and eventually displaced, by the competing claims of university-trained applied psychologists. In Chapter Three I turn to advertising photography to understand the rationalization of consumption. The major figure here is Lejaren`a Hiller, a photographic illustrator who invented photographic illustration for print advertising in its modern form. While corporate managers, psychologists and advertisers were moving from a model of “rational” man to “irrational woman,” or a consumer motivated by emotional appeals, Hiller created complex social tableaux, softening photography's realist edge with pictorialist sophistication. My argument throughout is that corporate managers relied upon photography as neutral reporter of transparent social truths in a variety of instrumental applications, ranging from motion study, to employee selection, to advertising. The goal uniting these various forms of photographic production was the increased rationalization of the modern economy through a set of interlocking managerial innovations, technologies which sought to redesign not only industrial production, but the modern subject as well.

Star formation in the early universe

Bromm, Volker Yale University 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

We investigate the formation of the first stars in the universe. In the context of hierarchical models of structure formation, these Population III stars are expected to form in high or peaks of mass ∼10<super>6</super><math> <f> <rm><mit>M<inf>⊙</inf></mit></rm></f> </math>, collapsing at redshifts ≃20−30. We present an exploratory survey, based on numerical simulations using the SPH method. The main results are: (1) Just before the onset of gravitational instability, the primordial gas attains a characteristic temperature of a few 100 K, and a density of 10<super>3</super>−10<super>4</super>cm<super>−3</super>, with corresponding Jeans mass <italic>M_J</italic> of ∼10<super> 3</super><math> <f> <rm><mit>M<inf>⊙</inf></mit></rm></f> </math>. These characteristic values have robust explanation in the microphysics of H₂ cooling, related to the minimum temperature that can be reached with the H₂ coolant, and to the critical density at which the transition takes place between levels being populated according to NLTE, and according to LTE. The gas fragments into clumps with initial masses close to <italic> M_J</italic>. This result is remarkably insensitive to the initial conditions, and suggests that the first stars might have been quite massive. (2) The later evolutionary stages, during which the clumps grow in mass due to accretion and merging with other clumps, are quite sensitive to the initial conditions. The key process in building up very massive clumps, with masses up to a few times 10<super>4</super><math> <f> <rm><mit>M<inf>⊙</inf></mit></rm></f> </math>, is merging. (3) We follow the collapse of a clump up to central densities of ∼10<super>14</super>cm<super>−3</super>. Three-body reactions are very efficient in converting the hydrogen into fully molecular form. A central core of ∼10<super>2</super><math> <f> <rm><mit>M<inf>⊙</inf></mit></rm></f> </math> is in a state of free-fall, leaving behind an extended envelope with an isothermal profile. No further subfragmentation is seen. (4) We calculate the generic spectral signature of a population of massive stars at high redshifts. The production rate of ionizing radiation per stellar mass by stars more massive than ∼100<math> <f> <rm><mit>M<inf>⊙</inf></mit></rm></f> </math> is larger by ∼1 order of magnitude for hydrogen and He I, and by ∼2 orders of magnitude for He II, than the emission from a Salpeter IMF.

Empirical essays in the microeconomics of development in sub-Saharan Africa

Suri, Tavneet Kaur Yale University 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

