Interdisciplinary – Page 44 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Interdisciplinary

The Dream of Detroit’s Storytelling Project

Dream of Detroit’s Storytelling project is aimed at educating the public about African-American Muslim and African Muslim communities in Detroit through oral history interviews. I helped transcribe a set of these interviews to prepare them for the project’s multi-media website and permanent public archive. These interviews, carried out by a team of young people from within community, center around how members of these populations participate in community building, leadership, and the revitalization of Detroit. Through my work in the project, I deepened my understanding of how community members view the importance of Islamic education, neighborhood revitalization, and social justice. I learned about the diversity of individuals and experiences within these communities. I will benefit from this broadened perspective in both my personal and educational life. The transcriptions of these interviews and the project as a whole will increase understanding, appreciation, and respect for the history, diversity, and impact of African American Muslim and African Muslim communities in Detroit.

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Food Security and Inactivity During COVID-19: Perspectives from the MOTION Coalition.

This presentation will focus on hearing the voices of various stakeholders in the MOTION coalition about Food Security in Detroit. Stakeholders include Dr. William Dietz, Director of Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness, Chef Kevin Frank, Detroit Public Schools Community Assistant Director of Food and Nutrition, and Mrs. Lonias Gillmore, Senior Public Health Consultant at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services(MDHHS). Topics will include how COVID has impacted food security; legislation proposals/changes that have been made through the 2020-2021 calendar year; and what changes need to be made moving forward to have a more food-secure community in Detroit.

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Financing and Counter-Financing of Violent Non-State Actors Project

There are numerous ways to deter terrorist groups from being active, one of them being obstruction of financing of the terrorist groups. It is a very important method governments and institutions take to stop violence, yet there is only a few organized dataset on the economic counterinsurgent actions taken against terrorist groups. This project collects and organizes data of counterinsurgent actions that hinder financing of the terrorist groups. Through a database Nexis Uni, this project records relevant events through articles from 1990 to 2018. The dataset classifies the counterinsurgent incidents into specific actions, showing clearly the frequency and impact of each type of actions. The dataset aims to cover most terrorist groups in the world and the project is still in the process of collecting data. The project provides analysis on the impact and effectiveness of each action, which will be useful in fighting against terrorist groups. It also gives further insight in how the actions and attitudes towards these violent non-state actors have changed over the last 30 years.

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Financing and Counter-Financing of Violent Non-State Actors Project

I am working on data collection for the Countering the Financing of Violent Non-State Actors Project. The goal of the project is to develop the first comprehensive database of actions that obstruct the finances of terrorist groups in hopes to measure the efficacy of these actions and whether or not certain counterinsurgent actions either harm or embolden terrorist groups. This project is one of the first of its kind. The data used for this database is obtained from newspaper and online article entries regarding the different groups from the years 1990 to 2018. The articles are accessed on NexisUni then codified by a team of coders. Different coders code the same groups in order to ensure reliability of the data. There are no results yet for the project, as it is projected to take more time to complete the database. When the database is nearing completion, statistical analysis of the data will be performed in order to determine the efficacy of certain counterinsurgent actions.

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Financing and Counter-Financing of Violent Non-State Actors Project

With the threat of terrorism constantly evolving, anti-terrorist policy is constantly in need of reevaluation. The utilization of economic means to stifle the actions of violent groups varies in prominence by region and through time, and never before has a comprehensive data set been collected detailing its employment against specific groups during particular years. “The Financing and Counter Financing of Non-Violent State Actors Project” supervised by PhD candidate Corina Simonelli intends to create such a dataset and reveal patterns in the utilization of economic counterinsurgency tactics as they vary through time and across groups. Coders have been presented a list of violent actors and tasked with utilizing an evolving list of search terms and database Nexis Uni to gather news articles dating between 1990 and 2018. By streamlining the processes by which researchers sift through large sums of articles, evaluate convoluted information, and translate qualitative data into quantitative, a thorough codebook is being developed to allow for consistency and replication. While a sufficiently large dataset has not yet been achieved, the research team expects to witness variance in the prominence of particular counterinsurgent tactics when comparing groups operating across the globe and through time. This information will yield insight into the effectiveness of economic counterinsurgency when coupled with knowledge on the persistence of violent activity. Such information is valuable for policymakers and will influence which tactics are employed to thwart violent activity on regional and global scales.

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Regional constructions still need learned after adaptation

This study investigated the extent to which American English speakers can learn the grammatically correct usages of syntactic constructions in regional dialects of standard American English (SAE) through exposure. Previous studies have been conducted on whether or not the correct formulation of regional constructions can be learned through exposure (Kaschak & Glenberg, 2004), but the results were inconclusive, as it was unclear whether participants were learning the constructions or simply adjusting to the unfamiliarity of the sentence structures. This study aimed to better evaluate participants’ learning of regional syntax through exposure. Two syntactic constructions from regional dialects were studied: double modal (“I might could do that”), and “needs V-ed” (“The dishes need washed”). Participants were undergraduate students at the University of Michigan enrolled in an introductory psychology course. Each participant completed the study online while being monitored by a researcher over Zoom. Participants in experimental groups were exposed to sentences using their respective groups’ syntactic constructions, and participants in control groups were exposed to similar sentences in SAE. Reading times were recorded to provide data on the initial training phase. All participants then read a variety of sentences, including both grammatically correct and incorrect sentences with each regional syntactic construction and in SAE, and evaluated their grammatical acceptability, serving as the generalization phase. Results indicated that participants in the experimental groups did not learn the correct usages of the constructions, rather they simply adjusted to the unfamiliarity of the sentence structures, so the null hypothesis was not rejected. These results imply that, to learn a regional dialect of one’s native language, one must use methods more engaging than mere exposure.

