Digital Commons Network^™

The Process Of Market Research In International Business, Shannon Downey Kidd

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Maytag Laundry Appliances And The Feature, Advantage, Benefit Selling Method, Angela Marie Caruso

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Adam Smith's Analysis Of The Modern Welfare State, Amy Elizabeth Smith

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

An Unheard Voice: Spirituality In Health Care, Benjamin Hardy Crenshaw

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Women's Mentoring : Graduate Students' Perspective, Karen Annette Griffin

Doctoral Dissertations

There is evidence that graduate students are in a unique position to benefit from both career and psychOsocial mentoring. A great deal is known about career mentoring functions in graduate school, but less is known about the psychosocial functions and particularly about the psychosocial influences of mentoring within female mentoring pairs, a population which studies suggest may be different from any other mentoring combination. The purpose of this study was to explore the mentoring experiences of women graduate students in mentoring relationships with women professors. The study focused on the potential impact of this mentoring relationship on the psychosocial development …

Impleme[N]Tation Of The Marketing Concept : An Organizational Learning Perspective, John Robert Graves

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation develops a model of implementation of the marketing concept using an organizational learning perspective. This perspective suggests that implementation of the marketing requirement implies that organizations adopt a set of shared beliefs and engage in market information processing activities that reflect the marketing concept. A set of eight hypotheses were developed to explore the relationship between marketing concept belief and market information processing activities. Data were collected from staff at Anglophone, acute-care hospitals in Canada. Forty-six hospitals were included in the final sample with an average of 14 members of each hospital providing data. Data were collected on …

Uncertainty : The Ethical Basis For The Economic Theories Of Frank H. Knight And John M. Keynes, William Burl Greer

Doctoral Dissertations

John Maynard Keynes built his General Theory upon the assumption of an entrepreneurial economy in which money matters, because of the existence of uncertainty. Frank Hyneman Knight recognized the existence of uncertainty when he distinguished it from risk, incorporating each into his articulation of the classical economic model. In so doing, Keynes and Knight are as much philosophers as economists.

The study examines the ethical dimension of uncertainty within the economic theories of Knight and Keynes. Intellectual and theological influences upon their respective theories of probability and uncertainty are considered. The role of uncertainty in defining the purpose and method …

Analysis Of Mixtures Containing Isomeric Hydrocarbons Using Process Mass Spectrometry, Martin L. Haddix

Doctoral Dissertations

The feasibility of process mass spectrometry (PrMS) as a method for the rapid analysis of a piperylene stream is assessed beginning with a focus on resolving binary mixtures of isomeric hydrocarbons. This application was suggested by an industrial member of the University of Tennessee's Measurement and Control Engineering Center (MCEC). The piperylene stream consists mostly of cis- and trans-l,3-pentadiene (totaling over 55% of the stream) along with cyclopentene (~20%) and 2-methyl-2-butene (~10%), plus others at lower levels: cyclopentane, cis- and trans-2-pentene, n-pentane. isopentane, and 2,2-dimethylbutane. This particularly challenging PrMS application involved the need for resolution of hydrocarbon isomers which …

A Certain Essence Of The Sun: Byron Herbert Reece And The Southern Poetry Tradition, Alan Jackson

Doctoral Dissertations

This study of Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958) seeks to provide a broad look at his life, his work, his reputation,and his contributions to poetry. The record of his life is largely contained in a biography. The Mountain Singer, byRaymond Cook and in several published remembrances. These Remembrances often conform to a common assumption, promoted by Atlanta newspapers and others, that Reece was a mountain man poet. The accuracy of that image is challenged in this book and shown to be more an attempt to simplify Reese's Character than to explore his complex nature or examine his unique poetic vision. Little …

Holistic Obstetrical Problem Evaluation (Hope) : Testing A Midwifery Theory To Predict Maternal And Perinatal Health Outcomes, Darlene Elizabeth Jesse

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to test the Holistic Obstetrical ProblemEvaluation (HOPE) theory, derived from Watson's Theory of Care (1979), by examining the relationship of socio-demographic factors, biophysical, psychosocial, spiritual and perceptual components to birth weight, gestational age, APGAR score and unplanned cesarean birth. A prospective correlational research design was used. A convenience sample of 120 pregnant women, between ages 14-44 and 16-28 weeks gestation from three prenatal sites was interviewed using; (1) Socio-demographic factors; (2) thePrenatal Psychosocial Profile tPPPl: (3) the Abuse Assessment Screen (AASV (4) theSpiritual Perspectives Scale (SPS); and (5) perception of pregnancy questions.Biophysical data …

