Science Forward 2017

MHC Seminar 3, Professor Maya Weltman-Fahs, City College

Author: Emilia Decaudin (Page 1 of 2)

Video Project Outline – Tayba, Emilia, and Katlyn

November 12, 2017 /

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, and Katlyn Palmatier

  1. Titles
    • “Voter Turnout in NYC” By Katlyn Palmatier, Tayba Aziz, and Emilia Decaudin
    • Quick shots of people walking the City.
  2. Introduction and Background
    • Primary vs General Election
      • Split screen.
      • One side for primary and one for general. Voiceover explains the difference and key points appear on screen as spoken.
    • Who can vote?
      • Voiceover explanation of who can vote.
      • Video of polling site.
  3. Interviews with Voters
    • Why is voting important to you?
    • Did you vote in the 2016 general election?
    • Did you vote in the 2017 Democratic primary?
    • Did the results of the 2016 general election affect your decision to vote in 2017 Democratic primary?
  4. Presentation of Voter Turnout Data
    • Visual representation the form of charts.
    • Voiceover explaining data.
  5. Analysis of Voter Turnout Data
    • Visual comparisons of turnout in each borough.
    • Voiceover explaining data.
  6. Conclusion
    • Information on how to register to vote.
    • Reminder that voting can have an important impact on the local and national levels.
  7. Credits

Research Proposal – Tayba, Emilia, and Katlyn

October 23, 2017 /

The Effect of the General Election on the New York City Mayoral Democratic Primary Voter Turnout

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, and Katlyn Palmatier

Background

Voter turnout is based on a variety of factors including morale, ties to the community, peer pressure, ease of registration, etc. (Davenport, 2010; Highton, 2000; Stockemer, 2017b) New York City is unique because the population is composed of people of all backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. This study will analyze voting data to determine what, if any, effects general presidential elections have on voter turnout in New York City Democratic mayoral primaries.

There are also two different types of elections that this study will analyze, general and primary. A general election is an election in which eligible voters across all parties can participate. Any U.S. citizen who is registered to vote can vote in the United States general presidential elections. U.S. citizens can register to vote if they’re above the age 18. Those convicted of a felony cannot vote while serving time. A primary election is an election in which voters within a party select a candidate to represent their party in a general election. New York State has closed primaries, meaning that only voters who are registered to a specific party can vote in primaries. Another way of categorizing elections is if there is an incumbent or open seat. An incumbent is an official who already holds office. If an official who is holding office does not, or cannot, run for another election, the election is open seat.

Research Question

Did the results of the 2016 General Election affect voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election in NYC?

Hypothesis

The unusual results of the 2016 General Election led to a higher voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election than the voter turnouts of previous primaries (1997-2013) that followed a General Election.

Methods

We will compare the turnout of NYC Democratic mayoral primary elections from 1997 to 2017 with the turnout of each previous year’s general elections, from 1996 to 2016, and determine if there is A. a relationship between the turnout in general elections with Democratic turnout in subsequent primary elections and B. if the 2016 Presidential general election affected turnout in the 2017 Democratic mayoral primary election to an unusual degree compared to previous years.

There are two main methods for measuring voter turnout. The first method measures “voter turnout as the percentage of registered voters who actually turn out [or vote]”. (Stockemer, 2017a) The second method measures “voter turnout as the percentage of a country’s voting age population that cast their ballot on Election Day”. (Stockemer, 2017a) This study will use the first method. We will be using the former method.

We will collect registration and turnout date from the New York City and New York State Board of Elections’ websites, as well as from ourcampaigns.com for data too old to be available on the previous two sites.

We will create a regression line using this data, and then analyze it with a t-test to determine if there is any significant difference between turnout in the sampled years.

References

Davenport, T. (2010). Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents. Political Behavior, 32(3), 337–368. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9109-x

Highton, B. (2000). Residential Mobility, Community Mobility, and Electoral Participation. Political Behavior, 22(2), 109–120.

Stockemer, D. (2017a). Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout? Social Indicators Research, 133(3), 943–962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1410-6

Stockemer, D. (2017b). What Affects Voter Turnout? A Review Article/Meta-Analysis of Aggregate Research. Government and Opposition, 52(4), 698–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2016.30

Annotated Bibliography – Tayba, Emilia, and Katlyn

October 10, 2017 /

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, and Katlyn Palmatier

Did the results of the 2016 General Election affect voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election in NYC?

Bellafante, G. (2015, December 11). Mobilizing Voters in New York’s Housing Projects. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/nyregion/mobilizing-voters-in-new-yorks-housing-projects.html

This article focuses on income and housing in Queens and compares it to voter turnout. Those with lower income, especially if they reside in public housing, are less likely they are to vote. Bellafante suspects that this is because they have little faith that their concerns will be listened to. This article will serve useful when analyzing why people choose to or not to vote.

