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Item Open Access A Comparison of Values around Cruise Tax in Iceland and Alaska(2018) Stith, MichaelaCruise ships pose many environmental harms: they emit more black carbon and CO₂ per passenger-mile than any other vehicle, discharge untreated sewage and wastewater into the open ocean, carry large quantities of heavy fuel oil onboard, and transport invasive species via ballast water. As the Arctic Ocean melts and becomes more accessible to marine vessels, cruise lines have taken advantage of the “last chance tourism” phenomenon and increased the numbers of cruise ships that tour the Arctic. Without sufficient regulation, the influx of cruise ships could create negative impacts for the Arctic environment. In this study I use Alaska’s Cruise Ship Tax Initiative as a model for cruise regulation and examine the high-level values that would influence Icelanders to adopt a similar, explicitly environmental per-passenger cruise tax. To determine the values to which advocates of a cruise tax should appeal, we interviewed twenty policymakers and stakeholders in Ísafjörður and Reykjavík, Iceland with the laddering method. As an extension of the study I interviewed one government administrator and one cruise tax advocate in Southeast Alaska to compile lessons learned from the implementation of the Alaska Cruise Ship Tax Initiative. The values from each location were compared to find which lessons would be relevant for Icelanders. The value categories that would influence the tax’s implementation were good governance, cultural richness, quality of life, regional survival, economic growth, nature’s inherent value and resource-based life. Icelandic participants showed low faith in government’s efficacy – i.e. ability to do what it says it will do – and expressed concerns that dependence on tourism and the national government’s marginalization of the Westfjords could negatively impact regional survival. Overall, sustainable tourism development and environmental protection of natural areas were favored by Icelandic interviewees. To advocate a per-passenger environmental tax, stakeholders and policymakers could emphasize the tax’s capacity to encourage sustainable tourism development by building environmental infrastructure (especially paths and waste treatment facilities) and limiting mass tourism. Based on Alaskan experiences, Icelanders should strongly reconsider their dismissal of monitoring if they want to ensure a pristine environment.Item Open Access A Journey Chronicling Memories of Grief and Loss(2018-04-18) Shanahan, MaryanneAbstract Storytelling is a natural and necessary human behavior. Stories connect us to our past, our present, and, most importantly, to each other. They tease our imaginations and stir our emotions. Certain stories are gifts to those who listen. Such is the case with those gifted to me on this journey exploring the grief and loss of motherless daughters. Inspired by a photograph of my grandmother, the story of her death after childbirth, and my own mother’s lifetime sadness over having lost her mother when she was very young, I conducted audio interviews with women in similar situations. I interviewed women, like myself, whose mothers lost their mothers. I also interviewed women who themselves were left motherless at a young age. In this paper, these separate stories are connected within the overarching story of my personal journey to find, listen to, and document them. I also include my own reflections on grief and loss in the context of the story of my mother and grandmother. Within the stories, I have interspersed treasured photographs and written memorabilia. I conclude the paper with a description and analysis of my process: the preparatory research, the training in audio interviewing and documentary, my approach to the interview process (including the failures, successes, and surprises along the way), and my conclusions about what I learned and accomplished as I pursued and completed the project. A twenty-minute audio documentary titled Conversations: Mothers and Mother Loss accompanies this written work. In the documentary, culled from sixteen hours of audio interviews, the nine women who lost their mothers at early ages or whose mothers lost their mothers at early ages grant us intimate connection with their stories through their voices.Item Open Access An Analysis of Shaping of Female Characters in Films Directed by Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese and Chinese Diasporic Female Directors(2021-04) An, HongyuThis thesis intends to examine the shaping of female characters in films directed by Chinese female directors. Six films are selected as examples: The Crossing (Guo chun tian, Bai Xue, 2019), Angels Wear White (Jia nian hua, Vivian Qu, 2017), Love Education (Xiang ai xiang qin, Sylvia Chang, 2017), Dear Ex (Shei Xian Ai Shang Ta De, Mag Hsu and Chih-Yen Hsu, 2018), Song of the Exile (Ke tu qiu hen, Ann Hui, 1990), and The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019). The selected films are divided into three groups: those directed by mainland Chinese, Taiwanese and Chinese diasporic women. By comparing the female characters with their counterparts and by analyzing the character