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Ugh…Statistics! College Students’ Attitudes And Perceptions Toward Statistics, Drew A. Doyle Jan 2017

Ugh…Statistics! College Students’ Attitudes And Perceptions Toward Statistics, Drew A. Doyle

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Statistics is a course that is required for a majority of undergraduate college students in a wide variety of majors. It is not just required for Statistics or Mathematics majors, but also for those undergraduate college students majoring in Biology, Engineering, Sociology, and countless other majors. It can often be seen as a daunting course, especially for those who feel that mathematics is not their strongest subject. Students begin to dislike the course before even starting and this can carry on throughout the entirety of the course. This thesis will focus primarily on students’ perceptions and attitudes toward their statistics …

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Keep Your Thoughts Off My Body: Social Attitudes Toward Rape-Related Abortions, Ketty Fernandez Jan 2017

Keep Your Thoughts Off My Body: Social Attitudes Toward Rape-Related Abortions, Ketty Fernandez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, abortion continues to be an ongoing debate among pro-choice and pro-life groups, and politicians, and is one of the many barriers women may face. As rape continues in being a significant social issue, rape-related pregnancies and abortions have been understudied. By using the General Social Survey (GSS), this paper analyzes various sociodemographic variables which may influence social attitudes toward rape-related abortions. Findings indicate that Blacks, women, those living in the South, and age were not significant predictors of whether a pregnant woman should have a legal abortion as a result of rape. Other …

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The Influences Of Roles And Support Systems On The Baccalaureate Degree Attainment Of Nontraditional Learners, Shirdricka Roberts Jan 2017

The Influences Of Roles And Support Systems On The Baccalaureate Degree Attainment Of Nontraditional Learners, Shirdricka Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the research study was to examine the influences of roles and support systems on the baccalaureate attainment of nontraditional learners. A qualitative bounded case study was conducted that include ten face-to-face interviews with nontraditional learners attending the same University during the same time period. The study provided a brief overview on the challenges, support systems, and motivations of these nontraditional learners. Theories used to frame the study's conceptual framework and address its research questions included Biddle's (1979) Role Theory, McClusky's Theory of Margin, Load and Power (1971) and Tinto's (1975, 1993, 2012) and Bean and Metzner's (1985) …

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Examination Of The Challenges Faced By Foreign-Born Students In A State College That May Prolong/Prevent Graduation., Modupe Soremi Jan 2017

Examination Of The Challenges Faced By Foreign-Born Students In A State College That May Prolong/Prevent Graduation., Modupe Soremi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study stems from several reports indicating the increasing competitiveness of the world economy, the requirement of at least an associate degree in the fastest growing jobs in the U.S. labor market, and the unprecedented increase in the foreign-born population in the United States since the 1970s (U.S. Census Bureau Web, 2016; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projection, 2009; President's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), 2009). Understanding the challenges faced by foreign-born students at state colleges will create an avenue for recommending solutions to many these challenges, thereby increasing their educational attainment and economic productivity, hence preparing more Americans …

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English Language Arts Preservice And Inservice Teacher's Knowledge About How To Use Etextbooks And Open Educational Resources To Support Students' Comprehension: A Case Study, Lourdes Smith Jan 2017

English Language Arts Preservice And Inservice Teacher's Knowledge About How To Use Etextbooks And Open Educational Resources To Support Students' Comprehension: A Case Study, Lourdes Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this qualitative, descriptive case study was to (a) investigate the knowledge English Language Arts preservice and inservice teachers had about eTextbooks and Open Educational Resources (OERs) and (b) how they planned to use that knowledge to develop their current/future 6-12 grade students' comprehension and content knowledge. Included within the study were specifics regarding how eTextbooks and OERs can be used to support adolescent learners and how online comprehension skills can be developed. Data were analyzed in order to determine themes related to the use and planning for eTextbooks and OERs in the secondary ELA classroom. Data sources …

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Sexual Violence Victimization And Prescription Drug Misuse: An Analysis Using General Strain Theory, Corey Pomykacz Jan 2017

Sexual Violence Victimization And Prescription Drug Misuse: An Analysis Using General Strain Theory, Corey Pomykacz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sexual violence among college women is a widespread and severe public health issue in the United States. When compared to women in the general public, collegiate women are at an increased risk of sexual violence. Sexual violence can result in damaging and long-term consequences for the victim. Consequences of sexual violence include physical injuries, psychological distress, social withdrawal, poor grades and participation in health risk behaviors. While a connection between sexual violence victimization and negative outcomes is well established, most of the research in this area is atheoretical. To address this gap in the literature this study relied on Robert …

