Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Housing Policies On Housing Prices In South Korea, Daeil Kwon

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The South Korean government has been intervening in the housing market for a long time to either activate or stabilize housing prices. However, there is a controversy about the effect of housing policy in South Korea. I analyzed the effect of housing policies as well as other factor s (interest rate, cost of renting, inflation, stock price, unemployment rate, exchange rate) on housing prices nationally as well as in northern Seoul and in southern Seoul, from January 2000 to January 2015 (181 months of data).

According to the results of my regression analysis to test the effect of housing policies, …

Riding In Real-Time: Estimating Ridership Effects Of The Adoption Of Mobile Real-Time Transit Tracking Applications, Kendrick Vonderschmitt

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Advances in technology, and declining costs of adoption have permitted local transit agencies to provide real-time tracking information to their customers. The customers through the use of a mobile phone can find up-to-the-minute wait times for transit stops. This is enabled through the use of GPS technology and modern mapping software to account for networked distance and traffic impedance. This technology is a service upgrade in strict economic terms, but it is important to inquire whether such an improvement would have an effect on service utilization. This study analyzes the relationship between ridership and adoption of this service upgrade.

The …

Nonprofit Organizations & Social Media Fundraising: An Analysis Of The Goodgiving Guide Challenge, Laura Whitaker

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In today’s age of social media and interconnectedness, nonprofit organizations have the ability to be creative in their fundraising efforts. One method of online fundraising is a social media campaign, such as the GoodGiving Guide Challenge, an eight-week online charitable giving campaign for nonprofit organizations across Central Kentucky.

A review of related literature shows that previous studies have touched on the growing trend of social media as a nonprofit marketing tool, the role of internet in the nonprofit sector in general, the return on investment in nonprofit internet use, and the importance of accountability and trust in terms of online …

Influences On Reported Nonprofit Lobbying Efforts, Alyson Partain

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The nonprofit sector holds an interesting role in democracy, as this segment balances the powers of government and business by providing a way to cultivate social justice and afford people a means of acting and promoting interests outside of the government and private sectors. Nonprofit organizations therefore allow people to join together in providing services and programs that strengthen the communities in which they act. Advocacy involves identifying, embracing, and promoting a cause, especially by educating the public about their organization, whether this is through public engagement, coalition building, or lobbying.

Lobbying is a specific but critical component of general …

The Role Of Surface Chemistry In The Toxicity Of Manufactured Cerium Dioxide Nanomaterials To Caenorhabditis Elegans, Emily Kay Oostveen

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Manufactured CeO₂ nanomaterials (CeO₂-MNMs) are used for a wide variety of applications including diesel fuel additives and chemical/mechanical planarization media. To test the effects of CeO₂-MNM surface coating charge on to model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, we synthesized 4 nm CeO₂ with cationic (DEAE-), anionic (CM-), and neutral (DEX) coatings. In L3 nematodes exposed for 24 hours, DEAE-CeO₂ induced lethality at lower concentrations than CM- or DEX-CeO₂. Feeding slightly decreased CeO₂ toxicity, regardless of coating. In L2 nematodes exposed for 48 hours with feeding, DEAE-CeO₂ caused lethality at the …

Understanding The Chemical Gymnastics Of Enzyme-Catalyzed 1’-1 And 1’-3 Triterpene Linkages, Stephen A. Bell

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Squalene synthase (SS) is an essential enzyme in eukaryotic systems responsible for an important branch point in isoprenoid metabolism that leads to sterol formation. The mechanistic complexity of SS has made it a difficult enzyme to study. The green alga Botryococcus braunii race B possesses several squalene synthase-like (SSL) enzymes that afford a unique opportunity to study the complex mechanism of triterpene biosynthesis. SSL-1 catalyzes presqualene diphosphate (PSPP) formation, which can either be converted to squalene by SSL-2 or botryococcene by SSL-3. A rationally designed mutant study of B. braunii squalene synthase (BbSS) and SSL-3 was conducted to understand structure-function …

Korean American Adolescents And Their Mothers: Intergenerational Differences And Their Consequences, Hui Chu

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

The current study examined the links and mechanisms associated with intergenerational cultural conflict, psychological distress, and the intergenerational differences in acculturation and model minority stereotype (MMS) endorsement for South Korean immigrants. Specifically, Korean American adolescents’ (ages 12-19, M = 15.3, SD = 1.71) and their mothers’ (N = 209 dyads) acculturation difference and MMS endorsement difference were measured and analyzed as predictors of intergenerational cultural conflict and psychological distress for adolescents. Furthermore, the study analyzed intergenerational cultural conflict as a mediator in the acculturation gap-distress and the MMS endorsement-distress paths. Results indicated that when mothers and their adolescents differed …

State Child Welfare Policy: Causes And Consequences, Dana D. Connelly

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

On any given day almost 400,000 children in the United States are living in an out-of-home care placement due to government intervention. Federal law allows for substantial variance in state child welfare policy on a number of topics. These policy decisions, however, are understudied both in terms of the forces driving them and also the impacts the policies have on actual outcomes for children in care.