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Replication of Genetic Influence on Risk Aversion

Humans vary a lot in their willingness to take risks. An individual’s willingness to gamble, use recreational drugs, or engage in risky financial behavior, among other behaviors, are a part of a characteristic that researchers and academics call risk aversion (Linnér et all, 2019). Researchers have begun to understand the contribution of an individual’s genetics in explaining varying levels of risk aversion. In our study we try to replicate and build on the body of research regarding risk aversion and genetics. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a longitudinal study following American elders and retirees from 1992 to the present, over 20,000 individuals are asked to hypothetically gamble their future income, in exchange for increasing their lifetime income. The income gambling questions allows us to observe how much risk each individual is willing to take. We wanted to replicate the finding of a large 2019 study identifying 124 specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs; Linnér et all, 2019). We used polygenic risk scores (PRS) to determine how genetically prone each individual is to risk aversion. We then checked if these individuals displayed risk aversion in the HRS data. By replicating the work of other researchers, academics will have a better idea of how individuals engage in risky decision making and a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of risk aversion. The study will also help researchers in the genoecomics field build credibility.

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Genetic Influences on Self-Construal

Previous literature has established apparent cultural distinctions between more independent, Western cultures and more interdependent, Eastern cultures that contribute to differences between self-construal, or the individual sense of self. In addition to the cultural differences between Western and Eastern countries, researchers have also examined this difference within countries that have high in-group cultural variation, such as China, and found that Northern wheat-growing provinces in China were more independent compared to Southern rice-growing provinces, which were more interdependent. Previous research has also provided evidence of a genetic link with individual levels of independence and interdependence, specifically related to genes involved in the DRD4 (dopamine receptor) sensitivity. Thus, this study aims to examine the levels of independence and interdependence in the context of comparing individuals from Northern wheat-growing provinces and Southern rice-growing provinces in China.

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The influence of COVID-19 related racism on the behaviors amongst Asian Americanss

Since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, many instances of anti-asian sentiment (discrimination, hate crimes, etc.) have been experienced by Asians in the United States. Such experiences can influence one’s well being (the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy): a huge and overlooked aspect of health. Due to the novelty of this issue, little is known about the depth of the implications these experiences have on one’s well-being, and their inherently behavior; this study aims at looking at the influence of experiencing or viewing such racial instances on protective behaviors carried out by Asians Americans. Protective behaviors can be operationalized as behaviors that ensure one’s feeling of safety. The study utilized an online survey in a convenience sample. The final study results will provide data to verify hypotheses that if there are positive correlations between experiencing or viewing COVID-19 related discrimination and the likelihood of carrying out protective behaviors. The information will provide insight about racism and its association on protective behaviors. The results can better assist in developing mitigation strategies that are tailored to individual characteristics in hopes of improving one’s overall well-being and ultimately, improving their health.

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Promoting Flu Vaccination among Chinese Americans; Providing Flu Education through Trusted Messengers

Objective: The flu is a severe respiratory disease that can cause severe complications, including hospitalization, and is responsible for 290,000-650,000 [6] global deaths per year. The flu vaccine is safe and the best way to prevent the spread of the virus. However, there remains a lot of hesitancy and misinformation regarding the vaccine and the virus itself especially within the Asian community [2]. This study sought to examine reasons for flu vaccination hesitancy as well as to increase influenza knowledge, specifically among the Chinese American community. Methods: Eastern Michigan University Center for Health Disparities Innovations & Studies held 11 CDC funded mobile flu clinics in Michigan in Fall 2020 and provided vaccinations to 337 individuals; during the clinic, bilingual trusted messengers provided flu education. This project reported the results from pre and post flu vaccination surveys with 11 questions about influenza knowledge and demographic information. The results were based on data from 39 Chinese participants. Statistical analyses were conducted in order to measure the efficacy of the flu informational sessions for overall and Chinese participants. Results: The survey data showed that the main reason why the Chinese sub-population had not gotten vaccinated in the past was due to lack of access to the vaccine. Paired t-tests showed that the flu education resulted in significant improvements in overall participants’ knowledge on various aspects about flu, for example, timing of the flu season, vaccination timeline, ways to prevent flu, and others. Conclusion: This study indicated that education on flu and flu vaccination is necessary in order to promote increased vaccination, specifically among Asian communities. Increased education and vaccination will ultimately slow the spread of the virus and improve health outcomes of underserved communities. However, due to the small sample size of the Chinese participants, further research with a larger sample will provide more information about this specific Asian American population. Future intervention efforts can be focused on addressing flu vaccination hesitancy which will provide additional insights for effective strategies to promote COVID-19 vaccination in this population.

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