{"title":"University Faculty Perceptions of Climate Change in U.S.","authors":"Sophie Jacquemin, K. Stofer, Milton G. Newberry","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130744","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130744","url":null,"abstract":"The devastating consequences of climate change are worsening in all regions of the world, impacting all aspects of human and non-human life. In their 2021 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that humans are responsible for climate change. University faculty have the opportunity to teach young people, who must understand the impacts of climate change. Because college faculty are extensively educated, we assume they agree with the scientific research on climate change, highlighting its detrimental effects. However, we cannot make this inference without empirical data supporting our claim. Thus, we designed a survey to better understand how university faculty across the U.S. perceive climate change, its causes and effects. We suspect that academic discipline and demographic characteristics will be associated with perceptions of climate change impacts. We organized the United States into eight geographic regions, based on climate zones, and then randomly selected colleges to participate in the study. The results of this study indicate that characteristics including demographics, academic discipline, having a terminal degree, and working in climate change-related fields are not significantly correlated with climate change perceptions. Nonetheless, these results will be crucial in developing future studies to target faculty who are less likely to participate in climate change related research, to establish an accurate estimate of national faculty perceptions.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114398603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining Language Interactivity Through Classifier Masked Primes in Chinese-English Bilinguals","authors":"Wen Jiang, Jorge Valdés Kroff","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130821","url":null,"abstract":"One universal characteristic of human languages is grammatical agreement dependencies. In Mandarin Chinese, classifiers, or measure words, are an obligatory grammatical class used to characterize a quantified noun. The classifier is inserted in between the numeral and the noun (i.e., 一张票 yī zhāng piào, one ticket). English lacks classifiers, so their use in Chinese may lead to cross-language influence for bilinguals and second language learners. Previous research has investigated language interactivity in bilinguals, commonly through the masked priming lexical decision task (LDT), a psycholinguistic task where participants decide if a sequence of characters form a real word or not. This study investigated Chinese-English bilinguals at the University of Florida (n= 24). The experimental group consisted of Chinese-dominant bilinguals who have been in an immersive English environment for at least one semester. The control group included monolingual or dominant English bilingual speakers with another language other than Chinese. Participants completed two LDTs in a within–subjects design. Part 1 featured Chinese (L1) classifier masked primes in an overt English (L2) LDT. Part 2 featured L1 translated masked primes sharing a common classifier with target words in the overt L2 LDT. The results indicated no interaction effect between group and congruency conditions in either part (p = 0.334; p = 0.889). These findings reveal no effect of classifier primes in Chinese-English bilinguals, suggesting minimal, or the absence of cross-language influence in this context.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114876222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nathan Fisher, Victoria Maskas, Addison Sans, Peter D. Kvam, Brian Odegaard
{"title":"An Exploration of Relationships Between Perceptual and Cognitive Racial Biases","authors":"Nathan Fisher, Victoria Maskas, Addison Sans, Peter D. Kvam, Brian Odegaard","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130769","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130769","url":null,"abstract":"People are often biased in how they evaluate characteristics of individuals of different races. Some of these biases are perceptual: for example, the “race-lightness effect” demonstrates that for grayscale photos at equivalent luminance values, the faces of black individuals are frequently judged to be darker than the faces of white individuals. Other biases are cognitive: the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and direct assessments of racial attitudes demonstrate that people hold both negative implicit and explicit racial prejudices. Despite extensive literature on both topics, no study has explored the relationship between perceptual and cognitive racial biases in the same individuals in a within-subjects design. In this experiment, these relationships were explored in 28 individuals using three tasks: in one task, deemed the Race-Lightness Task (RLT), participants completed a 2-interval forced-choice procedure where they were shown pairs of faces (some with European features, some with African features) and asked to judge whether the second face was lighter or darker than the first. In a second task, individuals completed the IAT to measure their associations between race and positive/negative adjectives. Lastly, subjects answered a series of questions to measure explicit attitudes about different racial groups. While results from the RLT and IAT were uncorrelated, a significant correlation was shown between the IAT and a survey question about systemic racism. These results provide preliminary support for the independence of perception and cognition for racially based tasks, and provide insight into the pervasive nature of implicit and explicit racial prejudice.