This study examined criticisms in the media that women and feminists are ultra-sensitive to sexual harassment, making false accusations that may ruin an accused man's career by empirically examining gender and feminist identity in relation to SH judgments for scenarios that varied by evidence strength. This study also examined whether those endorsing radically conservative views, specifically Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), are particularly insensitive to sexual harassment, denying that it exists even when evidence is strong. We hypothesized that perceiver gender, attitudes toward the feminist movement, stages of feminist identity, and RWA attitudes would impact perceptions of sexual harassment severity, accuser guilt, perceptions of future job consequences for the accused perpetrator, and perceptions of false accusations, and that strength of evidence would moderate these relationships. A sample of 961 adults was recruited from Amazon's MTurk to complete an online vignette study. Participants were assigned to a scenario condition based on a 2 (Hostile Work Environment vs. Unwanted Sexual Attention scenario) * 2 (Strength of Evidence: Strong vs. Weak) factorial design. Contrary to the popular belief that feminists are ultra-sensitive, findings indicated that women endorsing feminist beliefs were more cautious than others to judge a scenario as sexually harassing when evidence was weak. Those endorsing RWA beliefs, however, were more likely than others to claim a woman was making a false accusation of unwanted sexual attention sexual harassment regardless of strength of evidence.

This dissertation examines the potential existential roots of contemporary American social movements. I extract an existential social movement theory from Albert Camus’s philosophy that can elucidate surprising similarities and tactical differences across ongoing movements. I then apply the theory to Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right which helps demonstrate that both movements express existential anxiety related to collective, racialized death. The social movement theory also clarifies the movements’ divergent political tactics as Black Lives Matter responds to existential anxiety by collectively acting to relieve immediate Black suffering and death which I argue is a Camusian rebellion. The Alt-Right conversely responds to existential anxiety by directing their energies towards achieving a teleological goal of racial homogeneity which I argue is a Camusian revolution. I use a variety of first-person sources including memoirs, interviews, and undercover exposés to support my thesis that Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right are both responding to feelings of racialized existential anxiety, although they traverse disparate pathways.While the dissertation is primarily focused on racially motivated social movements, I argue that American environmental activists can learn from, and emulate Black Lives Matter’s tactics. Environmental activists argue that climate change is an existential crisis, and the anxiety of the death and devastation of climate catastrophe underlies much of today’s climate activism. Black Lives Matter has successfully transformed existential anxiety over state sanctioned Black death into meaningful and immediate reforms, without sacrificing its radical critiques of racial capitalism, mass incarceration, and white supremacy. I argue that environmental activists can likewise energize their existential anxieties into reforms that slow climate change, while continuing to challenge systemic degradation of the global environment. I conclude the dissertation by examining the 2020 Black Lives Matter activism in response to the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Ongoing and recent Black Lives Matter protests are rooted in the same collectively anxious response to Black death and have achieved even greater sociopolitical and cultural changes than the protests of years prior, providing further evidence for my thesis. / Political Science

A key element in moving highway construction projects forward is the ability to acquire the Right of Way (ROW) in a timely manner. Delay in the acquisition process due to multitude of causes will usually lead to major construction phase delays. Identifying the delay factors allows for better time management of the process. A detailed review of the acquisition process at the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) is used as an example. Reviews of the process in neighboring states are also presented in order to determine other current practices and their likely impact on the acquisition duration. Descriptive and multivariable regression analysis of 35 randomly selected highway projects identified three variables “condemnation”, “number of parcels” and “revisions of plans” for the increase of acquisition duration. Using recognized software with analysis of variance stepwise regression a prediction model is developed and tested for the prediction of acquisition duration. These findings with new processes (forms) and an enhanced flow chart using current information technology procedures are introduced to reduce condemnation cases and to enhance the acquisition process.

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The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, a systematic theology of the Sweden Democrats is reconstructed from the party’s party program (Valplattform 2021) and Swedish Church election pamphlet (En kyrka för Sverige). This theological reconstruction is limited to the categories of ecclesiology (the Church), theological anthropology (the Human Creature), and soteriology (Salvation), which together serve to detail the party’s theological vision for the Swedish Church, its members, and in turn, Swedish society. The aforementioned theological concepts are selected and consequently examined on account of the thematic attention and allocation they receive by the party. A qualitative method is further employed in an effort to explore to what extent the Sweden Democrats not only define their theological foundations but also utilize this basis in their political discourse. Secondly, the salience of religion, along with other works on populism in Europe, provides this paper with a theoretical framework to explore the populist underpinnings that support and inform the Sweden Democrats’ theological beliefs. This research concludes by demonstrating how the reconstructed theology in the election material provides utility for the party’s populist ambitions and empowers the Sweden Democrats to develop a Christian justification for their own vision of a homogenous social order.

Pacemaker-lead-associated right ventricular perforation is a life-threatening complication. Acute perforation usually presents within 24 hours. Patients with lead perforation are often asymptomatic but fatal complications like hemopericardium, leading to cardiac tamponade and death, are reported. Diagnosis is based on chest x-ray, computed tomography (CT) scan, and echocardiography. The management of the lead perforation is based on clinical presentation. Extraction is avoided in cases of chronic asymptomatic lead perforations because of the associated complications. Urgent intervention is needed in hemodynamically unstable patients with pericardial effusion or cardiac tamponade physiology.

This project focuses on a comparative analysis of governing coalitions between conservative and far-right parties in recent years in Italy (1994) and Poland (2005). The aim is to show how the inclusion of the radical right in government coalitions in these countries reflects recent changes in Western and Eastern European party systems through the reformulation of the old and formation of new party cleavages. The focus in the recent literature on personality clashes of party leaders over the distribution of ministry portfolios does not explain the nature of the disagreement between these leaders about key issues of national politics. I argue that the mechanism of policy formulation between prospective coalitional partners can be traced at the level of party cleavages which pre-exist the negotiation process between party leaders. The political breakthrough of the far-right parties became possible because of the development of new issues related to the process of European integration and based on the longstanding confrontation between the left and right parties since the beginning of the Cold War. The disintegration of the previous party systems as a result of the collapse of the Communist regime in Poland and the First Republic in Italy in the post-Cold War era created a vacuum partly exploited by the previous anti-system far-right parties and the new emerging ones. At the same time, a clear tendency toward the cartelization of the programmatic supply was prominent on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum. I argue that the rise to prominence of center-right coalitions in the two countries led by Silvio Berlusconi and Jaroslav Kachinskiy respectively represents not only a new dimension in the development of the right wing in Europe but also constitutes a model of political realignment where new cleavages are gradually substituting for the old cleavages described in the Lipset-Rokkan model.