Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Physics

A search for long-lived neutral massive particles decaying to an oppositely charged μμ, ee, or eμ lepton pair is presented using 140 fb−1 of Run II proton-proton collision data at √s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC from 2015 to 2018. The lepton pairs must form a vertex within the inner tracking volume of the detector, displaced from the primary vertex, and have a dilepton mass greater than 12 GeV. These signal selections effectively suppress Standard Model backgrounds where the remaining background, from high-energy cosmic ray muons and randomly crossing charged particle tracks, are estimated using data-driven methods. The results are interpreted for a model where a generic Z′ is the long-lived particle, pair produced from a new heavy scalar (S) and decaying to lepton pairs or pairs of fermionic dark matter (χ). Generic detection efficiencies and upper limits on the cross section are also presented for resonances with a mass of 100-700 GeV and decay length (cτ) of 100-1000 mm. Despite the pair-produced nature of the Z′ in the specific model interpretation, the analysis searches for a single displaced vertex, allowing the results to be reinterpreted for other Beyond the Standard Model theories.

Committee: K.K. Gan (Advisor); Comert Kural (Committee Member); Linda Carpenter (Committee Member); Antonio Boveia (Committee Member) Subjects: Physics

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, Psychology

Community resilience (i.e., communal networks used for resource access) has not been investigated as a predictor of positive mental health outcomes among forcibly displaced persons (FDP) globally, despite its emphasis in qualitative studies. This study examined community resilience as a predictor of low PTSD, MDD, and GAD symptom severity, and high individual resilience. Moderators included social connectedness and gender, given shared social connectedness/community resilience features, and greater female FDP community resilience use (Darychuk & Jackson, 2015). FDPs completed surveys at baseline (N = 272), 1-, and 3- month follow-up (n = 92). Multilevel regression models indicated that baseline community resilience predicted lower 3-month follow-up GAD symptoms and higher baseline and 3-month follow-up individual resilience. Higher baseline community resilience predicted higher baseline PTSD and MDD symptoms. Moderators were nonsignificant. Findings suggest that community resilience protects against worries and bolsters individual resilience. Implications include developing resilience interventions and policies to promote FDP well-being.

Committee: Norah Feeny (Advisor); Julie Exline (Committee Member); Sarah Hope Lincoln (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Mental Health

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 0, Physics

A search is presented for long-lived particles in 113-118 fb-1 of proton-proton collision data produced by the CERN LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the CMS detector in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Events originate from long-lived particles propagating a measurable distance through the CMS detector before decaying into leptons. Background-only hypotheses are consistent with the observations. Limits are set on the product of the top squark pair production cross-section and the branching fraction to a lepton and a b or d quark through an R-parity-violating vertex. Squarks with masses up to 1500 GeV are excluded at a confidence level of 95% for a proper decay length hypothesis of 2 cm An additional search for long-lived particles using B parked data taken from CMS in 2018 is presented. The search is analogous to the previous with a different dataset, triggers and background estimation variables. Preliminary studies demonstrate good sensitivity at low masses not reachable by nominal CMS data. The CSC subdetector electronics of CMS have been successfully upgraded during LS2 to withstand higher data-taking rates and have higher chamber occupancy in preparation for the HL-LHC expected in 2026. Upgrades to the inner CSCs where done: the CFEBs and ALCTs have been upgraded to DCFEBs, and more powerful FPGA-equipped ALCTs. The TMB peripheral boards were upgraded to OTMBs to receive optical readouts from DCFEBs and ALCTs; the LVDB was replaced to provide the appropriate voltage for the new DCFEBs.

Committee: Chris Hill (Advisor); Annika Peter (Committee Member); Linda Carpenter (Committee Member); Antonio Boveia (Committee Member) Subjects: Physics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, History

This dissertation examines the rehabilitation and education of Polish Jewish children after the Holocaust. It argues that schools, summer camps, and children's homes in Poland were national and international sites for the rehabilitation of child survivors; therefore, they served as laboratories and arenas for debates regarding Polish Jewry's future. By comparing Zionist and non-Zionist institutions of child care, I illustrate how educators and caregivers engaged with competing ideologies to create normalcy in the best interests of the children. Rehabilitation was not just physical or mental; it required Jewish children to develop skills that would make them independent and good citizens. What did they study? What did they read? Did they learn Yiddish or Hebrew in school? Did they speak Polish in the classroom? The answers to these questions have broader implications regarding the reconstruction of Jewish communities in Poland after the Holocaust. While Jewish communists and Bundists in the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (Centralny Komitet Zydow w Polsce, CKZP) desperately fought to keep Jewish children in Poland, Zionist organizations saw no future for Jews in Poland. Through an analysis of correspondences, meeting minutes, educator conference programs, lesson plans, children's own writing, memoirs, and interviews gathered through multi-sited archival research, this dissertation exposes tension between organizations and traces how the educational and ideological goals of the CKZP Department of Education drastically evolved under the growing influence of Poland's communist government. Ultimately, studying education as a form of rehabilitation and nation-building enhances our understanding of the delicate nature of rebuilding Jewish life after war and genocide.