A Generic Spc Framework For The Characterization Of Batch Profiles, Nitin Kaistha

Doctoral Dissertations

This work develops a generic Statistical Process Control (SPC) framework for characterizing the systematic variability seen in a historical database of batch profiles in terms of meaningful scale parameters and studying the correlation with the final product quality. The complete framework, in contrast to existing methods, is geared towards giving meaningful results that can be easily connected to the actual process.The variability in the profiles is partitioned into two parts - consistent and inconsistent. The consistent variability is characterized using scale parameters. The Consistent variability is further partitioned as along the time and measurement axes leading to time and magnitude …

Resource Use And Foraging Activity Of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, Tadarida Brasiliensis Mexicana (Molossidae), Ya-Fu Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

Foraging patterns and the food habits of insectivorous bats may evolve in response to a variety of intrinsic (e.g., energetic demands, nutrient requirements, and morphological or physiological constraints in acquiring and consuming food) and extrinsic factors (e.g., the distribution and abundance of insect prey, and interactions with other organisms). This study investigates the foraging behavior and ecology of Mexican free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana (Saussure, 1860) (Molossidae) residing in large colonies, with emphases on their dietary breadth and variation, their foraging activity, and their resource use patterns.

Food habits and dietary variation of insectivorous Mexican free-tailed bats were investigated at …

Local Television News Viewing : The Relationship Between Anchor Characteristics And Frequency And Exclusivity Of Viewing, John James Lombardi

Doctoral Dissertations

Until the mid-to-late 1970s television news programming was produced simply because the FCC mandated it. Today, television news is big business. More and more Americans are relying on television for their news and information. Additionally, news revenues are soaringIn a recent Radio Television News Directors Association survey, less than 10 percent of responding local television stations reported losing money with their news programming. On average local television news programming is responsible for generating one-third of a station's revenues. This is a result of increased viewing and increased advertising.

Many researchers believe that the anchors play a significant role in attracting …

Cross-Culture Contact : A Study Of Factors That Contribute To Culture Shock On Esl Students' Adjustment In The English Language Institute At The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville, Jingyun Li

Doctoral Dissertations

The factors that contribute to culture shock among international students who study abroad have been researched continuously since 1960. However, the findings remain controversial.

The purpose of this study was to identify, through survey research methodology, what demographic factors, including age, gender, marital status, nationality, length of stay in the U.S., previous travel experience in other countries, and number of American friends, were related to culture shock linguistically, socially, and psychologically among ESL students.

Subjects participating in this study were 66 ESL students who were native speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish at the English Language Institute at The …

Working Memory And Writing : A Comparison Of Two Types Of Dynamic Assessment Of Working Memory And The Relationship To Writing Ability Of Heterogeneously Grouped Seventh Grade Students, Sandra Regina Machleit

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the relationship of working memory under two types of dynamic assessment methods to the writing abilities of middle school-aged students. The Testof Written Language-Third Edition, Forms A and B (TOWL-3)was administered to heterogeneously grouped, seventh-grade students as pre-and post-test measures of writing. TheSwanson's Cognitive Processing Test (S-CPT) was administered as an intervening measure of working memory using two types of dynamic assessment approaches, graduated prompting (GP)and mediated learning experience (MLE).Working memory is defined as the mechanism by which individuals store and retrieve information needed to perform a particular task and is highly correlated with achievement.Moreover, working memory …

The Influence Of The Undergraduate Chemistry Department On Female Chemistry Majors, Gail Mcdade Meyer

Doctoral Dissertations

Women continue to be underrepresented in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. The problem for undergraduate departments in these areas is to identify factors under their control which may increase the number of women who select, and persist in, their majors.The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether there is a difference in the environment of an undergraduate chemistry department which graduates a relatively high proportion of women to that of one which graduates a relatively low proportion of women. Case studies of two undergraduate chemistry departments at CarnegieComprehensive I universities in the same state, one with a relatively …

Centrality Dependence Of Antiproton Production In Proton-Nucleus Collisions At 17.5 And 12.3 Gev, Saskia Mioduszewski

Doctoral Dissertations

Experiment 910, performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (BNL-AGS), is a fixed target proton-nucleus experiment. We analyze data for nominal beam momenta 12 GeV/c and 18 GeV/c and targets Au, Cu, and Be. We characterize events with the number of projectile collisions. A new model is presented to relate the number of "grey tracks"to the number of projectile collisions and compared to a previously established model. The results of the models are similar, but the new model is shown to better describe the data. We investigate antiproton production. In an attempt to disentangle the production mechanisms and …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Experience Of The Spouse Of A Heart Transplant Recipient, Alice Hill Mccurry