BOE – Election Results Summary. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2017, from http://vote.nyc.ny.us/html/results/results.shtml

This site shows official data for voter turnout and election results in New York City. It includes information for primaries and general elections, such as how many voters voted for each candidate including write-in candidates. This data will be used to compare New York City mayoral Democratic primary statistics from 2017 to other years that directly follow presidential elections.

Cohn, N. (2017, April 5). Democrats Are Bad at Midterm Turnout. That Seems Ready to Change. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/upshot/democrats-are-bad-at-midterm-turnout-that-seems-ready-to-change.html

This article is a prediction that after the 2016 General Election, more democrats nationwide will take an active role in politics and vote during primary elections. The data presented suggests that voter turnout is higher within a party if they do not hold the White House.

Davenport, T. (2010). Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents. Political Behavior, 32(3), 337–368. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9109-x

In this article, the author conducts an experiment to determine in social pressure can motivate infrequent voters to vote in an unimportant/uninteresting election, by comparing the effects of traditional canvassing and canvassing that uses individual voter histories and “feedback intervention” to make voters feel pressured to vote, in public housing projects.

Gould, R. H. and S. (n.d.). Americans beat one voter turnout record — here’s how 2016 compares with past elections. Retrieved October 11, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-voter-turnout-records-history-obama-clinton-2016-11

In this article, the authors discuss voter turnout in 2016 and 2008 presidential elections compared to other years. They point out out that in 2016, more people voted in the Senate races than in the presidential race in 14 states.

Highton, B. (2000). Residential Mobility, Community Mobility, and Electoral Participation. Political Behavior, 22(2), 109–120.

This article aims to determine what causes Americans who move often to vote less than those who stay put. The author hypothesizes that this lower turnout is caused by a lack of re-registration by those moving as well as by movers’ weaker connection to the local community. They concluded that the loss of social ties is far less important to whether one votes or not as the need to reregister does, as there is a negligible difference in turnout between those who moved within their communities, and those who moved outside their communities.

Stockemer, D. (2017). Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout? Social Indicators Research, 133(3), 943–962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1410-6

The author presents two methods to measure voter turnout. The first method calculates voter turnout as the percentage of registered voters who actually voted and the second method calculates voter turnout as the percentage of the voting age population who actually voted.

Stockemer, D. (2017). What Affects Voter Turnout? A Review Article/Meta-Analysis of Aggregate Research. Government and Opposition, 52(4), 698–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2016.30

The author conducts a meta-analysis of a wide range of studies on voter turnout to determine which factors play the most important roles in affecting turnout levels. He found that compulsory voting, the election being seen as important, and the county it is held in being small all help to improve voter turnout. He also found that the type of electoral system, the number of parties, development, income inequalities, and electoral closeness have an inconclusive link to voter turnout.

Vallbé, J.-J., & Magre Ferran, J. (2017). The Road Not Taken. Effects of residential mobility on local electoral turnout. Political Geography, 60, 86–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.04.010

In this article, the authors analyze the effects of residential mobility and city size in voter turnout. They find that both ease of mobility and smaller cities are conducive to higher voter turnout, and that in larger cities, reduced mobility has a more profound negative effect on turnout than in smaller cities.

Assignment 4 – Emilia Decaudin

September 25, 2017 /

Highton, B. (2000). Residential Mobility, Community Mobility, and Electoral Participation. Political Behavior, 22(2), 109–120.

This article aims to determine what causes Americans who move often to vote less than those who stay put. (Highton, 2000) The author hypothesizes that this lower turnout is caused by a lack of reregistration by those moving as well as by those-moving’s weaker connection to the local community. In order to investigate this phenomenon and support or disprove these hypotheses, the author presents multiple tables of data from a span of National Election Studies, which are academic surveys run before and after every election. The author uses NESs from 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996 that compare the amount of time someone has lived in their home and various demographic and socio-economic factors with whether or not they voted. The author uses this large span of years to obtain an average result that is not affected by any turnout outliers. They concluded that the loss of social ties is far less important to whether one votes or not as the need to reregister does, as there is a negligible difference in turnout between those who moved within their communities, and those who moved outside their communities

Proposed Research Question – Tayba, Emilia, and Katlyn

September 25, 2017 /

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, and Katlyn Palmatier

Did the results of the 2016 General Election affect voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election in NYC?

