College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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Land Use in Charles County
(1962) Langen, John S.; Van Royen, W.; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
The land use of Charles County does not basically differ from that in the past. Land in forest and land in farms are the two categories of land utilization. The great demand for tobacco on the overseas markets in the early days of the county's history, led to the introduction of this crop. Because of the favorable climate and soils, tobacco became soon the mainstay of the county's economy, a situation which still exists today. The purpose of the thesis was to determine which geographical factors and others accounted for the use of the land. In addition to field work, use was made of detailed statistical data. It was found, that the county could be divided into three sections. In the western section, land in forest was the dominating land use form. In the central section, land in forest and land in farms were about equal in areal extent, whereas in the eastern section, land in farms dominated. The reason was that soils in the western part became exhausted, and a shift to the eastern section took place. Landforms contributed much to the distribution of land in crops, especially for tobacco. Recently, a change in the use of the land is taking place. The encroachment of the Washington Metropolitan area, and the building of a major highway, connecting the North with the South, have induced farmers to sell their lands, which are converted into residential areas.
Juvenile Delinquency and the Negro in Charles County, Maryland
(1966) Seaman, Thomas W.; Lejins, Peter P.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Are there differences between Negro and white juvenile delinquents? This was the question that constituted the basis for this exploratory study. The objectives of the project were to determine if Negro juveniles were proportionately overrepresented among juvenile delinquents and if there were differences in types of offenses committed by Negro and white delinquents. The differences found were analyzed in the light of socio-economic class differences between Negro and white delinquents. Previous research has tended to indicate that racial differences disappeared when socioeconomic class was held constant. The area selected for the project was Charles County, Maryland, because of the writer's access to court records and knowledge of the area. Delinquency rates were developed to determine if Negroes were proportionately overrepresented among delinquents and/or if lower class juveniles were overrepresented among delinquents. Delinquent offenses were divided into four types: offenses involving theft or attempted theft of property, offenses involving violence, offenses involving the destruction of property, and offenses injurious to the child himself. Delinquency rates were developed for Negro and white delinquents in each socio-economic class for each type of offense. A simple ecological investigation was conducted to determine if there were any significant patterns in the spatial distribution of the delinquents. The findings show that Negro juveniles were not significantly overrepresented among delinquents even though Negro delinquents were overrepresented among lower-lower class delinquents. White delinquents were found to be overrepresented among delinquents from the lower-middle and upper-lower classes. The analyses of types of offenses revealed that types of offenses could be identified with certain levels of the socio-economic structure regardless of race, but that differences existed between Negro and white delinquents within socio-economic classes. The ecological investigation indicated that there was no significant ecological pattern among county delinquents.
A Comparative Study of Certain Personality Characteristics of College Women Participating in Basketball and Modern Dance
(1965) Bird, Anne Marie; Johnson, Warren R.; Health Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Twenty-five college women attending the University of Maryland during the spring semester of 1963 were studied in an effort to determine whether or not there were any identifiable personality characteristics among those (14) who chose to participate in basketball, as compared to those (13) who chose to participate in modern dance. The subjects used in this study voluntarily chose the activity in which they participated. The California Psychological Inventory was used to evaluate the personality characteristics of the subjects. Analysis of the data showed that the basketball group scored significantly higher, at the 5 percent level of confidence, on the community scale. The modern dance group scored significantly higher, at the 5 percent level of confidence, on the scales measuring flexibility and femininity. A comparison of the group means for all other scales proved insignificant at the 5 percent level of confidence.
Economic Development in Southern Italy Since the Establishment of La Cassa per il Mezzogiorno
(1965) De Bone, Anthony Louis; Bennett, Robert L.; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The study begins with a survey of the social and economic structure of the area. Attention is then focused on the nature of economic dualism in Italy by pointing out that the Northern economy yields to those employed in it a reasonably high income per capita, while the Southern economy provides for those working in it a low income per capita. In 1950 the Italian Government undertook to increase the level of public investments under a ten-year development plan for the South. It entrusted the execution of this plan to a new agency, La Cassa per il Mezzogiorno . Its life was soon extended to 1965 and more recently to 1980. The ultimate goal of the program was to reduce the differences in the consumption and income levels between the North and the South and to integrate the South into the national economy. Southern developments since 1950 and their effects on the economy are discussed, with emphasis on the Cassa programs and investments. It is discovered that many serious obstacles must be overcome in order to change the economic structure of a region such as Southern Italy. Despite the large transfer of resources to this area, The economic structure has changed little since 1950. However, whatever judgment may be passed on the Cassa at a later date, it is apparent that until now production has been concentrated in those sectors that offer relatively little possibility of rapid growth.
The Fair Housing Movement: An Overview and a Case Study
(1965) Noe, Kaye Sizer; Cussler, Margaret T.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The fair housing movement is a recent development in the general civil rights movement. While subscribing to the ideology of the general movement, community fair housing groups concentrate upon making middle-income, and particularly suburban, housing available to financially qualified Negroes. Few fair housing groups are affiliated with Negro civil rights groups, and most are all-white in membership. Their methods utilize many of the concepts first developed in sociology and social psychology; their programs emphasize community relations when a Negro move-in is imminent, property listing services which bypass the practices of discrimination entrenched in the real estate industry, and subscription by community members to open covenants. They seldom try to "force" integration using test cases, attempting rather to prevent discrimination against Negroes seeking homes in their communities and to avoid violence. The major portion of the research was a case study of a fair housing group in Greenbelt, Maryland. The program of this group emphasized a "planning" approach to integration and publicly avoided the moral-ethical arguments which have been central in the general civil rights movement. Such resistance as they encountered was from individuals concerned about the possible effect of Negro occupancy on property values in the older, low-income section of the city. The leaders of the group were active in civic activities, representative of most religious faiths, tended to be college-educated, and many had a history of affiliation with other "liberal" groups. Few were active in other facets of the civil rights movement. It was concluded that the fair housing movement tends to be moderate rather than radical in its membership and strategy, and that its scope (some 600 groups in metropolitan areas across the United States) represents near-spontaneous action at the grass-roots level based on a conviction that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong.