shaping and identity formation of the female protagonists in these films, this thesis will discuss the commonalities and differences among the protagonists. The project is not intended to make general and mechanical conclusions, but to show how a variety of female characters have appeared in recent Chinese films directed by female directors, and how these characters epitomize different groups of women or female identities in the current Chinese society.Item Open Access An Interpretive History of the Lower Deep River Region, NC(2022-04-15) Wicker, Cole W.How can interpreting the regional history of the lower Deep River region of North Carolina inform land conservation for future generational use, education, and recreation? I explore the Lower Deep River Region, NC, and its mining heritage in hopes of understanding how land conservation efforts can use interpretive history as a guiding framework. With the approval of a regional state trail, ever expanding public parks, and the threat of impending commercial development, the region sits at the precipice of change. In the paper, I examine the region's past, including its indigenous and early histories, as well as its coal mining and industrial heritage, and I contextualize these stories alongside available interpretive resources. I explore themes of race and labor in a temporal and spatial manner as a guiding methodical framework. Using historic maps and spatial sources, I reconstruct the Deep River’s history and bring the buried, lost, and disappearing past into the present. The river’s past informs how certain places, markers, or seemingly naturalized objects become integral in the regional conservation dialogue. In addition to the written component below, I include a website (deepriverhistory.com) that allows the public to engage with the material at an individual pace.Item Open Access Beyond the Towers: September 11, 2001 Watching the Past & Present to Understand the Surveilled Future(2023-12-22) Shubrick, JordynSeptember 11, 2023, marked twenty-two years since the tragedy of 9/11. In this project, I examine the stories that are told and remembered to date about the September 11 attacks on the United States of America and the subsequent events that followed. After the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were tragically attacked on September 11, 2001, many media outlets began highlighting the significance of the attack, capturing the magnitude of the events. This project will look at what is memorialized, remembered, and cemented across the 22 years in our social memory of 9/11. I will further explore what is rooted in politics and memorials, shaped through the media. Through the historical narrative of celebrations of 9/11, looking at memory, memorialization, fear, and what lies ahead for the surveilled future ultimately assesses the forever remembrance of 9/11 in media and memorials and how memory operates to influence Americans' view of safety.Item Open Access Can Chinese Tourists Support Nature-Based Tourism?(2022-11) Xu, DiNature-based tourism is an important form of tourism, which uses natural resources as the basis for the development of tourism projects and attracts tourists to watch or interact with nature for the purpose of relaxation, education, and pleasure. Since China is now the largest single source of tourists for the world’s tourism industry, understanding Chinese tourists’ perception of nature and their behaviors and preferences when participating in nature-based tourism is helpful for the further development of nature-based tourism. This paper first reviews the theories created by Chinese literati on the relationship between humans and nature and their development in history, then analyzes Chinese tourists’ use, attitudes, and feedback on natural attractions through direct and indirect measures. Then this paper uses SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to explore the advantages and disadvantages of developing nature-based tourism in China, and finally proposes policy recommendations based on the above research.Item Open Access Co-location Opportunities for Dynamic Use of Existing and Proposed School Buildings(2022-04-13) Etin, BozhenaWe have, on average, 1,098 to 2,168 annual school closures per year. That means thousands of school buildings need to be repurposed every year or they will stand vacant, become vandalized, and bring blight and a sense of abandonment to their neighborhoods. However, at the same time, there is an ever-growing need for affordable housing, community centers, meeting and workspaces, childcare facilities, parks and recreation areas, and other community spaces that can be accommodated within these structures. In this paper, I analyze the typology of the school building through history, and through some notable examples, demonstrate how school buildings can be adapted to other uses in the community. I also present examples of schools and community spaces sharing common buildings and the unique opportunities this co-location provides for the students as well as community members. The ultimate takeaway for this paper is to show that a school building is not just a place we send our kids to get an education. It can and should be a place for all people in the community