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"437 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124252778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Influence of Abiotic and Biotic Stressors on the Sensitivity Defenses of Mimosa striglliosa","authors":"R. Molina, E. Calixto, P. Hahn","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130816","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130816","url":null,"abstract":"In plants, chemical and mechanical traits are involved in the defense against environmental stressors. In the case of Mimosa plants, touch-sensitive responses through leaf-closure provide a unique form of mechanical defense. While past research has shown that the impacts of stressors such as competition or short-term drought may cause the chemical defenses in plants to increase or decrease, it is unknown how the interaction of these stressors may influence the efficiency of touch-sensitive responses. In this study, we hypothesized that the touch-sensitive responses of Mimosa strigillosa would strongly differ from regularly watered individuals when subjected to short-term drought. Additionally, we hypothesized that competition would hinder the touch-sensitive response, particularly from competitors in closely related taxa. To test these hypotheses, an experimental design was performed with three competition groups of Mimosa. In each competition group, half of the individuals were subjected to drought conditions. Plants were then subjected to a tactile stimulus in a greenhouse environment, with the degree of leaf closure being measured as an estimate of recovery. Drought was found to be a significant factor of both the rate of change of leaf closure, and the degree of leaf closure.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116251686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conditions that Facilitate the Emergence and Success of Ecotourism: The Case of Costa Rica","authors":"Valeria Palacios","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130765","url":null,"abstract":"With an extensive history of environmental policies and protections, Costa Rica has become an environmental leader to the rest of the world. Most administrations in Costa Rica have environmental issues on their agendas, which demonstrates the country's commitment to environmental conservation and protection. These efforts can be observed in their transition from traditional forms of tourism to what’s known as ecotourism. This form of tourism has been gaining a lot of international interest, and there is a debate on whether it is beneficial as a sustainable development model. This paper will take a step back and address the question of what are the necessary conditions for ecotourism to emerge successfully in the first place. By using Costa Rica as an example, the paper concludes that strong government support; general and local environmental awareness and education; proper management, operational capacities, and institutions; and effective involvement and communication of the local communities; are all conditions that facilitated the emergence and success of ecotourism.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123690924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rhetoric, Policy, and Medicine: An Analysis of the Effects of COVID-19 on Florida Policymaking","authors":"Mohamad M Adada","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130768","url":null,"abstract":"As with most institutions in the United States, healthcare is subject to its own unique set of issues, the largest of which pertain to the quality of and access to medical care. These issues were initially spawned at the federal level and currently still exist on a national scale; however, due to the political structure of the U.S., statewide governments have a large hand in the control and dispersal of medical care. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, greater emphasis has been placed on the installment of public health measures like Coronavirus testing, mask-wearing, and vaccination, as a response to the shortcomings of clinical care; a result of this public health emphasis is a heightened need for governmental regulation of healthcare at a statewide level. This meta-analytical study aims to assess the role of political rhetoric in regulating healthcare amid COVID-19, specifically within the state of Florida. Applying a rhetorical lens to the politico-medical intersection has yielded four overarching means of general healthcare regulation: legislation, executive order, speech, and action. These four political extensions of rhetoric have each played a role in managing the health and livelihood of Florida residents throughout the COVID-19 public health crisis, and the assessment of these extensions has immediate implications with regard to understanding the issues of the U.S. healthcare system in other states, and on a federal level. Beyond this, analyzing the role of rhetoric in the politico-medical relationship may also help improve and understand the conditions of both institutions in many contexts.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"182 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124597215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"COVID-19 and Physical Activity in University of Florida Students: A Survey Study","authors":"Noah Towbin, Danielle E. Jake-Schoffman","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130583","url":null,"abstract":"Background: COVID-19 disruptions may have impacted physical activity (PA) levels, especially among undergraduates relying on campus resources. The objectives of this project were to investigate how COVID-19 disruptions impacted PA in University of Florida (UF) undergraduates and to assess interest in digital PA interventions.\u0000Design: Full-time, residential UF students ages 18-24 without physical limitations to PA were eligible to participate. An online survey asked about PA levels at three timepoints: before COVID-19 (February 2020; T1), during initial disruptions (June 2020; T2), and at the time of the survey (December 2020; T3). Participants reported PA enjoyment, interest in digital PA interventions, and demographics. Data are summarized descriptively, and chi-square tests explore the relationship between PA enjoyment and meeting PA recommendations.