Committee: Robin Judd (Advisor); Theodora Dragostinova (Committee Member); Birgitte Soland (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; History; Holocaust Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, American Culture Studies

The migration flows that peaked during the 2015-2016 “refugee crisis” have had long-lasting effects to the countries of the European South. The latter have been deemed as border wardens of the European Union, filtering the “undesirables” who pose a threat to the European North, and by extension a proclaimed “Western way of life.” This project examines the living conditions of displaced persons and the systems of support in place for them in the European borderlands of Greece, with a case study of Crete. Starting from an archival ethnography and textual analysis of the “crisis” in an institutional archive, the ethnographic research focuses on the experiences of humanitarian workers and displaced persons on the island of Crete, where reception programs for asylum seekers and refugees run since 2017. Through in-depth ethnographic interviews with six (6) displaced persons and (24) humanitarian workers, the project analyzes the views, experiences, and strategies employed by humanitarian workers in protection and assistance programs for asylum seekers and refugees that dominate the Greek borderlands. Moreover, the focus on the constant categorization of beneficiaries by Greek and European authorities affects State policies and fieldwork daily, shaping the views of the displaced persons about themselves, their relationship to authorities, and the local community. The present research finds that in Greece the nature of services offered is temporary, without any policies for the future, even though participants acknowledge that migration flows towards Europe through Greece will only increase in the future.The lack of integration policies results in further reinforcing the role of Greece as a country-intermediary stop for displaced persons coming to Europe, offering few incentives for displaced persons to stay; in successful cases of integration, neighborhood communities have been critical in covering systemic deficiencies.

Committee: Susana Peña Dr. (Advisor); Erin Felicia Labbie Dr. (Other); Yiorgos Anagnostou Dr. (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala Dr. (Committee Member); Michaela Walsh Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Ethnic Studies; European Studies; Social Research; Social Work

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

In this diasporic world as the city starts getting diverse each day, can architecture create a sense of belonging amongst the in-coming immigrant as well as the already established resident? “Hospitality” comes from the Latin word; hospes, meaning “host”, “guest”, or “stranger”; it can also be defined as the relationship be-tween the guest and the host. The growing number of international migrant population is often caught in this relationship. Immigrants leave their homes and countries to form new ones in sometimes an unfamiliar culture, which starts transforming their identity. The immigrants or guests are looking for connections with their past identities while trying to become a part of the new host culture and the host culture on the other hand, is constantly negotiating with its security and infiltration issues due to the new guest culture. This interaction comes with the problem of the delicate dialogue between the guest and the host where neither are wrong in their concerns of preserving their culture and gives rise to the question of the extent till which each should accommodate the other. Jac-que Derrida explains through his theories on hospitality the relationship between conditional and unconditional hospitality and the restricted nature of national hospitality to legal and illegal immigrants. Architecture when combined with this theory can play an important role in influ-encing an immigrant's experience of a new place while reconnecting them with their identities. It can govern this relationship of the guest and a host while informing the experience of losing the sense of feel-ing at home and revealing the disintegrating entrance of Otherness into a coherent home space. The aim is to explore conditional and unconditional hospitality through ar-chitectural interventions in the planning of cities with a growing immigrant population to help maintain cultural continuity and hu-manize the present and future built environment. Chicag (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elizabeth Riorden M.Arch. (Committee Chair); Michael McInturf M.Arch. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

Globalization in the 21st century has dramatically transformed the sociocultural and economic ethos of the world. In particular, transnational migration has been greatly impacted by this transformation, such that the last few decades have witnessed an unprecedented acceleration of human movement across the globe. These migratory flows have posed many new challenges to education systems all over the world, as over half of these migrants are children. Nepalese-Bhutanese (N-B) refugees are one such group that were forcibly displaced from their homes in Bhutan due to religious and ethnic persecution in the early 1990s. After living in refugee camps in Nepal for over 20 years, they were finally resettled in 2008 by the UNHCR to third-party countries, including the United States, with Northeast Ohio having one of the largest number of N-B refugees. Since then, there has been no empirical research on how N-B youth have adapted to the Public school systems in Ohio or elsewhere in the United States. This dissertation study explores the acculturation and sociocultural adaptation of N-B youth in Northeast Ohio public schools using multiple theoretical frameworks, such as acculturation theory, ecological systems theory, and the theory of segmented assimilation. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six intergenerational families that include recent high school graduates. The study found that N-B students face multiple challenges at school, such as language insecurity, cultural and pedagogical differences, teasing and bullying, and an unwelcoming environment. However, all the participants in this dissertation study overcame the obstacles and created their own pathways to higher education and diverse careers. Findings from the study indicate that proximal processes in their ecological system were conducive to N-B sociocultural adaptation at school. Even though there is evidence of dissonant acculturation, the participants in this study had positive outcomes as N-B youth f (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vilma Seeberg (Advisor); Ning-Kuang Chuang (Committee Member); Linda Robertson (Committee Member) Subjects: Multicultural Education