to feel a part of and welcomedItem Open Access Community Bonding: Rebuilding Duke University and Durham, North Carolina to Promote Sexual Autonomy(2019-12-19) Sara, StevensMy central question asks how universities can engage with local communities to work towards increased sexual safety on campuses. Specifically, I first argue that universities can improve sexual safety on campuses by incorporating ideas about consent and sexuality from alternative sexual communities into safety initiatives. I then argue that universities can further improve sexual safety on campuses through engagement with off-campus business that are central to student life. Student activists and university administrators must reach outside the university to engage with local communities and unite against all forms of sexual misconduct. I cast a wide net in Chapter One to look at the various notions of safety, consent, and gender in contemporary BDSM (bondage, discipline (or domination), sadism (or submission), and masochism) communities in hopes of finding new ways to restructure modes of though around sexual assault and harassment prevention. I find that the normative response from Duke University (and their peer institutions) against sexual assault and harassment prevention to add more policy and review boards is not working. Chapter two brings readers back to the relationship between Duke and Durham to evaluate how restructuring sex education and community engagement can form a better response against sexual misconduct and improve sexual justice at its core. My research led me to realize how important sexual autonomy is to community health. As it currently stands in the United States, policies, laws and ideologies around appropriate sexual conduct damage sexual autonomy. Our autonomy forms how we interact with our outside community, not just intimately but socially. Therefore, if Duke University wants to strengthen sexual justice on campus, they need to first invest in sex education to re-build students’ sexual autonomy.Item Open Access Confession, Sexuality, and Desire in the Decameron(2019-06-12) Zhang, YameiThis essay discusses how in Boccaccio’s Decameron, the stories of I.1, III.3, VI.7, and VII.5 subvert the fundamentally religious and juridical activity – confession – to serve a wholly different and erotically-charged function. In these stories, Boccaccio unveils the mechanism of confession, establishes a new theology, creates new laws, and brings about a reversal of discourse, which is a possible solution to the discourse of sexuality in Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. In this way, narratives in the Decameron confessions, not only rebel again the repression of sex in middle ages, which is achieved by putting sex into silence or nonexistence, but also resist the will and consensus of knowingness – Scientia Sexualis – of modern times.Item Open Access Durham, North Carolina: A 21st Century Case Study on Gentrification, Artists, and the Creative Economy(2020-04) Ritchie, Laura JaneArtist communities both generate, and coalesce around, sites of cultural significance and aesthetic intrigue. In doing so, artists and artist-run spaces impact the cultural and socioeconomic value of place. The connection between urban transformation and artist communities is not a new concept but, as American cities adapt to post-industrial economies, economic development strategies increasingly leverage artists’ cultural capital to regenerate disinvested urban areas. Over the last decade, Durham, North Carolina was ranked as the top creative class metro in the country, exceeded national medians in arts economic impact studies, and scored in the highest percentile for arts vibrancy. Durham’s new creative economy has led to a rapid period of real estate development that now threatens to fragment and erase its local arts ecosystem. In spite of its top performance in national metrics, almost half of Durham’s independent arts venues have closed or relocated outside of the downtown core. This project investigates the history of Durham’s transformation, considers its influences, and measures its impacts on artist communities and artist-run spaces during the time period of Durham’s Cultural Master Plan, 2004-2019. Complementing current academic theories and original research with a decade of experience with Durham’s artist-run spaces, the author concludes with a series of observations and recommendations for the city’s cultural workers and policymakers.Item Open Access Enrollment Growth and Equity of Access: A Critical Analysis of the University of North Carolina's Strategic Plan(2019-03-25) Levitt, JessicaThe University of North Carolina System’s strategic plan contains initiatives to increase access for low-income and rural students, improve student outcomes, and close achievement gaps. A complete assessment of UNC’s strategic plan will consider increased enrollment against the demand of the state’s economy, the cost of education, and institutional resources. Enrollment growth carries the risks of lowering academic standard or oversaturating North Carolina’s economy with college-educated workers. However, the low educational attainment of the state’s underserved populations supports expanding access. A more detailed