Digital Commons Network^™

Data Gathering Kickoff Lesson For Consulting Project, Samantha Porter, Stephanie Farne

New England Library Instruction Group

This is a one-shot instruction session taught to upperclassmen in a Strategic Management Course working on a group mock-consulting project. We introduce them to potential sources of information for the secondary research component of their project including company, industry and market research resources. There are three parts to the lesson plan: 1) a beach ball activity (which we learned about at an ACRL NEC Annual Conference 2018) to introduce them to different information source types, including discussion of information literacy principles; 2) a brief introduction to the database sources; and 3) a group workshop activity.

Critically Looking At An Article: A Group Effort, Carrie Salazar, Iris Jahng

New England Library Instruction Group

Objective:

Analyze a scholarly article to examine how they use sources, what do they refer to, examine the language and tone of the articles and how to brainstorm research ideas from an article

Instructions:

All the groups are given the same article but different sets of questions. In your groups, answer as many of the questions as you can and choose someone (or more than one person) to report out the questions you answered. This way, we all have an idea what the article is and the different ways you could approach looking at an article. Find your groups by …

International Trade And Capital Flight From Africa: Challenges For Governance, Melvin D. Ayogu

PERI Working Papers

Capital flight constitutes a major constraint to Africa’s efforts to fill the large and growing financing gaps that hold back its progress towards achieving sustainable development goals. The mounting evidence on the unrecorded outflows of capital from Africa has spurred calls for strategies to curb the financial hemorrhage that is afflicting the continent. The existing evidence is still inadequate, however, on four fronts. First, the quantitative evidence is predominantly aggregate and does not furnish adequate country-specific information on the mechanisms of capital flight, its institutional contexts, and the role of domestic and foreign players in facilitating it. Second, the literature …

Magnitudes And Mechanisms Of Capital Flight From Angola, Côte D'Ivoire And South Africa, LéOnce Ndikumana, James K. Boyce

PERI Working Papers

This paper presents an updated methodology for estimation of capital flight, which is applied to the cases of Angola, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa. The results indicate that the three countries have experienced substantial capital flight over the past four decades, amounting to $103 billion in constant 2018 dollars for Angola (over 1986-2018), $55 billion for Côte d’Ivoire (over 1970- 2018), and $329 billion for South Africa (over 1970-2018). An important mechanism of capital flight is misinvoicing of exports and imports, especially in primary commodities. The fact that these outflows have persisted over a long period indicates that they are …

Dominance Of Majoritarian Politics And Hate Crimes Against Religious Minorities In India, 2009-2018, Deepankar Basu

PERI Working Papers

Using a novel state-level panel data set for the period 2009-18 on the incidence of hate crimes in India, and a difference in difference (DD) approach, this paper investigates the causal impact of the right-wing, Hindu nationalist BJP’s win in the 2014 national elections on hate crimes against religious minorities. Using 2009-13 (pre-election) and 2014-18 (post-election) as the before and after periods, I estimate a standard DD model, where the treatment group consists of states where BJP won the largest share of popular votes in 2014, to get an initial estimate of the causal impact. I strengthen this result with …

Revisiting India's Growth Transitions, Deepankar Basu

PERI Working Papers

This paper reconsiders two questions relating to India’s economic growth: structural breaks in growth and the impact of equipment investment on aggregate economic growth. First, statistical tests of structural change show that economic growth in post-independence India has witnessed four structural breaks: in 1964-65, in 1978-79, in 1990-91, and in 2004-05. However, substantial growth accelerations, i.e. increase of more than 1.0% per annum in the growth rate of per capita real GDP, occurred only at two points: 1978-79 and 2004-05. Second, to analyze the impact of equipment investment on growth, I use an ARDL bounds testing methodology. I find a …

Multi-Ethnic Stakeholders And Their Perspective Of Culture-Based Intervention Programs In Belize: Case Study Of Program For The Garifuna People, Juan Nunez

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how the development of Garifuna cultural identity by the Garifuna Language and Arts and Crafts in Schools Program at St. Peter Claver School in Punta Gorda, Belize. Culture-based education is described as contextualized relating “what students learn to their culture, communities, lives, and land.” This is a case study designed to understand the purpose of the program, identify its participants, review its curriculum, observe instructional strategies, and interview its stakeholders over a three-month period. Data was collected through documentation, direct observation, interviews, and audio recording. A descriptive framework was used …