MA, Kent State University, 2018, College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Ambassador Crawford / Department of Economics

Using the NLSY79 and NLSY97, I estimate decreases in wages resulting from involuntary job losses (layoffs and plant closings), commonly called wage scars. My main question is whether being in the 1997 cohort predisposes respondents to a different wage scar compared to respondents in the 1979 cohort. The results show that for the 1979 cohort, wage losses range from 3.8% to 15.4%, while for the 97 cohort, wage losses range from 1.6% to 16.5%. I find that for both cohorts, earning losses were large from year 1 through 5+ years after a separation. However, in an interacted model, I find some evidence that the wage scars are smaller for the 1997 cohort compared to the 1979 cohort.

Committee: Curtis Reynolds (Committee Chair) Subjects: Economics

Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, 2016, Art

Millions of people in whole around the world are immigrated or displaced because of wars, famine, drought, religion, language, race discrimination, natural disasters, and economic reasons. This study focuses on the people who have immigrated or have been exiled from their native country due to those reasons. Not finding or having the similar or same rituals they had in their native country is the main problem for them. This study endeavors to help people to overcome their sense of longing by making them feel as they are in their native country via virtual reality.

Committee: Dennis Cheatham (Advisor) Subjects: Design; Psychology; Technology

MARCH, Kent State University, 2014, College of Architecture and Environmental Design

Displacement of people's settlements is a part of human experience. Fleeing, disaster or violence is among the least desirable aspects of the human condition, and remains among the world most difficult challenges. According to Guardian Press, the number of refuges passed 50 million for the first time since the second World War II. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) also releases number of refugees every June, in an annual report. By June 2014, the number of forcibly removed refugees was 51.2 million. Based on UN definitions, a refugee is someone who fled her or his home and country owing to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of her/ his race, religion, nationality, member in a social group or political opinion,” according to United Nation 1951 refugee convention. The emergence of organizations such as United Nations (UN), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), World Health Organization (WHO); and the great increase in number of temporary and permanent shelters; from planned camps to self-settled camps; show the need for studies on displaced people and their needs. The interrelationship between shelters and peoples' behavior and the mental well-being of displaced communities holds environmental psychologists attention, meanwhile efforts have been made by many architects to design shelters in these environments, a majority of them focused on the construction of these shelters, not people's and communities' behaviors in these built environments. Most of the architects and designers consider these shelters as single units but they fail to consider people and their physical and behavioral operations. From 2011, civil conflicts arose in parts of Middle East what has been called “The Arab Spring”. In the spring of 2011 conflicts arose between the Syrian government and some political groups, which lead to a civil war, and many people, left the country. In March 2013, UNCHR announced that the number of refugee fleeing t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jonathan Fleming (Advisor); Ellen Sullivan Dr. (Committee Member); William Willoughby (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

MCP, University of Cincinnati, 2002, Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning : Community Planning

This research examines the situation with the delivery of humanitarian services to the internally displaced persons in the Republic of Azerbaijan. It explores the ways in which relief assistance could be delivered more efficiently. The study concentrates on several major approaches to service delivery: 1) delivery of assistance in an integrated fashion (addressing multiple issues at a time), 2) delivery of assistance in a segmented fashion (addressing one issue at a time), 3) delivery of assistance with participation of the Government of Azerbaijan, and 4) delivery of assistance without the Government's participation. The research focuses on five main issues which have been identified as the most urgent ones: food aid, shelter, health, employment/income generation, and education. For each of these issues, the research tests the effectiveness of the above approaches to service delivery. The study concludes by establishing that integrated approaches to service delivery tend to yield longer-term results, but they can be complex and consume many more resources and much more time than segmented approaches. Segmented projects, generally, tend to be simpler, and reach far more beneficiaries. However, they are more likely not to eradicate root causes of problems addressed. And finally, collaboration and coordination of efforts with the government and other organizations involved are crucial to avoid overlapping and duplication of activities in both integrated and segmented projects.

Committee: Dr. Johanna W. Looye (Advisor) Subjects: Urban and Regional Planning