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Then And Now: Using Syllabi To Shape The College Classroom, Jessica Valentin Jan 2017

Then And Now: Using Syllabi To Shape The College Classroom, Jessica Valentin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While the college classroom has been researched, its climate has received little attention in research. This study analyzes the climate of the classroom using 189 syllabi from various sociology courses. Drawing from data collected by Grauerholz and Gibson (2006) and syllabi from the Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology (TRAILS), the current study compares college classroom syllabi from two different times periods (pre-2005 and post- 2010) to analyze the frequency of classroom climate statements, the variables that may contribute to the presence of a statement, and common language/themes existent in syllabi that did contain a statement. Results showed a …

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"The Best Thing Sociology Can Do": The Transformative Potential Of A Community Action And Involvement Class, Brenda Savage Jan 2017

"The Best Thing Sociology Can Do": The Transformative Potential Of A Community Action And Involvement Class, Brenda Savage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the transformative potential of a Community Action and Involvement course, an undergraduate sociological elective taught at a large southeastern university, to develop or support undergraduates' sense of personal agency and provide the resources necessary for them to engage in the work of social change. The research is rooted in both Bourdieu's conceptualization of habitus and the work of Carmen Mills (2008) on the simultaneous existence of a reproductive and transformative habitus within students. This is a mixed methods study, which includes the analysis of pre- and post-course survey data and over 800 student writings collected during the …

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Career Preparation For Interdisciplinary Science Phd Students: A Case Study, Sabrina Gordon Jan 2017

Career Preparation For Interdisciplinary Science Phd Students: A Case Study, Sabrina Gordon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This case study intended to collect and analyze responses from stakeholders of the UCF Modeling and Simulation graduate program regarding the ways in which interdisciplinary (IDS) science PhD students could be prepared for diverse career paths. A mixed methodology study was executed and quantitative survey (N=96) and qualitative interview (N=10) data were collected to address three research questions. Overall, stakeholders for this case study were found to represent the three main career paths of academia, government, and industry. Survey data were utilized to gauge the level of importance that survey participants perceived for various survey scales and items. The scales …

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Network Partitioning In Distributed Agent-Based Models, Antoniya Petkova Jan 2017

Network Partitioning In Distributed Agent-Based Models, Antoniya Petkova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are an emerging simulation paradigm for modeling complex systems, comprised of autonomous, possibly heterogeneous, interacting agents. The utility of ABMs lies in their ability to represent such complex systems as self-organizing networks of agents. Modeling and understanding the behavior of complex systems usually occurs at large and representative scales, and often obtaining and visualizing of simulation results in real-time is critical. The real-time requirement necessitates the use of in-memory computing, as it is difficult and challenging to handle the latency and unpredictability of disk accesses. Combining this observation with the scale requirement emphasizes the need to use …

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Learning Dynamic Network Models For Complex Social Systems, Alireza Hajibagheri Jan 2017

Learning Dynamic Network Models For Complex Social Systems, Alireza Hajibagheri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human societies are inherently complex and highly dynamic, resulting in rapidly changing social networks, containing multiple types of dyadic interactions. Analyzing these time-varying multiplex networks with approaches developed for static, single layer networks often produces poor results. To address this problem, our approach is to explicitly learn the dynamics of these complex networks. This dissertation focuses on five problems: 1) learning link formation rates; 2) predicting changes in community membership; 3) using time series to predict changes in network structure; 4) modeling coevolution patterns across network layers and 5) extracting information from negative layers of a multiplex network. To study …

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Size, Functional Heterogeneity, And Teamwork Quality Predict Team Creativity And Innovation, Robert L. Dipboye Jan 2017

Size, Functional Heterogeneity, And Teamwork Quality Predict Team Creativity And Innovation, Robert L. Dipboye

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Team size, heterogeneity, and an aggregate measure of teamwork quality predicted the effectiveness of organizational problem solving teams in generating ideas and obtaining the acceptance of management for these ideas. The results of regression analyses revealed that large teams generated more total and implemented ideas than smaller teams. In addition to more total and implemented ideas, teams with higher functional heterogeneity and teamwork quality generated more total and implemented ideas per member. Team size also moderated the effects of self-reported teamwork quality such that larger teams showed a stronger positive relation of teamwork quality with total and implemented ideas than …