Tayba:

Bellafante, G. (2015, December 13). Votes of Confidence. New York Times, p. 1(L). Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_ccny&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA437266827&asid=9ba5ba02bbeccec6c7f5f5b52440c8f6

Davenport, T. (2010). Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents. Political Behavior, 32(3), 337-368. doi:10.1007/s11109-010-9109-x

Emilia:

Cohn, N. (2017, April 5). Democrats Are Bad at Midterm Turnout. That Seems Ready to Change. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/upshot/democrats-are-bad-at-midterm-turnout-that-seems-ready-to-change.html

Vallbé, J.-J., & Magre Ferran, J. (2017). The Road Not Taken. Effects of residential mobility on local electoral turnout. Political Geography, 60, 86–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.04.010

Katlyn:

Stockemer, D. (2017). Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout? Social Indicators Research, 133(3), 943–962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1410-6

Ecological Footprint Results – Emilia Decaudin

September 18, 2017 /

FootPrint Calculator.org: 3.8 earths / 1.8 earths
Nature.org Carbon Calculator: 17 tons of CO2 per year / 12 tons of CO2 per year

Most of my carbon cost came from my monthly subway usage and my meat consumption. I rarely travel by plane anymore and do not use much electricity, so I am not sure why my initial usage was so high, but after cutting down on those two points my carbon usage decreased.

Mini Research Proposal – Tabya, Emilia, Ann-Renee, and Manuel

September 17, 2017 /

Mini Research Proposal: Effectiveness of Different Types of Vaccinations

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, Ann-Renee Rubia, and Manuel Sojan

Background

It is a well-known fact that flu vaccines can be effective when it comes to protecting an individual from influenza. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the vaccine reduces the risk of contracting the flu by about 50 to 60 percent. The flu vaccine also reduced children’s risk of admission into pediatric intensive care units by about 74 percent during the 2010–2012 flu season (J. Ferdinands et al., 2014). There have been numerous inquiries into what makes a vaccine more or less effective at combating the flu. The main factors researchers look at are the person’s age, his or her health, and how closely the vaccine resembles the strain of influenza it’s designed to protect against. However, in this investigation, a fourth factor will be examined: the type of vaccine used. The difference in effectiveness between live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV) and inactivated influenza vaccines (IIV) will be scrutinized.

Live attenuated vaccines are vaccines produced from disease-causing viruses or bacteria and are usually given in the form of a nasal spray. In a laboratory, the pathogens are weakened “by repeated culturing” (“Principles of Vaccination,” CDC). For instance, the vaccine for measles disease was produced from measles virus extracted from a child in 1954. According to the CDC, it took researchers about 10 years to create an attenuated form of the measles virus. The other type of vaccination, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, is the inactivated vaccine. To produce inactivated vaccine, bacteria and viruses are grown in culture media, and then inactivated with heat or chemicals. IIVs are usually carried out by intramuscular or deep subcutaneous injection. For adults and children aged 36 months or older, the injection is usually given in the deltoid muscle, while for those aged between 6 and 35 months, the preferred location for the injection is the anterolateral thigh flap (Sanofi Pasteur, 2017).

Research Question

Is the Inactivated Influenza Vaccine, administered through intramuscular injection, more effective than the Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV), administered intranasally, in preventing influenza when given to children (ages 5-17) in the United States?

Proposed Methods

Subject Enrollment

In order to collect data for our study, we would enlist the help of doctors from medical centers across the United States. We would ask for data from the doctors for children between the ages of 5 and 17 years old who have an up-to-date vaccination record/immunization record. The data should be collected during vaccination season, which is September to February. Before administration of the vaccination, informed parental consent must be obtained.

Data Collection

  • Survey

    Doctors should administer the vaccination for the influenza virus to the children either with the live attenuated vaccine (administered intranasally) or with the inactivated influenza vaccine (administered intramuscularly).  Both vaccinations should be the quadrivalent strain. After administering either vaccine, the doctors should give an optional survey for the parents to complete over the course of 4 weeks– observing and taking note of any symptoms experienced by the children such as pain, redness, swelling, etc., and rating the severity of each symptom (if experienced by the child). At the conclusion of 4 weeks, the children will return for a check-up and additional testing, at which point the completed survey will be returned.

  • Testing

    Nasal swabs should be performed and tested using a Rapid Influenza Test (RIT), which has a sensitivity of 81% and a specificity of 97% for influenza A, and a sensitivity of 65% and a specificity of 99% for Influenza B (the two most common forms of influenza). After completion of the RIT, we will compare the presence of the influenza virus between the groups of children who were either vaccinated through LAIV or IIV. This will allow us to test the effectiveness of each vaccine.