Utilizing a unique panel data set comprised of thirteen child welfare policies that vary both between states and over time we examine how well redistributive theory (constituent, institutional, paternalistic and resource pressures) explains state …

Search Queries In An Information Retrieval System For Arabic-Language Texts, Zainab Majeed Albujasim

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Information retrieval aims to extract from a large collection of data a subset of information that is relevant to user’s needs. In this study, we are interested in information retrieval in Arabic-Language text documents. We focus on the Arabic language, its morphological features that potentially impact the implementation and performance of an information retrieval system and its unique characters that are absent in the Latin alphabet and require specialized approaches. Specifically, we report on the design, implementation and evaluation of the search functionality using the Vector Space Model with several weighting schemes. Our implementation uses the ISRI stemming algorithms as …

The Value Of A Place: Development Politics On The East Cape Of Baja California Sur, Mexico, Ryan B. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This research explores the politics of development on the East Cape of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Based upon twelve months of ethnographic research and participant observation, primarily in the coastal community of Cabo Pulmo, the researcher investigates and documents how local residents respond to the social and political implications of impending mass tourism development in the region. Rising land values, real estate speculation, and intensifying conflicts over land ownership were some of the earliest symptoms of this process. The central argument is that social conflicts over development are often based in deeper, fundamental political struggles over land—and the ability to …

Mobile Delivery Of Treatment For Alcohol Use Disorders: A Review Of The Literature, Andrew Quanbeck, Ming-Yuan Chih, Andrew Isham, David H. Gustafson

Health and Clinical Sciences Faculty Publications

Several systems for treating alcohol-use disorders (AUDs) exist that operate on mobile phones. These systems are categorized into four groups: text-messaging monitoring and reminder systems, text-messaging intervention systems, comprehensive recovery management systems, and game-based systems. Text-messaging monitoring and reminder systems deliver reminders and prompt reporting of alcohol consumption, enabling continuous monitoring of alcohol use. Text-messaging intervention systems additionally deliver text messages designed to promote abstinence and recovery. Comprehensive recovery management systems use the capabilities of smart-phones to provide a variety of tools and services that can be tailored to individuals, including in-the-moment assessments and access to peer discussion groups. Game-based …

Peer-To-Peer Based Trading And File Distribution For Cloud Computing, Ping Yi

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

In this dissertation we take a peer-to-peer approach to deal with two specific issues, fair trading and file distribution, arisen from data management for cloud computing.

In mobile cloud computing environment cloud providers may collaborate with each other and essentially organize some dedicated resources as a peer to peer sharing system. One well-known problem in such peer to peer systems with exchange of resources is free riding. Providing incentives for peers to contribute to the system is an important issue in peer to peer systems. We design a reputation-based fair trading mechanism that favors peers with higher reputation. Based on …

Does Overhead Spending Affect Fiscal Performance Of Nonprofits?, Shan Sandee Huang

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Overhead spending has been used to view nonprofits for decades. Donors consider overhead cost as extra “price” of a donation’s impact and would like to apply limits on overhead costs, thus improving impact ratios. However, nonprofit practitioners and researchers claim that constraints on overhead spending may hinder organizational development. This paper aims to analyze whether overhead spending affects positive fiscal performance.

The research employs the NCCS (National Center for Charitable Statistics) database containing all the data reported on IRS 990 Forms from 1,397 arts, culture and humanities organizations from 2000 to 2003. This paper uses two regression models to evaluate …

Do College Presidents Matter? An Analysis Of The Effects Of College Presidents On Retention And Graduation Rates, Wesley Whistle

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Higher education is going through a transformative time. Effective leadership of these institutions is increasingly important. Public institutions are losing more government support from both the state and federal level. Colleges and universities are also facing higher standards from the federal government. When presidential search committees are looking for candidates for their college or university, they are seeking a leader who addresses these issues, as well as many others.