investigation of demographics at each of the campuses is necessary to understand the scope of underrepresentation within the system. The resulting calculations show that in addition to underrepresentation, there is also unequal distribution of minority, low-income, and rural students across UNC institutions. While the system has identified a number of programs and methods for achieving its priorities, it is also worth examining other models that may have application in North Carolina. In its current form, UNC’s strategic plan is insufficient to drive state-wide improvements. The aims produce only minimal gains, overlook important gaps, and lack the coordination between campuses necessary to best utilize system resources. There is unmet need and significant opportunity for innovation in North Carolina’s public institutions, but more ambitious goals will have to be implemented to result in any meaningful impact.Item Open Access Every Three Hours(2020-12-14) Shaw, JanetEvery Three Hours is a memoir about raising my son Patrick who has two rare medical conditions--Glycogen Storage Disease 1a (GSD1a) and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS). As I analyze the events in Patrick’s life when my spouse and I educated and nurtured him, it raises the central question for my research: how can parents of chronically ill children foster safety and independence for their children? This master’s project is multi-disciplinary in that it incorporates primary and secondary data as well as creative writing. Using first-person narrative, I explore how my husband and I navigated the uncharted medical and parenting challenges of GSD1a and MCAS. Secondly, woven into this primary research is data exploring the medical and psychological aspects of GSD and MCAS. Additional insights come from memoirs of parents who have walked down a similar road. As I chronicled Patrick’s life, I realized that this project has become not only a story of raising an ill child to become independent. This memoir has become an awareness of life choices I had to make once I had a compromised child. This memoir is also about my false sense of control as a young adult and the loss of that control. Additionally, this account acknowledges that almost all parents love their chronically ill children and only want the best for them. The reality of raising an ill child is that it takes health insurance and money—not moral superiority.Item Open Access Exploring Neural Correlates of Social Media Use: A Review of BOLD fMRI Studies Utilizing in-scanner Social Media Exposure(2024-05-01) Crout, MichaelThe goal of this project is to synthesize articles that provide a new look into the neural correlates of social media use by utilizing BOLD fMRI and in-scanner social media stimuli. Seven articles that matched the criteria were selected for this paper: (n=6) task-based BOLD fMRI utilizing social media stimuli and (n=1) resting-state fMRI included to show the importance of longitudinal research design in the same field. Results include a discussion of the convergence and divergence amongst the studies, the importance of imaging techniques (resting state, whole brain) that could potentially benefit similar studies, the importance of longitudinal study design, and what future studies could look like. The paper is limited by the small amount of eligible literature available, so conclusions should remain tentative. As mentioned by five of the seven articles included, more longitudinal research is needed to assess the neural and behavioral correlates of social media use.Item Open Access Fatal Automobile Crashes in North Carolina: A Historical and Present-Day Portrait of Grief(2021-07-26) Minai, LeanoraBetween 1899 and 2018, nearly 3.8 million people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes on roadways in the United States. An average of 100 people died in wrecks every day in the country in 2018. There are names and faces behind the figures, but the catastrophic toll of the automobile has become normalized, dismissed as an expected consequence that comes with the symbol of freedom. This study explores the ways in which bereaved people cope and maintain bonds through practices and remembrance objects after losing a loved one in a fatal automobile crash. Through in-depth interviews with nine family members in North Carolina, and an illustrative sampling of individual and community grief expression following passenger car deaths over the past century, an original portrait is offered of the personal aftermath of deadly car crashes in North Carolina. This work is set in the broader historical context of the rise of the motor car in the United States, where significant automobile safety advances did not arrive until the late 1960s. By drawing on archival collections, as well as photographic material and historical newspaper accounts, this project offers a unique view of an area of research that has received little or insufficient study.Item Open Access Forecasting Consumer Preference of Film Genre(2019-04) Holesh, MichaelCentral to the decision of filmmaking and a film’s success is the consumer response to a film. Specifically, in a market with multiple varied alternatives based on genre, plot, and other film attributes, the subject matter and the preference of the movie going public becomes paramount to attempt to predict. The performance of films is unique in that results vary widely, and, like most art mediums, consumer response is assumed to be largely unpredictable. The research undertaken in this study used past box office returns across difference genres to project whether an expected return can be predicted with relative confidence.
