Habits and addiction have various commonalities, but there are differences; not just in terms of intensity, but also in how they affect individuals and interact with our motivational processes. While motivation is often a driving force behind the development of habits and addiction there are other factors such as psychological and biological influencers, which have been shown to be deeply tied to the development of addiction and habitual responses. This literature review aims to determine how and in what ways addiction relates to and compare to habits in terms of motivation and goal specific behavior, which also entails looking at factors such as desire and goals.

To the mixed reaction of business people who will be affected by it, Irvine officials Tuesday formally announced their intention to help protect the planet's ozone layer by restricting the use of solvents and other compounds. 

Although other cities, including Los Angeles, have banned the use of plastic foam containers that have chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, Irvine's proposed law goes after virtually all "ozone-depleting compounds." 

"We think It is the most far-reaching ordinance in the United States, and we think it will set the standard nationally and globally," Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said at a news conference Tuesday.

Nowadays, the framework of the hydrogen economy is been considered by many stakeholders as a way to improve the security, cost, and environmental concerns of the fuels and technologies used in vehicles. Therefore, this work aims to provide novel solutions in the refueling of hydrogen gas into fuel cell vehicles, as well as green production of hydrogen from sun power via thermochemical cycles. First, a novel methodology for the fill-up of hydrogen is developed, which yields strategies that significantly reduce the fill-up time and cooling needs while satisfying safety concerns. Then, the methodology is applied to the case of methane and compressed natural gas, leading to similar results as in the case of hydrogen. Finally, a novel water-splitting thermochemical cycle, powered by concentrated solar power, is studied at a fundamental level in order to provide operating conditions for its reactions.

Previous literature has investigated how coalition parties diverge ideologically during elections while converge in-between elections. However, less attention has been devoted to the ideological convergence of co-governing parties in the long term. Using data from 36 parliamentary democracies in the 1948-2019 period, I demonstrate that cabinet parties tend to converge ideologically across elections. I claim that such strategic behavior is due to the coalition bargaining process and the design and implementation of common public policies that pushes parties to internalize diverse views. Additionally, I show that parties’ relative size—a variable until now neglected by the literature—is also associated with such convergence. Specifically, as the difference of vote share between parties increases, we observe higher levels of ideological convergence regardless of cabinet/opposition membership. This suggests that smaller parties have incentives to adopt policies that have proven popular when implemented by mainstream parties.

There is a significant cultural gap between white educators and ethnic and linguistic minority students in our nation’s school system. The face of our nation’s school children is changing as the United States becomes more and more racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse. Research in this area converges on the importance of race in student-teacher interaction and subsequent impact on a student’s overall outcomes. However, there is little evidence on the presumed effects of such relationships on student academic achievement. This dissertation defines and explores student connectedness as related to teacher race, as well as both active and passive teacher effects on minority student connectedness as it relates to the mismatch in teacher to student race. Findings indicated three main themes: caring relationships, shared stories, and personal understanding as important factors impacting student connectedness amidst the cultural gap. Areas for future research are suggested and detailed for a study of successful white teachers of minority students.

Educational attainment is not an even playing field for the fastest-growing minority in the United States: Mexican-Americans and their successive generations. Generational differences in educational attainment among Mexican-American shows limited progress with each successive generation, with the exception being between the first-to second-generation. Research on family environmental factors for the members of the successive immigrant generations in American schools provides relatively insufficient insight on how to prepare to meet the demands of Mexican-American students within the context of their third- or fourth-generational differences. The focus of this study is the examination of Mexican-American second- and third-generation mother’s influence over their child(ren’s) educational attainment. This study uses the conceptual framework of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory to guide a narrative inquiry into the experiences of Mexican-American second- and third-generation mothers and their children.

Keywords: poverty, resilience, opportunities, education, segregation, race/ethnicity, language, inequities, immigrant youth, generational status, generational differences, Latinos, Mexican, Mexican-Americans

Aurora Olmos-Gallo

The Fallout Between Procedure and Practice

The following is a case study in the field of Stage Management. It briefly lays out different approaches to stage managing in the field of theater, while being critically aware that not all procedure prepares a young stage manager for their fieldwork.

The number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs; institutions of higher education that enroll 25% or more Hispanic/Latino students) in the United States continues to rise at a rapid rate every year. Yet, practitioners and scholars alike still seek ways to better understand the impact and value of an HSI organizational identity and how institutions can enact the identity. Using concepts derived from organizational science and educational sociology, the purpose of this study was to investigate Hispanic and Latino employee experience of their connection to the HSI identity. This mixed methods study involved applying the definition of organizational identification, a measure of connection and belonging, via the Mael Scale (OID Scale) to assess employee connectedness to their institution’s HSI identity in a quantitative survey. A subset of respondents were interviewed to further explore their understanding of HSI identity and their experiences at said institutions. Interview responses were deconstructed using the Multilevel Intersectionality Model to understand factors associated with employee experience of level of connection to the HSI identity. Findings suggest that there are structural and systemic challenges experienced by employees. Moreover, moving forward there are ways that institutions can engage the HSI identity and employees that can potentially aid institutions to enact more meaningful local HSI identities improving institutional effectiveness.