Addressing falling financial support requires increased attention to fundraising. Some accept that presidents are hired primarily for fundraising for the colleges and do not expect them to play a role in …

Field Implementation Of Phanerochaete Chrysosporium Biomass Pretreatment: Fungal Identification And Inoculation Techniques, Bobby D. Carey Jr

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Scaling biological pretreatment from the bench scale to the production scale may be more economical if unsterilized feedstock are used, however these allow for microbial competition from contaminates. An accurate and rapid method for identifying the desired biological pretreatment organism is necessary to confirm the presence of the desired organism when contaminates are morphologically similar to the target organism. Traditional methods, such as visual identification, sequencing, and selective plating can be time consuming and are sometimes still inconclusive. Based on methods described in the literature, plasmid DNA containing the marker genes gus (�-glucuronidase), LacZ, and gfp (green fluorescence protein) …

A Novel Link Between Abl Family Kinases And Nm23-H1 During Metastatic Progression, Leann S. Fiore

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences

Cancer patient mortality is caused by the ability of tumor cells to invade the extracellular matrix and metastasize. Our lab was the first to identify the role of Abl family of non-receptor tyrosine kinases (c-Abl and Arg) in the progression of solid tumor cancers. In our previous studies, we showed that high c-Abl/Arg activity promotes proliferation, invasion, and metastasis in melanoma and breast cancer cells lines. Here, we demonstrate that our previous findings are clinically relevant by showing increased c-Abl/Arg kinase activity in primary melanoma tumor tissue in comparison to low activity as compared to benign nevi. Additionally, in breast …

Not Just A Women’S Issue: How Male Undergraduate Students Understand Their Development As Social Justice Allies For Preventing Men’S Violence Against Women, Alexandra M. Minieri

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Men’s violence against women includes acquaintance rape, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and partner stalking and occurs at particularly high rates on college campuses (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Although men are increasingly becoming involved in efforts to prevent these forms of violence, little is known about their motivation and the processes that lead to their involvement. The purpose of this project was to examine how undergraduate male students become social justice allies involved in preventing men’s violence against women. The theoretical frameworks of this study included transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1997, 2000) and feminist theory (Worell & Remer, 2003). …

Internationalization, English Medium Programs, And The International Graduate Student Experience In Japan: A Case Study, Kristen N. Wallitsch

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This research is a case study on the lived experience of international graduate students in the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies (GSAPS) at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Using cultural globalization and internationalization as a lens, this research positions international graduate students as local actors in an abroad community and addresses, 1) how and why students decided on an English Medium degree in Japan, and 2) the lived academic and social experiences of this particular group of students while in Japan. In-depth interviews with 17 degree seeking international graduate students explore graduate students’ past educational and professional experiences and …

Exploring Faculty Adoption And Utilization Of Blackboard At A Community College In The Kentucky Community And Technical College System, Brent A. Eldridge

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The study explored the faculty adoption and use of a Blackboard at a community college in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. A cross-sectional survey design was constructed through the lens of Rogers’s Perceived Attributes of Innovations and Chickering and Ehrman’s Implementing Seven Principles: Technology as a Lever to investigate perceptions and opinions on faculty members’ use of Blackboard in their courses. The survey was piloted, modified and deployed to a population of 932 central Kentucky community college faculty who were recruited to participate in the online survey. Descriptive demographic items (gender, age, highest degree attained, years of teaching …

Measuring Student Satisfaction In Online Math Courses, Antoinette M. Davis

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

Colleges and universities worldwide have struggled to find a way to measure student satisfaction in online courses. This study examined the growth of math courses that are delivered in the online format. This study aims to address many gaps in the research literature concerning distance education using technology. In particular, it is the intention of this study to investigate satisfaction and performance of students as a result of taking online courses.

There has been an expanding concern over whether students are satisfied and can perform well in courses taken in an online environment. Satisfaction and performance in distance education have …

African American Female Narratives And Identity Development: A Case Study Of Language, Literacy, And Identity Development In The Beauty Salon, Felicia C. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

This four-month case study explored the connections among language, literacy, and identity development of five African American women as they shared narratives within a beauty salon context. The questions that guided the study were: (a) What language and literacy practices are enacted in the beauty salon? (b) In what way do African American women narrate their experiences? (c) What stories are shared by African American women in the salon? (d) What are the effects on the listeners of the narratives shared in the salon? and (e) How are social and cultural identities (co)constructed and performed in the narratives?

The narratives …

Beyond Blue And White: University Of Kentucky Presidents And Desegregation, 1941-1987, Mark W. Russell

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This dissertation fills a gap in the historiography of southern higher education by focusing on five university presidents and their role in the desegregation of a non-elite flagship university in the Upper South. While historian Melissa Keane has studied the presidential role at elite private southern universities during the initial phase of the desegregation process, no study has yet examined desegregation from the president’s office at a southern land-grant university. Building upon historian Peter Wallenstein’s thesis that desegregation is not a single event in an institution’s history but rather an ongoing process, I argue that it was also process that …

Italian And Spanish Influence On Selected Works Of Mexican Composers: María Grever, Ignacio Fernández Esperón “Tata Nacho,” And Agustín Lara, Manuel M. Castillo

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The last decades of the 19th Century and the first decades of the 20th Century encompass a revolutionary movement worldwide. The growth and advances throughout all disciplines of study and especially the collaboration across Literature, Music, Performing Arts, Culture and Politics became stronger and more evident than ever before.