Social Reinforcement and Diurnal Rhythms in Baboons
(1966) Thach, John S. Jr; Gollub, Lewis R.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The frequency with which one monkey opened a door for two minutes of visual and physical contact with another monkey was examined as a function of several experimental procedures. In the first series of manipulations removal of the second monkey allowed a comparison between the effects of the social reinforcing object and the effects of the non-social stimuli incidental to delivery of the social reinforcer. During daily four-hour sessions, reinforcement rates (number of door openings/unit time) with a monkey in the adjacent cage averaged several times those when no monkey was in the adjacent cage. Removal of the second monkey did not significantly affect rates of food and water reinforcement, but removal of food and water contingencies did increase rates of door opening to an empty cage. Idiosyncratic factors contributed to above-zero rates when the cage was empty. For example, one subject's empty-cage rates were halved, and his amount of stereotyped rocking nearly stopped, by a wall placed next to the door. The existence of pertinent variables peculiar to the individual subject and to the particular apparatus directs attention to the necessity of control procedures. In the second set of conditions two baboons lived in the cages 24 hours a day and were under continuous illumination, as they had been for several months. During a short initial period when either monkey could open the door, and in a second longer period when only one could open the door, the monkeys had a very regular day length of approximately 14 hours, which remained synchronous with clock time. The experiment did not identify the pertinent elements entraining the monkeys' activities. This persisting alignment with clock time under reasonably stable conditions suggests that the entraining environmental stimuli were more subtle than those demonstrated in the literature. The monkeys also revealed a distinctive patterning of frequency of social contact as a function of time of day. The distribution had a midmorning peak, a midday low, and a minor afternoon peak, the same pattern recently documented as occurring in troops of wild baboons. This pattern was only barely noticeable in distributions from individual days, and became significant only when averaged across days. To a lesser degree, similar patterns were evident in distributions of food and water reinforcement rates. In the final set of procedures two levels of food deprivation, two levels of social deprivation, and two times of day were produced by alternating the subjects in morning and afternoon sessions, by conducting only morning or only afternoon sessions, and by pre-feeding and "pre-socializing" in a sequence designed to contrast the effect of one condition against another. Regardless of deprivation of social or other reinforcers, the subjects displayed a higher rate of social reinforcement in the mornings than in the afternoons. An early morning "pre-socializing" session slightly lowered the usual morning rate of social reinforcement, but preceding an afternoon session with a morning session, an early morning and a morning session, or by no session since the previous afternoon, had no effect on the afternoon social reinforcement rates. Independence of social reinforcement rates from variations in food deprivation, and low frequencies of eating with the door open implied that the presence of food did not appreciably affect rates of social reinforcement. These studies established social reinforcement under controlled laboratory conditions as a strong reinforcer capable of maintaining behavior over long periods of time, and elucidated a pertinent variable in social reinforcement, that of diurnal rhythms.
Problems Raised by Technological Advances on Copyright in Musical Recordings
(1961) Geraci, Philip Charles; Hathorn, Guy B.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
This thesis attempts to point out a number of lacks in the present Copyright Act which exist because of recent advances in electronic technology. Specifically, it attempts to indicate the enormous growth of electronic entertainment for the home, and to show how this new form of entertainment poses problems concerning copyright which never have existed before. Since very few cases are on record which deal with the use of recorded music at home, it has been necessary to examine cases which deal with copyright and music in general terms and to draw analogies to adapt existing precedent to new situations. It is pointed out in some detail that the Copyright Act of 1909, still in effect today, does not treat present conditions as explicitly as might be liked, and results in considerable confusion where non- commercial and non-profitable use of recorded music is concerned. The subject is of vital interest to copyright attorneys, manufacturers of recordings and recording equipment, performing rights societies, artists, and amateur hobbyists since no thorough analysis of problems raised by home recording has ever been made. The handful of acknowledged authorities on the subject have only a personal opinion on the outcome of any hypothetical case dealing with home recording. Whether or not a home recordist violates the Copyright statute when he records music from a radio has never been officially determined. It is the intent of this paper to analyze the Copyright Act and its judicial and practical application and show how. by several lines of reasoning. home recording does not infringe. The thesis is divided into chapters which deal with the growth of modern technology. the present Copyright Act. performing rights societies and judicial interpretation. Finally. a concluding chapter offers a solution to the mounting problem of home recording as it could be treated in a general revision of the Copyright Act.
The State of Education in Afghanistan and the Application of a Linear Programming Model
(1969) Ulfat, Abderrahman; Bennett, Robert L.; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
In this study the role of education in economic development is briefly discussed; the state of education in Afghanistan is assessed and compared with a group of Asian countries. Through the application of a constrained maximization model the rate of return to primary education in Afghanistan is obtained. Discounted streams of income and cost, associated with different levels of education, were used as the coefficients of the equation which was set to maximize the return to education; the different categories of students and the needed teachers constrained the maximization of the afore-mentioned equation. The model thus described was also dynamic-given a group of youngsters it advanced them to higher levels of education and also generated the required number of teachers from those students. Education in the elementary level is found to be a profitable investment for Afghanistan to undertake. The rate of return to six years of education in this model is more than five percent and for the first three years it is more than ten percent.

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