\u0000Results: Participants with complete data (n=200) are included in analyses. On average, they were 19.8 years old with a BMI of 22.9 kg/m2; 71.0% female, 70.0% white, and 77.0% non-Hispanic. More participants met PA guidelines at T1 (52.0%) than at T2 (49.5%) or T3 (43.5%); >50% maintained similar PA levels across all timepoints. At T2, most participants transitioned to independent (89.0%), at-home (82.5%) workouts. Participants reporting high PA enjoyment were more likely to meet PA guidelines than those with low enjoyment at each timepoint (ps<0.05). Participants preferred app-based (78.2%) digital PA interventions containing workout ideas (71.9%) and maps of local trails (76.1%).\u0000Conclusions: Given changes in PA characteristics, additional research could explore the impacts of vaccination and COVID-19 variants on PA levels and the implementation of digital PA interventions.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124811755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Infant Mortality Drivers in Alachua County Florida: A Qualitative Study","authors":"Kailey Seiler, Elizabeth Wood","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130797","url":null,"abstract":"Infant mortality serves as a major health indicator for both developed and developing countries. Currently, Alachua County, Florida carries an infant mortality rate over a third greater than the Florida state average rate, with the African American infant mortality rate being over double the Florida state average rate. This study explores expert attitudes and opinions of those working in the field of maternal/infant health and related fields through in-depth interviews conducted via zoom/by phone. By method of qualitative content analysis, major themes were identified by researchers regarding the drivers of infant mortality, solutions/barriers to solutions, and racial inequalities. Themes were then compared among different types of participants (physicians, educators, and community workers) to identify similar/dissimilar perceptions based on occupation. Significant findings indicate the following themes of racial disparities, preterm birth, healthcare access, insurance coverage/income inequality, and lifestyle factors regarding the drivers of infant mortality. Other major themes were identified for solutions/barriers to solutions and racial inequalities. Our findings indicate issues pertaining to Alachua County itself, such as healthcare access, along with societal issues such as the U.S. healthcare system and healthcare inequities experienced by minority groups.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"104 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121617700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining the Relationship Between First-Gen Students’ Networks and Their Higher Education Journey","authors":"N. Azaz","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130819","url":null,"abstract":"This study seeks to discover the meaningful and impactful high school relationships that first-generation, students of color studying at the University of Florida had while in high school. Personal network maps and student interviews were used to identify the key high school relationships that left a lasting impact on students’ post-high school journeys. Results showed five main relationship types were helpful to students: family, teachers, counselors, self-advocacy, and friends. This paper specifically focuses on the positive impact that friendship/peer support had on first-generation students attending the University of Florida while they navigated high school and the college-going process as this was an unanticipated finding that ended up being significant in the data. Peer support and peer mentorship allowed first-generation students to not only gather information and work through the college application process together with their peers, but peers also supported the emotional well-being of the first-generation students during this time. This study can help stakeholders and educators understand the importance of friendship and peer support among first-generation students while they are in high school and the positive impacts it has on improving their college access.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129280381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Activating Jewish Women’s Bodies with Eugénie Foa (1796-1852) and Hélène Cixous (1937-)","authors":"Kristin Soulliere","doi":"10.32473/ufjur.24.130808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32473/ufjur.24.130808","url":null,"abstract":"In a comparative study across genre and nearly two centuries of historical and political ferment, the writings of Eugénie Foa (1796-1852) and Hélène Cixous (1937-), two female French-Jewish writer activists, present through their fictional and autobiographical works, respectively, nuanced criticisms of what for each in their times constituted a control of Jewish women’s bodies. In the context of Foa’s engagement, crafting tales in alignment with popular national narratives, specifically those featuring disenfranchised Jewish female characters, her work takes on the task of reassessing the ancient and modern systems of marriage and divorce that contribute to the systematic oppression of women. Her stories call into question the sinister ways religious and national systems of patriarchal control place Jewish women at the mercy of choices made concerning their bodies. Cixous, with several decades of ardent feminist engagement in her arsenal, turns this lens inward, remembering and reimagining her upbringing in a Jewish family in French-Algeria, one punctuated by war, racism, wide-spread anti-Semitism, and competing nationalisms. She offers a series of stories that illustrate pivotal moments in her understanding, through her own experience and those of whom she was close to, of the ways meanings assigned to women’s bodies contribute to their harmful mishandling by the systems that exploit them. When analyzed together, their works reveal fascinating parallels which the following study explores through specific examples from their texts.","PeriodicalId":278243,"journal":{"name":"UF Journal of Undergraduate Research","volume":"331 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122331144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}