Hiplife Music In Ghana: Postcolonial Performances Of Modernity, Nii Kotei Nikoi

Doctoral Dissertations

This research project examines the operation of development discourse in popular culture, how it is reproduced, contested and how alternatives are imagined. It is a post-development study of the production and consumption of Ghanaian hiplife music videos and culture. It explores how hiplife makers challenge development discourse and advance alternative ideas of social transformation. Considering the enduring (and damaging) legacies of colonialism, hiplife as a site of relative freedom of expression is fertile for the potential production of a decolonial vocabulary to heal colonial wounds— undoing colonial sensibilities imposed on the colonized. The project reveals that mainstream male hiplife stars …

Predictive Simulation Of Human Movement And Applications To Assistive Device Design And Control, Vinh Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

Predictive simulation based on dynamic optimization using musculoskeletal models is a powerful approach for studying biomechanics of human gait. Predictive simulation can be used for a variety of applications from designing assistive devices to testing theories of motor controls. However, one of the challenges in formulating the predictive dynamic optimization problem is that the cost function, which represents the underlying goal of the walking task (e.g., minimal energy consumption) is generally unknown and is assumed a priori. While different studies used different cost functions, the qualities of the gaits with those cost functions were often not provided. Therefore, this dissertation …

Elliptic Curves And Power Residues, Vy Thi Khanh Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

Let E₁ x E₂ over Q be a fixed product of two elliptic curves over Q with complex multiplication. I compute the probability that the pth Fourier coefficient of E₁ x E₂, denoted as a_p(E₁) + a_p(E₂), is a square modulo p. The results are 1/4, 7/16, and 1/2 for different imaginary quadratic fields, given a technical independence of the twists. The similar prime densities for cubes and 4th power are 19/54, and 1/4, respectively. I also compute the probabilities without the technical …

Gaming For Life: Gaming Practices, Self-Care, And Thriving Under Neoliberalism, Brian Myers

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation frames gaming practices in relationship to thriving, an area of inquiry that has received little attention within the fields of video game studies and cultural studies. It argues that video games can be used by audiences as a tool for thriving, provided we define thriving outside of the framework of success and failure established by a neoliberal political rationality. Using survey data from 70 video game audience members, textual analysis, and ethnographic and auto-ethnographic methodologies, this dissertation first describes how video game audience members define thriving by distinguishing it from a related term, self-care. It then moves to …

A Parallel Direct Method For Finite Element Electromagnetic Computations Based On Domain Decomposition, Javad Moshfegh

Doctoral Dissertations

High performance parallel computing and direct (factorization-based) solution methods have been the two main trends in electromagnetic computations in recent years. When time-harmonic (frequency-domain) Maxwell's equation are directly discretized with the Finite Element Method (FEM) or other Partial Differential Equation (PDE) methods, the resulting linear system of equations is sparse and indefinite, thus harder to efficiently factorize serially or in parallel than alternative methods e.g. integral equation solutions, that result in dense linear systems. State-of-the-art sparse matrix direct solvers such as MUMPS and PARDISO don't scale favorably, have low parallel efficiency and high memory footprint. This work introduces a new …

Consensual Qualitative Research: Replicability Of Results And Social Reliability Of Process, Nicholas Morrison

Doctoral Dissertations

To solidify further their scientific footing, qualitative approaches would ideally demonstrate that they yield replicable information about a phenomenon under study. Although consensual qualitative research (CQR; Hill, 2012) proposes a rigorous, multistep method to enhance interjudge reliability and instill confidence in the results, it remains unclear if multiple uniformly trained teams analyzing the same stimulus set would arrive at similar analytic output (i.e., replicability—a high form of trustworthiness). Moreover, it is unclear if replicability (or lack thereof) might be influenced by the process through which CQR judges arrive at their output (i.e., social reliability). Addressing these gaps, this …

Petrogenesis Of Basaltic Lavas In Iceland And The Springerville Volcanic Field, U.S.A.: The Influence Of Tectonic Setting, Depth Of Melting And Volatiles, Marissa Mnich

Doctoral Dissertations

Icelandic basalts were long thought to be low in water (e.g. Gunnarsson et al., 1998), but more recent studies suggest that hotspots, like the Iceland mantle plume, may be a source of hydrous basaltic melts (Nichols et al., 2002). To explore a possible link between location, volatile concentration and resulting petrogenetic implications, samples were collected from eleven volcanic centers throughout Iceland. Water concentrations were measured in melt inclusions and phenocrysts using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Results for a subset of samples indicate variable water in melt inclusions ranging from approximately 50 ppm to over 3000 ppm. Samples from southwestern …

Tools For Tutoring Theoretical Computer Science Topics, Mark Mccartin-Lim

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis introduces COMPLEXITY TUTOR, a tutoring system to assist in learning abstract proof-based topics, which has been specifically targeted towards the population of computer science students studying theoretical computer science. Existing literature has shown tremendous educational benefits produced by active learning techniques, student-centered pedagogy, gamification and intelligent tutoring systems. However, previously, there had been almost no research on adapting these ideas to the domain of theoretical computer science. As a population, computer science students receive immediate feedback from compilers and debuggers, but receive no similar level of guidance for theoretical coursework. One hypothesis of this thesis is that immediate …

Dissertation Abstracts 1969-2019, Center For International Education

Doctoral Dissertations at the Center for International Education

This is the Seventh Edition of the Dissertation Abstracts of the Center for International Education (CIE). It contains abstracts of all the doctoral dissertations completed by students actively involved in CIE from 1969 through the academic year ending in June 2019.