Below is a summary of the methods needed to collect data:

  • Access to medical centers across the United States.
  • Randomized study – to reduce bias and include a wide range of individuals from all backgrounds.
  • Give a survey to the parents/guardians asking about symptoms experienced by the children:
    • Survey Questions: Whether or not the children felt any of the following and rank each symptom from 1-5 based on severity:
      • Pain
      • Redness
      • Swelling
      • Headache
      • Nasuea
      • Fever
      • Vomiting
      • Diarrhea

Bibliography

Airey, J., Albano, F. R., Sawlwin, D. C., Jones, A. G., Formica, N., Matassa, V., & Leong, J. (2017). Immunogenicity and safety of a quadrivalent inactivated influenza virus vaccine compared with a comparator quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine in a pediatric population: A phase 3, randomized noninferiority study. Vaccine,35(20), 2745-2752. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.03.028

Does My Child Have the Flu? (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2017, from http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/pediatrics/influenza_flu_in_children_90,P02514

Ferdinands, J. M., Olsho, L. E. W., Agan, A. A., Bhat, N., Sullivan, R. M., Hall, M., … Randolph, A. G. (2014). Effectiveness of Influenza Vaccine Against Life-threatening RT-PCR-confirmed Influenza Illness in US Children, 2010–2012. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 210(5), 674–683. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiu185

Inactivated Influenza Vaccine (Split Virion) BP. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2017, from https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/6207

Influenza (Flu). (2017, September 14). Retrieved September 17, 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm

Mclean, H. Q., Caspard, H., Griffin, M. R., Poehling, K. A., Gaglani, M., Belongia, E. A., . . . Ambrose, C. S. (2017). Effectiveness of live attenuated influenza vaccine and inactivated influenza vaccine in children during the 2014–2015 season. Vaccine,35(20), 2685-2693. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.03.085

Valdin, H. L., & Bégué, R. E. (2017). Influenza vaccines effectiveness 2013–14 through 2015–16, a test-negative study in children. Vaccine, 35(33), 4088–4093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.06.050

Assignment 3 – Emilia Decaudin

September 13, 2017 /

I compared two news articles written today about the defacement of a statue of Christopher Columbus in our own Central Park. The first article is from the Gothamist, a neutral to left leaning news blog, while the second is from Breitbart, a far-right news/editorial website. While both articles report on the general details of the incident, they differ wildly in their analysis of the implications of the incident, as well as in their portrayals of the parties involved.

The first noticeable difference is in the headline of each article. While both articles use the word “vandalize” to describe the actions taken upon the statue, only the Gothamist mentions the message “Hate Will Not Be Tolerated”. While the contents of a graffito don’t negate the legal consequences of the crime, the message, in a vacuum, is generally one that most people could agree with. One could wonder if Breitbart left it out on purpose, or if the Gothamist put it in on purpose, as they did neglect to also mention the red hands in the headline.

The Breitbart article very quickly implied a cause-and-effect relationship between Bill de Blasio’s announcement of a commission to review “symbols of hate” in New York City, and specifically pointed out his failure to specifically state whether or not that specific statue would be removed. On the other hand, the Gothamist first quoted a resident who supported the actions taken by the vandals, while mentioning de Blasio’s previous comments parenthetical at the end of the article. These differences could mean that Breitbart is biased against de Blasio, and sought to implicate him in this crime, or that the Gothamist is supportive of both de Blasio and the incident, taking care to provide a supportive voice and minimizing any connection to the crime to the Mayor’s comments.

Barnes, D., & Whitford, E. (2017, September 12). Christopher Columbus Statue In Central Park Vandalized With “Bloody” Hands & Message: “Hate Will Not Be Tolerated.” Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://gothamist.com/2017/09/12/columbus_statue_central_park.php

Houston, W. T. (2017, September 12). Statue of Christopher Columbus Vandalized in New York’s Central Park. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/12/statue-christopher-columbus-vandalized-new-yorks-central-park/

Assignment 2 – Emilia Decaudin

September 5, 2017 /

Singh, Shane P. 2015. “Compulsory Voting and the Turnout Decision Calculus.” Political Studies 63(3): 548–68.

In order to determine how compulsory systems of voting affect the demographics of those who do end up going to polls, the author analyzes comparative data from various countries, as well as comparative data from Swiss cantons. He first lists the countries and cantons, and whether or not they have either voluntary voting, “weak” compulsory voting, or “strong” compulsory voting. (Varying levels of penalties for failing to vote) He then compares the differences in socioeconomic distribution of those who voted in the varying systems.

The author found that in countries where voting is mandatory, socioeconomic groups that are usually bad at turning out in countries with voluntary voting end up voting at similar rates to groups that usually turn out consistently.

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