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The Relationship Between Participation In Tutoring And Accountability Outcomes In Three Urban Middle Schools, Pamela Rajadhyax Jan 2017

The Relationship Between Participation In Tutoring And Accountability Outcomes In Three Urban Middle Schools, Pamela Rajadhyax

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study was conducted to determine the relationship between participation in a school based tutoring and change in accountability measures on the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) in Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) in the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years. The research was designed to determine the impact of participation in tutoring for urban middle school students. All students who attended one of the three urban middle schools and participated in the administration of FSA for mathematics or ELA in both the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years were divided into two groups: students who participated in school based tutoring …

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Impacts Of Workplace Violence: The Role Of Inequality, Lindsey Singer Jan 2017

Impacts Of Workplace Violence: The Role Of Inequality, Lindsey Singer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2011 the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reported that of people who are employed and aged 16 and older, 24% of nonfatal violent incidents happened at work. To understand the magnitude of the problem, from 2005 to 2009, 572,000 nonfatal workplace crimes occurred against people aged 16 or older. Annually, the rate of workplace violence was about 5 victimizations per 1,000 employed persons aged 16 and older (Harrell 2011). The impact of crime on victims is a topic that deserves attention because it extends our understanding beyond descriptive rates of violence. Workplace victimization, like most other types of victimizations …

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"Why You Gotta Be So Mean?" Examining The Impact Of Underlying Social Factors On Traditional And Cyberbullying Offending, Emily Strohacker Jan 2017

"Why You Gotta Be So Mean?" Examining The Impact Of Underlying Social Factors On Traditional And Cyberbullying Offending, Emily Strohacker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Instances of traditional school yard bullying among adolescents have been examined by researchers for decades. More recently, cyberbullying has been introduced among adolescents and has begun to be seen as a counterpart to traditional offending behaviors. Scholars have examined the rates of these types of offending, as well as the negative outcomes that result from victimization. However, studies examining the underlying factors that lead to these types of offending, specifically a comparison and combination of the two, are few and far between. This research examines how factors of strain, association with deviant peers, alcohol and/or drug use, and time spent …

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Black, White, And Read All Over: Exploring Racial Bias In Print Media Coverage Of Serial Rape Cases, Lauren Wright Jan 2017

Black, White, And Read All Over: Exploring Racial Bias In Print Media Coverage Of Serial Rape Cases, Lauren Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discussion of race and crime has been a long-standing interest of researchers, with statistics consistently showing an overrepresentation of non-white offenders compared to their white counterparts – specifically in relation to violent crimes such as murder and rape. Prior research has found that about 46 percent of serial rapists are black, a fact that correlates with other sensationalized violent crimes such as mass murder and serial murder. The news media are the primary sources of this kind of information for the general public, with previous studies acknowledging that the media primarily focus on discussing non-white offenders in their crime-based …

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The Workplace Consequences Of Obesity: Impacts On The Organization, The Employee, And The Proximal Coworker, Michael Johnson Jan 2017

The Workplace Consequences Of Obesity: Impacts On The Organization, The Employee, And The Proximal Coworker, Michael Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is a condition affecting billions of people around the world. Its societal, psychological, and health outcomes have been well documented across multiple disciplines. Moreover, obesity leads to serious workplace outcomes for the organization, the obese individual, and the coworkers working around the obese employee. With this multi-chapter dissertation, I review the literature on the workplace consequences of obesity and extend one potentially fruitful area within this literature base: obesity's impact on a proximal employee. Chapter 1 reviews the workplace consequences associated with obesity. The purpose is to evaluate and integrate this multidisciplinary literature so that management scholars can take …

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Gee, Thanks: The Emotional And Structural Forces That Influence Subordinates' Upward Gratitude Expressions, Sharon Sheridan Jan 2017

Gee, Thanks: The Emotional And Structural Forces That Influence Subordinates' Upward Gratitude Expressions, Sharon Sheridan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, relationship scholars have demonstrated the importance of expressions of gratitude in cultivating relational bonds and relational satisfaction between close friends and romantic partners. Although there is growing evidence that gratitude facilitates improved relationships, organizational scholars have largely ignored the importance of gratitude in the workplace. What little we know indicates that expressions of gratitude in organizations may be rare. Indeed, a recent national survey revealed that 74% of the participants rarely, if ever, expressed gratitude to their supervisors (Kaplan, 2012). What might explain this apparent lack of gratitude? Research demonstrates that when individuals feel grateful for the generosity of …