Doctoral Dissertations

Heart transplantation is an increasingly common treatment for end-stage heart disease and often involves extended periods of waiting for the transplant, recovering from the surgery, and life changes related to compliance with subsequent perennial medical follow-up and treatment. Current research readily documents increasing success in cardiac transplantation and in the long-term quality of life of recipients.Relatively few studies, however, have explored the impact of this critical life event on the spouse and/or children of the transplant recipient.The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experience of spouses of heart transplant recipients. The study used a phenomenological design …

The Rheology Of Chain Molecules Under Shear, Jonathan D. Moore

Doctoral Dissertations

The rheology of chain molecules is a subject that comprises a wide variety of complex physical phenomena, challenging scientific questions, and fundamentally important practical applications. Computer simulation, molecular dynamics in particular, is a powerful tool to provide insight into these subjects on a molecular level. In this work, nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) is employed to study linear and branched alkane chains in the melt state under transient and steady-state shearing conditions. This study focuses on three isomers of C₃₀H₆₂ (n-triacontane, squalane, and 9-n-octyldocosane) as well as a linear short-chain polyethylene (C₁₀₀H₂₀₂)- A transferable …

Educational Psychology At The Millennium: An Electronic Analysis Of Doctoral Programs, Michael E. Nolan

Doctoral Dissertations

Students and professionals in both education and psychology need current information about doctoral training in educational psychology, because such closely related programs as school psychology, developmental psychology, and counseling psychology are competing with educational psychology for doctoral students and other resources. Moreover, because students and professionals are increasingly using the internet as their source of current information, the primary source of information used in this study was internet web sites for doctoral programs in educational psychology.

This dissertation provides programmatic data on the current doctoral programs in educational psychology, including demographic features (e.g., number of programs, most popular degrees, degree …

Synthesis And Development Of Selective Ion-Exchange Resins For The Removal Of Toxic Metal Ions From Water In The Environment, Robert Dean Ober

Doctoral Dissertations

A general synthesis for the formation of polymer bound phosphonate esters and phosphonamides has been devised and studied. Phosphonic acid resin was produced by an Arbusov reaction and subsequent hydrolysis of a vinylbenzyl chloride-divinylbenzene copolymer. The phosphonic acid resin was reacted with thionyl chloride to form a reactive intermediate, phosphoryl dichloride resin. The phosphoryl dichloride resin was reacted with various alcohols and amines to form the aforementioned resins. Reaction time, reaction ten^erature, reaction solvent, pre-reaction work-up, and post-reaction work-up were all studied. A mechanism has been proposed to help explain the trends accompanying the reaction variables. The mechanism states that …

Exploring The Information Processing Capabilities Of Random Dendritic Neural Nets, Tzusheng Pei

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this research is to investigate to what degree randona artificial dendritic nets can differentiate between temporal patterns after modifying the synaptic weights of certain synapses according to a learning algorithm based on the Fourier transform.

A dendritic net is organized into subnets, which provide impulse responses to a function as a basis for Fourier decomposition of the input pattern. Each subnet is randomly generated. According to the simulations, randomly generated subnets with appropriate parameters are good enough to provide the impulse responses for the Fourier decomposition.

The electrical potential pattern across the membrane of the dendrites follows …

The Three Faces Of Inter-Organizational Relationships: Towards A Theory Of Logistics Relationships, Strategy, And Inter-Organizational Learning, Madhav Pappu

Doctoral Dissertations

A growing concern of today's business executives is the increasing volatility of their organization's environment. In order to manage these turbulent environments, inter-firm collaborations are becoming more and more pervasive. A critical question, however, is "are such inter-organizational relationships working?" According to several researchers they are apparently not very successful.

The purpose of this research is to develop a rigorous, comprehensive, wellgrounded theoretical model describing inter-organizational logistics relationships (lOLRs). It began with the following research questions in mind:

• How do lOLRs form?
• How do strategic and non-strategic lOLRs differ?
• Finally, is the learning perspective more effective than existing …

Finding Fibonacci : An Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts Course Based On Mathematical Patterns, Margaret Stevenson Ribble

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to design, teach, and evaluate an undergraduate interdisciplinary mathematics course based on certain patterns, primarily the Fibonacci sequence. Rationale for the course includes the benefits of connected learning and the scarcity of liberal arts courses based on mathematics. The course is intended to emphasize pattern exploration in mathematics as well as in other disciplines. It is hoped that students in the course will find connections between mathematics and history, art, architecture, music, literature, nature, and economics.