This study attempts to uncover a pattern of film performance correlated by genre to understand if these correlations can be relied upon over time and into the future. The method employed in this study examines the 100 largest film releases as measured by box office performance for each year over a 20-year period, their economic performance and the trending returns over time by genre. This study then charts these performances by genre and by year, then employs a regression analysis for each to confirm if these trends are reliable. The results of this approach show a statistically significant result indicating that consumers do have an expected response to certain genres over others. Chapter six illustrates correlations of performance in some genres that are over twice as strong as alternatives. The resulting correlation coefficient scores are as follows: adventure had a score of .667, action had .780, comedy had .358, thriller/suspense had .681, and drama had .457. This study, the approach and these results conclude that a predictable measurable performance can be applied to something as abstract as “film genre” to forecast a consumer response.
Item Open Access From Co-Production to Broken Relationship: Agencies, Idols, and Fans in the Making of K-pop(2020-05-28) Gu, JiahuiIn this thesis, I argue that idols, talent agencies, and fans in K-pop constitute a triangle where idols and agencies, agencies and fans, idols and fans each has a double-directional relationship. I look into the relationship between agencies and fans, and idols and fans. In Chapter 1, I focus on the mutual effect between agencies and fans in the YouTube era and discusses what influence it has on K-pop music. I use the notion of “primary” and “secondary” production to talk about how agencies and fans of K-pop produce content on YouTube and how their productions are mutually constitutive. I also discuss that YouTube provides platform for K-pop and changes the listening experience of K-pop. In Chapter 2, I focus on the mutual relationship between idols and fans and reveal the dark side of K-pop which led to two tragic suicides. I argue that K-pop creates a fantasy to fulfill young women’s desire. It serves as a safe space for female fans to temporarily release their pressure due to the oppression of reality, thus sustain the highly stressful reality in a patriarchal society. In the establishment of fantasy, female idols in the K-pop industry are shaped to represent perfect images of women and function as the mirror for their female fans, thus enabling the fans to obtain a sense of satisfaction. However, the seemingly mutually beneficial relationship can be disrupted when “scandals” appear to destabilize that relationship. Whereas the agencies can borrow and adopt from fan’s secondary production, the idols’ real-world conducts become a site for disdain and disapproval from the fans. The two tragic suicides of K-pop stars point to the idols’ unwillingness to maintain this false sense of mutuality, or the fantasy world. It is more than just a scandal since by killing themselves, they refuse to participate in the fantasy world. The collapse of the fantasy world is a symptom of the larger problem of patriarchy and social hierarchy in South Korean society.Item Embargo From Fishy Past to Fishy Future: Thinking through the Aquarium(2024-05) Zhang, QiyunThis project explores various ways of how the aquarium mediates the relationship between human beings and nature. The methods include tracing the historical trajectory of the aquarium since its invention as a naturalist’s instrument in the 19th century, and reflecting on the author’s own embodied experience at contemporary public aquariums. In particular, the author asks: Can the aquarium become a heterogeneous space for both the human and non-human? Can we have differentiation without domination? The author concludes that the aquarium is simultaneously the site of domination and the site of resistance. On the one hand, the development of the aquarium is inseparable from the progress of Enlightenment, capitalism, and scientific positivism. On the other hand, when Enlightenment seeks to demystify, the aquarium presents wonder; when capitalism enforces reification, the aquarium counters with vitalism; when science tries to “solve it all”, the aquarium opens up to unknowability. Therefore, thinking through the aquarium may contribute to an ethics of co-becoming, with other humans, animals, and machines.Item Open Access How Evolution, Stories, and Irrationality Influence Decision Making in Financial Markets: Analyzing Whether We Can Leverage Our Innate Traits and Heuristics to Improve Outcomes(2020-12-13) McCarthy, JosephOne of the most commonly asked questions in investing is whether or not it is possible to achieve excess returns in the financial markets. To give a somewhat