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Predicting Gun Ownership In America: Birth Cohort, Political Views, And Attitudes Towards Gun Control Legislation, Jared Adams Jan 2017

Predicting Gun Ownership In America: Birth Cohort, Political Views, And Attitudes Towards Gun Control Legislation, Jared Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With mass shootings occurring with frightening regularity, research into gun ownership behavior is becoming increasingly important for public policy creation and public safety. While extant research tells us that firearm ownership is woven deep into the historical fabric of American culture, scholarship has yet to fully explore predictors for gun ownership. Employing 2015 Pew Research Center political survey data, this study examines the predictive effects of birth cohort, political ideology, and attitudes towards gun control legislation on gun ownership, with and without controls, using hierarchical binary logistic regression models. The presented models examine three separate cohorts: The Millennials, Generation X, …

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Abortion Attitudes And Subjective Religiosity: Examining A Fourfold Typology, Christopher Guido Jan 2017

Abortion Attitudes And Subjective Religiosity: Examining A Fourfold Typology, Christopher Guido

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an exploratory study that examins the relationship between religious persons and attitudes toward legal abortion. This study presents a fourfold typology of respondents: (1) pro-choice, but not religious, (2) pro-choice and religious, (3) pro-life, but not religious, and (4) pro-life and religious. This study looks for characteristics of respondents in these categories. As previous research was examined on the relationship between religion and abortion attitudes, the question on what social characteristics make up the four categories of pro-choice and pro-life respondents was examined. Findings show that social characteristics of respondents vary across categories of subjective religiosity and attitudes …

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Female Offenders Of Intimate Partner Homicide: Victim, Offender, And Case Characteristics, Alec Szalewski Jan 2017

Female Offenders Of Intimate Partner Homicide: Victim, Offender, And Case Characteristics, Alec Szalewski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intimate partner homicide (IPH) represents between 10% and 16% of all homicides (Catalano, Smith, Snyder, & Rand, 2009; Cooper & Smith, 2011; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011; Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2009). Yet, research on gender-specific IPH offending is lacking at the individual offense level, especially when a woman is the offender. The majority of the research assessing gender-specific IPH offending examines motivations, as well as situational and structural variables. For instance, motivations may include self-defense or jealousy and situational variables may include employment status or past criminal histories. Structural variables include macro-level concepts such as poverty, education, or income. The …

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Dating Violence Victimization And Substance Use: Do Genes Play A Role?, Alexis Yohros Jan 2017

Dating Violence Victimization And Substance Use: Do Genes Play A Role?, Alexis Yohros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dating violence (DV) victimization in adolescence has been shown to be predictive of both negative emotions and delinquent behavior later in life. However, research that delves into DV victimization and subsequent outcomes, such as deviant behavior, is largely atheoretical. Robert Agnew's general strain theory (GST) provides a theoretical framework to address this limitation. In focusing on negative interactions with others, the theory posits that strain produces negative affect states which leads to deviant or criminal coping. Prior research has identified victimization as a strain, a type of noxious stimuli, which is significantly related to negative emotionality, crime, and deviance. I …

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A Place In The Pew: Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Individuals' Perceptions Of Religious Traditions, Mandi Barringer Jan 2017

A Place In The Pew: Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Individuals' Perceptions Of Religious Traditions, Mandi Barringer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research shows that sexual minorities have been criticized and rejected by nearly every major religious group in the United States. The cumulative alienation that sexual minorities experience from mainline religious groups may leave them feeling disillusioned and even hostile toward religious organizations which have historically rejected them. However, research to date has not explored sexual minorities' perceptions of religious collectives in the United States. The current study examines the variations between lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals regarding their religious beliefs and perceptions of religious collectives' attitudes toward the LGB and transgender (LGBT) population. Utilizing data from the 2013 Pew …

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Damned To Hell: The Black Church Experience For College Educated Lesbians, Gays, And Bisexuals, Edwanna Andrews Jan 2017

Damned To Hell: The Black Church Experience For College Educated Lesbians, Gays, And Bisexuals, Edwanna Andrews

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite increased acceptance nationally towards same-sex sexuality, intolerance within the Black Church against those who identify as lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) continues to persist. As one of the most important institutions in the African American community, the significance of the Black Church makes the religious experience particularly influential. LGBs frequently experience homonegativity in the Black Church in the form of homophobic laced sermons, Microaggressions, and church gossip. The stigma LGBs encounter around homosexuality in the Black Church has created a dissonance between their religious beliefs, faith, and sexual identity. This study explores the multifaceted experience of lesbian, gay, and …