Course design includes a syllabus, student textbook, and sample lesson plans. The student textbook explores mathematical connections with …

Effects Of 2,4-D And 2,4,5-T Metabolites On Degradation Of Chlorinated Phenoxyacetic Acids, Dibenzofuran, And Dibenzo-P-Dioxin By Environmental Bacteria, James Franklin Rice

Doctoral Dissertations

Agent Orange herbicide contaminated soils were utilized in enrichment culture studies to isolate 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5- trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) degrading bacteria. HPLC analyses of these soils demonstrated the presence of 22.4 mg/kg 2,4-D and 73.8 mg/kg 2,4,5-T. Two bacteria, Burkholderia species strain JRBl and Burkholderia species strain JR7B3, were isolated from these soils. These strains were able to mineralize 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, respectively. Similar enrichment culture studies were unsuccessful in identifying dibenzofuran (DBF) and dibenzo-p-dioxin (DD) degrading bacteria. PGR experiments utilizing known genetic sequences from other 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T degrading bacteria have shown that these organisms contain gene …

The Status Of Environmental Education In Elementary And Middle Public Schools Of East Tennessee : A Teacher Perspective, Amadou Bocar Cire Sall

Doctoral Dissertations

Worldwide efforts are being made to improve the quality of human life and the quality of the environment. In order to achieve these ends, educators must prepare individuals to become environmentally literate citizens and well-informed decision-makers in a fast changing technological world. This descriptive study used surveys to determine the status of environmental education in East Tennessee school systems as perceived by elementary and middle school teachers. Through this study, information was provided about what is being done and what needs to be done to improve environmental education in the State of Tennessee. A valid and reliable instrument, developed and …

Improved Techniques For Software Testing Based On Markov Chain Usage Models, Kirk D. Sayre

Doctoral Dissertations

In statistical testing of software all possible uses of the software, at some level of abstraction, are represented by a statistical model wherein each possible use of the software has an associated probability of occurrence [16]. Test cases are drawn from the sample population of possible uses according to the sample distribution and run against the software under test. Various statistics of interest, such as the estimated failure rate and mean time to failure of the software are computed. The testing performed is evaluated relative to the population of uses to determine whether or not to stop testing.

The model …

On Black Holes And D-Branes, Marina Valentinovna Shmakova

Doctoral Dissertations

N=2 supersymmetric extreme black holes associated with the different types of the moduli space are investigated. The explicit solutions for the black hole entropy as a function of the electric and magnetic charges of the black hole are found. Starting with the simple case of two moduli and two electric and magnetic charges ( qΛ and p^ with Λ = 0,1) the investigation proceeds to the more complicated moduli spaces, such as the most general form of the Calabi-Yau moduli space with the arbitrary number of moduli fields. The global N=4 Supersymmetry transformations for the gauge-fixed K symmetric Born-Infeld D3 …

Innovative Approaches To Selective Detection And Remote Analysis : Developments In Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (Sers)-Based And Separations-Based Fiberoptic Chemical Sensors, David L. Stokes

Doctoral Dissertations

This two-part study investigates the feasibility of selective detection in remote analysis based on 1) surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), and 2) separations-based fiberoptic sensing (SBFOS).

For the first case, the extremely sharp spectral features of Raman scattering can sometimes allow the analysis of multicomponent samples without complicated sample pretreatment steps. Furthermore, the giant signal-enhancing effect of SERS can enable trace level detection. A solid, surface-based metallic substrate approach is taken for the development of a practical SERS technology. Various substrates are described, including silver-coated alumina, silver-coated Ti02, and silver islands. These substrates are economical and easy to fabricate with a …

Accountability In Public Agency Contracting : The Case Of Child Protective Services In East Tennessee, Christine G. Ludowise

Doctoral Dissertations

In the United States, units of local, state, and federal governments have contracted out for goods and services for decades. However, in recent years there has been a growth in the provision of social services by private, not-for-profit vendors. The development of privatized public services has led to questions about the nature of accountability in public-private partnerships.

Contracting out is often government's solution to political and social pressures to cut costs and to improve services and efficiency. Not many would argue that government should buy goods and services for cheaper than it can produce them. Contracts between government and service …