simple answer, for most investors a basic low-fee passive ("static") index fund portfolio is the best investment strategy since it outperforms nearly all advanced active indexing methodologies, such as "dynamic indexing," over the long-term due to factors such as high fees, high turnover, and poor asset selection (McCarthy and Tower, 2020b). Yet, even so, it does appear that it is possible to beat the market on a single trade through skill or luck as there are real inefficiencies and mispricings that occur among different investment vehicles at certain points in time (Lo, 2017; Malkiel, 2012; Ellis, 2017). This is especially evident in a number of endowment models, such as Yale's under David Swensen, which have successfully embraced risk through alternative investments – e.g., private equity – by focusing on longer time horizons and subsequently achieved very impressive results (Chambers, Dimson, and Kaffe, 2020; "Lessons from the endowment model," 2020). However, the fact that the financial markets are a zero-sum game with so many highly intelligent and highly informed investors constantly competing against one another makes it exceptionally difficult, and rare, to achieve excess returns over the long-term (Lo, 2017; Malkiel, 2012; Ellis, 2017). Indeed, the only way to truly beat the market on a regular basis is to constantly adapt your strategy in order to prevent your competitors from mimicking your successful techniques and thereby diluting your overall alpha (Lo, 2017; Malkiel, 2012; Ellis, 2017). Yet, even if we are able to consistently modify our approach as required, there are natural human biases relating to our evolutionary development; our collective stories; and our rationality / irrationality that can influence our decision making. In the following paper, I intend to provide an in-depth analysis of these three areas, and subsequently share a series of current best practices and frameworks from Behavioral Decision Theory (BDT) and Judgement and Decision Making (JDM) fields – e.g., "The Good Judgment Project" and "The Wisdom of Select Crowds" (Mannes, Soll, and Larrick, 2014; Mellers et al., 2014) – which if properly applied in a thoughtful and deliberate manner could offer a meaningful improvement in analysis, forecasting, decision making, and outcomes for both leaders and their organizations in the investing arena.Item Open Access How Parents’ Perceptions of Public Schools Influence School Choice(2020-04) Farr, TiffanyThis is a qualitative study regarding a rural fringe school district in North Carolina. Initial interest for this study involved analyzing the State School Report Card ratings and the impact of these ratings on parental perceptions and school choice. For the purpose of this study, interviews were conducted with parents, principals, and teachers from elementary and middle schools. In North Carolina, each school’s grade is calculated using student proficiency and growth data with 80% of the school grade based on student achievement and 20% on school growth as measured by the Education Value-Added Assessment System used by the state. This school grading system has become controversial among education advocates across the state, especially as research has revealed that school grades are highly correlated to family income, with schools with greater poverty scoring more Cs, Ds, and Fs than schools with less poverty. This current study examines to what extent parents use school report cards when making school choice decisions. Findings reveal that parents held very little consideration for school report cards when considering school choice decisions. The results overall showed factors such as: (a) teacher satisfaction, (b) school location, (c) school focus and philosophy, (d) availability of services, and (e) the local political climate were most influential in decisions around school choice. Parents felt these areas were better indicators of the climate within a school, and thus were the drivers of parents’ school choice decisions because of how these factors may affect their child’s education.Item Open Access I Knew Home When I Saw it: Mapping RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening(2022-05-06) Reeves, DavidThis project consists of two parts: 1) an initial, written analysis of Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a 2018 documentary of my home county (Hale County, Alabama) by filmmaker (and former public school coach) RaMell Ross, exploring details of the film through RaMell Ross’s own words, in interviews, about his style, through my personal experiences of the area through research of historical context, and close readings of particular scenes in the film. And 2) an interactive map that offers a deeper understanding of the area, the people, and important places Ross features in the film, drawing on all of the work for part 1 and on an interview between the author and the documentary filmmaker himself. The audio of this interview is included in a separate file. This second part, the story map with visuals and audio, is my most important contribution, the first being detailed research towards, and also an introduction to, the interactive map. Part 2: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/68685e18031d4ac9a137cc68e22da6f7