This dissertation focuses on empirical microeconomic issues of development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The relative roles of human and social capital and institutions/networks in these economies are fascinating and analyzing these roles will improve our understanding of objective and subjective notions of well being and standards of living in developing countries. In the chapters of my dissertation, I analyze household decision making and behavior in economies where households are largely dependent on agriculture and face extremely uncertain and variable incomes. In addition, markets often work imperfectly. The goal is to examine the efficiency of behavior within the institutional boundaries and constraints these households face. I address the following particular issues. In the second chapter, I am interested in understanding an empirical puzzle in technology adoption in Kenya. Hybrid maize has the potential to increase average maize yields dramatically, but its use is not universal. I analyze how important the spatial distribution in returns to this technology is in understanding why households use or do not use such technologies. I find a strong role for comparative advantage driven by costs and benefits across households in explaining this puzzle. In chapter three, I develop a test to measure first how far from a Pareto efficient allocation of risk households are and, second, how well villages manage their risk. I find that, within villages, household food consumption is well insured. The final chapter investigates the choices involved in the trade-off between child labor and schooling in Ghana. Using synthetic panel approaches, we find a causal effect of child labor (due to rainfall shocks) on schooling. In general, my research illustrates that while constraints such as income and credit do affect choices, benefits and preferences are substantial explanatory factors in the scenarios of hybrid use and child labor. In addition, households are reasonably able to cope with risk within these economies. Production technologies, costs and benefits, and preferences play a large role in explaining cross sectional differences in household choices and behavior.

Who gets screened and why: The causes and consequences of screening pregnant women for cocaine use

Kerker, Bonnie Diane Yale University 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

<italic>Introduction</italic>. In 1994, Connecticut's child welfare agency, the Department of Children and Families (DCF), focused the referrals of newborns on illicit substance-exposed infants. Hospital providers' decisions to screen pregnant women for cocaine use, then, are critical because the results of toxicology screens can initiate DCF involvement. This study developed a theoretical model to explain how three domains, Individual Characteristics, Resource Availability and Organizational Environment, affect hospital providers' screening and referral decisions. It utilized the same population to determine the factors that predict screening decisions and those that predict positive screening outcomes. This research also examined the factors associated with hospital providers' decisions to refer newborns to DCF. <italic>Methods</italic>. The first study population consisted of all low-income women who delivered at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) and were The second sample consisted of hospital providers who provided prenatal and delivery care for the population of women described above (interviews). The third consisted of DCF workers (interviews). <italic>Results</italic>. Using a joint medical record and provider interview database, multivariate logistic regression analyses found that many clinical and social factors of the mother, as well as attitudes and values of the provider, influenced screening decisions. Moreover, disparities were found between the variables predicting that screens were done and those associated with positive screening outcomes. While Black women, for example, were no more likely to screen positive than non-Black women, they were 2 times more likely to be screened. In part, this may be due to differences in the information documented about each racial group. Further, the strongest predictor of referrals to DCF was illicit substance use during pregnancy. <italic>Implications</italic>. History-taking and screening protocols that incorporate the factors clearly identified in both the literature and local data are critical to ensure that all women receive the services they need. Moreover, hospital administrators must have experts talk with providers about how their attitudes and values may inadvertently be affecting their care. Further, DCF should include other conditions in its definition of high risk newborns in order to focus providers on the many needs of their patients.

Partial Exchange Transfusion for Polycythemia Hyperviscosity Syndrome

Hopewell, Bridget Leann Yale University 2011 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

The objective of this study was to examine the use of partial exchange transfusion (PET) performed for polycythemia hyperviscosity syndrome (PHS) over time. A retrospective review of 141 infants who received a PET for PHS at Yale-New Haven Hospital, between 1986-2007 was performed, querying maternal and neonatal medical records. Patient demographics, risk factors for PHS, indications for PET, and complications associated with PET and PHS were collected. Overall, there was no change in the number of PET performed over the study period (r2=0.082, p=0.192). Eighty-eight percent of patients had at least one risk factor for PHS, most commonly maternal diabetes. Over time, there was a statistically significant decrease in maternal diabetes as a risk factor for PHS. Forty percent of patients had a significant complication attributed to PHS prior to PET. Eighteen percent of patients had a complication attributed to PET. Life-threatening complications of PHS or PET were rare. In conclusion, PHS continues to be a problem observed in neonatal intensive care units, particularly in at-risk populations. PHS and PET are associated with significant complications. Well designed studies with long-term follow up are needed to assess the risks and benefits of PET for PHS.