The abstracts in this document reflect research in the fields of Development Education, Nonformal and Adult Education, Literacy, Community Development, and Global Education in both international and domestic contexts.

The abstracts reflect the values that inform the research and the practice of the Center: the theory and practice of liberation, consciousness-raising, literacy and popular education, empowerment, social change, gender …

Fluorescence Spectroscopy And Microscopy Studies Of Chromophore Coupling In Isolated Small Molecule Nanostructures, Sarah R. Marques

Doctoral Dissertations

My thesis focused on understanding the structural changes producing different spectral signatures seen in aggregates of 7,8,15,16- tetrazaterrylene (TAT). Recent work from our group showed crystallographically selective directional charge-separation within isolated extended TAT crystals without the need of an interface. Aggregates of different size not only exhibited different exciton recombination kinetics, but different spectral signatures. The motivation for understanding the change in the structural properties producing the unique spectral signatures is elucidating the mechanism of this directional charge-separation, intrinsic or extrinsic. In this case, an intrinsic mechanism means it is caused by molecular design and packing, and extrinsic mechanism means …

Characterization Of Β-2-Microglobulin Pre-Amyloid Oligomers And Their Role In Amyloid Inhibition, Tyler M. Marcinko

Doctoral Dissertations

In dialysis patients, β-2 microglobulin (β2m) can aggregate and eventually form amyloid fibrils in a condition known as dialysis-related amyloidosis, which deleteriously affects joint, bone, and organ function, and eventually causes organ failure. To understand the early stages of the amyloid assembly process, we have employed a series of biophysical tools including chromatography, spectroscopy, and most especially, native electrospray ionization (ESI) together with ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) to study soluble pre-amyloid oligomeric species. We have also collaborated and integrated computational modeling to help better understand and rationalize the structural basis behind oligomerization. Recently, several small molecules have been identified …

Dimensions Of Us Global Financial Power: Essays On Financial Sanctions, Global Imbalances, And Sovereign Default, Mariam Majd

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how U.S. capabilities in the global financial arena enable it to affect outcomes to its advantage. The first essay presents theoretical support for the hypothesis that holdings of U.S. sovereign debt collateralize public and private dollar borrowing in developing and emerging market economies. The second essay empirically tests the theory presented in Chapter 1 and provides evidence that, indeed, a statistically significant relationship exists between a country’s official holdings of US Treasury securities and its level of outstanding dollar credit. Our results demonstrate that even after controlling for a persistence effect (i.e., inertia) in US Treasury security …

The Catalytic Urease Subunit Urec Is Critical For Bifidobacterium Longum Urea Utilization, Yang Lyu

Doctoral Dissertations

In the first study, we investigated the utilization of a human milk nitrogen source, urea, by Bifidobacterium. Urea accounts for ~15% in human milk, which is an abundant non-protein nitrogen (NPN). Some bifidobacteria are found to harbor urease gene clusters that potentially enable their hydrolysis of the human milk urea. However, the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. To incisively link the urease gene cluster with bifidobacterial urea utilization, chemical mutagenesis (i.e. ethyl methanesulfonate) was performed on the urease-positive Bifidobacterium longum subsp. suis UMA399. Mutants were selected on differential media and genetic lesions were identified using whole genome sequencing. …

Galaxies And Gas In Dark Matter Halos And The Cosmic Web, Seunghwan Lim

Doctoral Dissertations

In the current understanding of galaxy formation, galaxies are believed to form and evolve in dark matter halos. The dark matter halos are collapsed objects that form and grow via gravitational instability of small initial density fluctuation in the cosmic field. They are not only the hosts of galaxies but are tracers of the cosmic web of the Universe. They are thus crucial components for understanding how galaxies form and evolve within the cosmic web. This dissertation is a systematic investigation of the galaxies and gas in the dark matter halos and the cosmic web, using observation data of large …