As the Mexican Revolution (1910) developed in frightening fights, the country became increasingly insecure and violent. It was the duty of the living artist to create pathways to escape reality, embellishing the surroundings with its music, paintings and poetry. This climate is what paved the way to the bohemian living-style that …

Beverly, “Music Misses You”: A Biographical And Performance Guide To American Mezzo-Soprano Beverly Wolff’S Career And Her Subsequent Impact On American Opera And Art Song, Sarah C. Downs Trail

Theses and Dissertations--Music

American mezzo-soprano, Beverly Wolff has not received the credit or respect that she deserves in operatic history. Her career began in 1952 and flourished until her retirement from the stage in 1981. Her intense characterizations, innate musicianship, and intelligence made her one of the most sought-after performers from the 1950s to the 1970s. For thirty years, she worked with some of the operatic world’s finest musicians, including Leonard Bernstein, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Ned Rorem, Beverly Sills, Norman Triegle, Placido Domingo, among others.

She was represented by Columbia Artists Management Inc (CAMI), one of New York’s oldest and most prestigious …

Hybridity, Trauma, And Queer Identity: Reading Masculinity Across The Texts Of Junot Díaz, Hannah Fraser Legris

Theses and Dissertations--English

When writing about Junot Díaz’s Drown (1996) Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) and This is How You Lose Her (2012), I focus on the iterations of masculinity depicted and embodied by Yunior de las Casas, the primary narrator of this collection. I explore the links between diaspora, hybridity, masculinity, and trauma, arguing that both socio-historical and personal traumatic experience reverberates through the psyches and bodies of Díaz’s characters. I demonstrate the relationship between Yunior’s navigation of the United States and the Dominican Republic and his ever-shifting sexuality, self-presentation, and gender identity. The physical and discursive spaces he must …

Image/Text And Text/Image: Reimagining Multimodal Relationships Through Dissociation, Amy K. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations--English

W.J.T. Mitchell has famously noted that we are in the midst of a “pictorial turn,” and images are playing an increasingly important role in digital and multimodal communication. My dissertation addresses the question of how meaning is made when texts and images are united in multimodal arguments. Visual rhetoricians have often attempted to understand text-image arguments by privileging one medium over the other, either using text-based rhetorical principles or developing new image-based theories. I argue that the relationship between the two media is more dynamic, and can be better understood by applying The New Rhetoric’s concept of dissociation, which …

Apparitional Economies: Spectral Imagery In The Antebellum Imaginaton, Holly F. Osborn

Theses and Dissertations--English

Apparitional Economies is invested in both a historical consideration of economic conditions through the antebellum era and an examination of how spectral representations depict the effects of such conditions on local publics and individual persons. From this perspective, the project demonstrates how extensively the period’s literature is entangled in the economic: in financial devastation, in the boundaries of seemingly limitless progress, and in the standards of value that order the worth of commodities and the persons who can trade for them.

I argue that the space of the specter is a force of representation, an invisible site in which the …

Knowing And Being Known: Sexual Delinquency, Stardom, And Adolescent Girlhood In Midcentury American Film, Michael Todd Hendricks

Theses and Dissertations--English

Sexual delinquency marked midcentury cinematic representations of adolescent girls in 1940s, 50, and early 60s. Drawing from the history of adolescence and the context of midcentury female juvenile delinquency, I argue that studios and teen girl stars struggled for decades with publicity, censorship, and social expectations regarding the sexual license of teenage girls. Until the late 1950s, exploitation films and B movies exploited teen sex and pregnancy while mainstream Hollywood ignored those issues, struggling to promote teen girl stars by tightly controlling their private lives but depriving fan magazines of the gossip and scandals that normally fueled the machinery of …

Shifting The Ultimatum: Political Alienation And Participation, Grace Cale

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Common knowledge dictates that cynicism and mistrust of politics is rampant among US citizens, wreaking havoc on participation in the American political process. Social Capital theories are commonly used to effectively explain US political behavior, but fail to account for alienation from the political process or the influence of peers. I argue that models of political participation would be improved by the inclusion of political alienation variables, which have fallen into disuse in recent decades. Using data from the US Citizenship, Involvement, and Democracy Survey (2006), this paper relies upon negative binomial regression with nested models to compare the explanatory …

Science Wars As Culture Wars: Fracking And The Battle For The Hearts And Minds Of Women, Jenrose D. Fitzgerald

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

In this thesis, I examine how claims regarding the environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” are constructed by industry advocates who promote the practice and environmental and social justice groups who reject it. More specifically, I examine the cultural underpinnings of the debate over fracking, and the prominence of gender as a central framing device in that debate. While the controversy over fracking is often presented as scientific or technical in nature, I maintain that it is as much a culture war as it is a science war. I demonstrate this by showing how both pro-fracking and …