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Rhetoric Of Imagery: Gendering And Consumption Throughout Interwar American Advertisment, Natalie Delgado Jan 2017

Rhetoric Of Imagery: Gendering And Consumption Throughout Interwar American Advertisment, Natalie Delgado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interwar American advertising rose alongside new levels of hygiene, personal appearance, and technology in order to sell their products to target audiences. Despite the abundance of scholarship on media and gender, few studies have examined the gendered techniques through which interwar advertisers communicated with consumers in response to changing social norms and economic stability. The question this thesis explores is how these changes and communication shifted in response to consumer culture and how advertisers utilized early market research and persuasion techniques to target their audiences. Building on the studies of gender, consumption, and identity, this thesis examines the relationship between …

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Faculty Knowledge And Readiness In Reporting Student Victimization Disclosure And Title Ix Compliance, Abigail Malick Jan 2017

Faculty Knowledge And Readiness In Reporting Student Victimization Disclosure And Title Ix Compliance, Abigail Malick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. Department of Education and Title IX Educational Act of 1972 shaped the way institutions of higher education address and prevent student victimizations. The law originally sought to eliminate sex-based discrimination in education but has evolved to include sexual misconduct. Since the Dear Colleague Letter of 2011, the position of institutions has changed significantly in the way they address student victimization as it relates to dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking (Rosenthal, 2017). One requirement is that institutions inform and train Responsible Employees to report when a student discloses experiencing sexual misconduct, including dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking. …

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From Dude To Dad: A Study On Prenatal Fatherhood And Its Representation In Theatre, Michael Nilsson Jan 2017

From Dude To Dad: A Study On Prenatal Fatherhood And Its Representation In Theatre, Michael Nilsson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A man in the preparatory phase for parenthood with his first child can go through a lot of extreme emotional highs and lows, depending upon the man's economic, relationship, and physical status, as well as community pressures and support. In preparation to portray an array of prenatal fathers in a showcase of scenes, I have read an assortment of plays and scholarly sources. In reading a large sample of prenatal plays, I have extracted several possible emotional changes within a man's psyche. I also analyzed the social rationale behind these changes through the writings of sociologists and other scholarly sources. …

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Living With Marie: Dramatherapy In The Creation Of Performable Theatre, Madelyn James Jan 2017

Living With Marie: Dramatherapy In The Creation Of Performable Theatre, Madelyn James

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Living with Marie is a project aiming to adapt dramatherapy techniques so that they are better suited to the creation of theatre in an attempt to educate audiences of the struggles some individuals cope with while living with mental illness. By using the practices implemented by dramatherapists Sue Jennings, John Casson, R. M. Simon, and Phil Jones, the evolution of my play Living with Marie can be seen as first originating in imagery before progressing to text and finally, performable art. This venture, inspired by my own psychotic struggle, gives audiences a glimpse into the clandestine existence of a nameless …

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The Expansion Of Financial Regulation To Include Humanitarian Issues:An Examination Of The Development Of Conflict Mineral Reporting Requirements Using Actor-Network Theory, Robert Tennant Jan 2017

The Expansion Of Financial Regulation To Include Humanitarian Issues:An Examination Of The Development Of Conflict Mineral Reporting Requirements Using Actor-Network Theory, Robert Tennant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study conceptually and empirically examines the establishment of certain financial regulation that resulted from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009. The crisis led to the establishment of the most extensive change in the regulation of the financial sector since the Great Depression (Green, 2011). During the forty years leading up to the crisis, the United States had engaged in a process of increased deregulation to promote greater efficiency (Yaron & Hendershott, 1998). The belief that reduced regulation would improve efficiency and foster innovation became the mantra of many economic advisers to policy setters, to the point that as …

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Understanding Arson Through Community Resilience, Rhena South Jan 2017

Understanding Arson Through Community Resilience, Rhena South

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over 40,000 arsons were reported in the 2014 Uniform Crime Report; however, this number is underestimated since there are no official arson trends reported by the FBI due to the lack of agencies reporting this offense. Arson is one of the most destructive and under researched crimes. This lack of research can be attributed to the dual definition of arson – that is, the destruction of one's own property or someone else's property – the opportunistic nature of arson, and the inability to determine a measurable rate. The current study uses data from the Chicago Police Department's Citizen Law Enforcement …

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