An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native …

Neural Models For Information Retrieval Without Labeled Data, Hamed Zamani

Doctoral Dissertations

Recent developments of machine learning models, and in particular deep neural networks, have yielded significant improvements on several computer vision, natural language processing, and speech recognition tasks. Progress with information retrieval (IR) tasks has been slower, however, due to the lack of large-scale training data as well as neural network models specifically designed for effective information retrieval. In this dissertation, we address these two issues by introducing task-specific neural network architectures for a set of IR tasks and proposing novel unsupervised or \emph{weakly supervised} solutions for training the models. The proposed learning solutions do not require labeled training data. Instead, …

Joint Asymptotics For Smoothing Spline Semiparametric Nonlinear Models, Jiahui Yu

Doctoral Dissertations

We study the joint asymptotics of general smoothing spline semiparametric models in the settings of density estimation and regression. We provide a systematic framework which incorporates many existing models as special cases, and further allows for nonlinear relationships between the finite-dimensional Euclidean parameter and the infinite-dimensional functional parameter. For both density estimation and regression, we establish the local existence and uniqueness of the penalized likelihood estimators for our proposed models. In the density estimation setting, we prove joint consistency and obtain the rates of convergence of the joint estimator in an appropriate norm. The convergence rate of the parametric component …

Class, Gender, And Mediated Labor Activism In Globalizing China, Siyuan Yin

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation analyzes the relationships between mediated labor activism and the formation of counter-hegemonic forces in contemporary China. As China becomes a seemingly ideal model to justify the normalization of global capitalism, this study seeks to demonstrate how resistance from disenfranchised groups can challenge hegemonic power. Rural-to-urban migrant workers, who have been among the most disadvantaged groups since China’s economic reform of the 1980s, suffer from institutionalized discrimination, economic exploitation, and social exclusion. Approaching the analysis from an intersectional feminist lens, I explore the politics and possibilities of working-class resistance in searching for a just and equal China. Based on …

Response Retrieval In Information-Seeking Conversations, Liu Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

The increasing popularity of mobile Internet has led to several crucial changes in the way that people use search engines compared with traditional Web search on desktops. On one hand, there is limited output bandwidth with the small screen sizes of most mobile devices. Mobile Internet users prefer direct answers on the search engine result page (SERP). On the other hand, voice-based / text-based conversational interfaces are becoming increasing popular as shown in the wide adoption of intelligent assistant services and devices such as Amazon Echo, Microsoft Cortana and Google Assistant around the world. These important changes have triggered several …

Extreme Dynamics Of Nanomaterials Under High-Rate Mechanical Stimuli, Wanting Xie

Doctoral Dissertations

Nanomaterials demonstrate novel mechanical properties attributed to the extremely large interfacial area. At quasi-static rates, the interfacial interactions are crucial in mechanical behaviors, however, materials under extreme mechanical stimuli are rarely studied at nanoscale. With an advanced laser-induced projectile impact test, we perform supersonic impact of micro-projectiles on polymer films, multilayer graphene, carbon- based nanocomposites membranes as well as individual micro-fibers, to study the interface interactions in the high-rate regime, and develop a simplified model to characterize the ballistic performance of materials.

Cytochrome P450 Monooxygenase-Mediated Lipid Metabolism In Obesity And Colon Tumorigenesis, Weicang Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Colon cancer is a major public health issue: it is expected to have 140,250 new cases and 50,630 deaths during 2018, making colon cancer the third most common type of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Obesity is associated with enhanced colonic inflammation, which is a major risk factor of colorectal cancer. Currently, more than 35% of adults and nearly 17% of children are obese. Considering the obesity and colon cancer epidemic in the United States, there is an urgent need to identify novel therapeutic targets for obesity and colon cancer. Here, using …

Supramolecular Nanoassemblies For The Separation And Mass Spectrometric Analysis Of Peptides And Modified Proteins, Meizhe Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Protein post-translational modifications (PTMs) play key roles in cellular physiology and disease, and identifying their locations on proteins can be beneficial for understanding more deeply protein chemistry. The methods applied for PTM analysis are most often based on mass spectrometry (MS). In the past few years, considerable progress has been made in developing MS-based proteomics technologies for global PTM analysis. Novel mass spectrometric peptide sequencing and analysis technologies allow for modification site mapping at molecular level. However, detecting PTMs on proteins and peptides by MS is challenging because of their low abundance and heterogeneity. Therefore, separation prior to MS analysis …

Three Essays On Remote Work And Regional Development, Ryan Wallace

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three papers that collectively explore the relationship between remote work, or people that work from anywhere, and regional economic development. The first paper measures remote occupational employment in the United States with Census microdata and a shift-share model to decompose the share of occupational growth attributed to remote work. Findings indicate remote work has grown significantly since 2000, with the most pronounced growth in high skill jobs. The second paper uses a mixed-methods design to understand the role of remote work in migration decisions. It concludes that remote work arrangements enable access to employment opportunities …