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Western News, August 11, 1994, Western Michigan University

Western News (1972-2018)

Story Highlights: 18 selected for $25,000 Medallion Scholarships, Rec center/fieldhouse to be dedicated Monday, Aug. 29

The Westerner Vol. 14 No. 4, Western Michigan University

The Westerner (1980-1997)

• The place to go is WMU • Association announces 1994 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients • Oh the places we’ll go • Special ticket package showcases Bronco sports • Calendar of Fall performances and sports events

An Exploratory Study Of Sentient Evaluators: Communication, Ethics, And Relationships In The Evaluation Process, Mary Elizabeth Piontek

Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop hypotheses about the ways evaluators involve stakeholders, clients, and audiences in the evaluation process and communicate their findings to these groups. A sentient evaluator was defined as an evaluator who takes an active role in promoting the program that s/he is investigating and deliberately seeks to represent underrepresented stakeholders. This type of evaluator has her/his own ethical or moral agenda through which s/he views the program being evaluated and takes a formative perspective on program development and improvement.

Evaluators (n=12) believed to be sentient because they displayed certain characteristics were compared …

Comparisons Of Several Medians In A Lognormal K-Sample Context Where Some Data May Be Left-Censored, Stavros Costa Pouloukas

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Borders Of A Canvas Tent: An Analysis Of Feminist Utopian Novels, Catherine R. Caldwell

Masters Theses

This thesis is a critical examination of three feminist utopian novels: Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy; Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, and Les Guerilleres, by Monique Wittig. The study, derived from the sociology of knowledge and deconstruction theory, focuses on similarities and differences involving: (a) sexuality; (b) community building; (c) religion; (d) decision making processes, political systems, and modes of production; (e) crime, deviance and political conflict resolution; and (f) child rearing. The analysis demonstrates that utopia may serve to critique dominant ideology. It also shows how utopian novels treat, and suggest possibilities …

Stimulant Medication And Attributional Style In Adhd Children, Maria Zoubek

Masters Theses

The results of this study indicated that stimulant medicated ADHD children do not exhibit a more external global academic attributional style than a nonreferred control group. Further, the ADHD children's specific level attributions suggested that these children believed their medication was at least somewhat helpful and that they rated as providing a good effort on the spelling test. Additional analyses revealed that children who did not attribute successful outcomes to their effort tended to report higher levels of depression. Discussion focuses on implications for the role of global and specific level attributions in ADHD children's depressive symptomatology.

Expression Of Integrated And Methylated Hiv-Ltr In Human T-Cells And Monkey Kidney Cells By Frog Virus 3 Infection, Celene M. Spangler

Masters Theses

DNA methylation has been implicated in the suppression of transcription of a large spectrum of eukaryotic genes. Frog virus 3 (FV3) contains genomic DNA that is the most extensively methylated of all known animal viruses. However, FV3 gene expression is tightly regulated in a sequential fashion in infected cells. Therefore, FV3 must have evolved mechanism(s) to overcome the inhibitory effects of DNA methylation. FV3 has been shown to induce expression of methylated foreign genes in transient transfections. This study was designed to establish if this FV3 induced expression of methylated genes could be demonstrated in stable cell lines which contain …

Problems Associated With Using Ground Penetrating Radar To Locate A Lnapl Plume, Jodie Mcneil

Masters Theses

The Crystal Refinery in Carson City, Michigan was the site used to test the hypothesis that Ground Penetrating Radar can locate LNAPL plumes. The contamination at the site is in the form of two tree product plumes and a dissolved plume. Three Ground Penetrating Radar antennas were used, a 100 MHz, a 300 MHz and a 500 MHz. Borings with a hand auger were made on some of the GPR lines. Gravel and coarse sand along with product in the form of residual stain and tree product were found in some locations. A vertical electrical sounding and a resistivity profile …

A Descriptive Study Of Michigan Auto Workers' (Uaw) Physical And Psychological Responses To 1987 Plant Closures, Lorraine Marie Oginsky

Dissertations

A descriptive study ( 1991-1992) examined 166 closing and nonclosing UAW auto workers in two General Motors settings, as to how they cope mentally and physically with unemployment and displacement 5 years after plant closure and mass layoffs. Workers were asked the question, "Is job loss a threat, a loss, or a challenge?"

Lazarus and Folkman' s ( 1984) Stress, Appraisal and Coping and the Stress Coping Model (Lazarus, 1980) provided the theoretical basis for this study. Measures included the investigator designed Plant Closing Questionnaire, Revised Ways of Coping (Folkman & Lazarus, undated), Hassles and Uplifts Scale (Lazarus & Folkman, …

Biomechanical Analysis Of The Volleyball Overhand Floater Serve, Jian Lu

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate biomechanical factors associated with successful overhand floater serves. Specifically, the study investigated the kinematics of the server at ball-hand contact. Six subjects performed floater serves for this investigation. Subjects served three trials under each of the following conditions: (a) short and long serves and (b) three ball-valve positions at ball-hand contact. Threedimensional cinematographic methods were used to obtain the data. Descriptive statistics were utilized to compare floater and nonfloater serves with respect to distance and ball-valve position. The results showed that (a) more long serves were classified as floater compared to short …

The Effects Of Sensory Integrative Therapy And Functional Communication Training On Stereotypic Behavior, Thomas M. Starzynski

Masters Theses

Three developmentally delayed individuals who exhibited self-stimulatory behaviors were exposed to sensory-integrative therapy. Prior to treatment, a Motivation Assessment Scale was completed and a functional analysis baseline was conducted to identify the maintaining variables of the self-stimulatory behavior. Each subject displayed a pattern of responding suggesting that stereotypic behaviors were maintained by automatic reinforcement. Results show that sensory-integrative therapy had no effect on self-stimulatory behaviors. The stereotypic behaviors of Subject 1 and Subject 2 were later reduced when functional communication plus response interruption was applied. The self-stimulatory behavior of Subject 3 was not affected by the implementation of functional communication …

The Role Of Congress In The Decisionmaking Process Regarding The Use Of Force: The Cold War And Beyond, Thomas Greven

Masters Theses

Employing Alexander George's method of structured, focused comparison of cases, this study identifies patterns of Congressional action when the use of American armed forces was at stake. Common explanations for the reluctance of Congress in assuming its constitutional role in the initiation of armed conflicts stress concerns over political costs of a Congressional involvement, namely the so called rally-effect, and existing policy consensuses.

Operating with a set of variables: the military operation, party control, the President's behavior toward Congress, and public opinion, which are applied to three case studies: the Dien Bien Phu crisis in 1954, the airstrikes against Libya …

The Unprepossessing Mr. Ryan: Understanding Exemplary Legislative Leadership, Barbara A. K. Adams

Dissertations

This study focuses on the character attributes, philosophy, political skills, policy agenda, and administrative activities of William A. Ryan, Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives from 1969 through 1974 and a House member from 1958 through 1982. The case study is embedded in a history of Michigan’s political culture, which is characterized by moralistic and individualistic strands often in conflict with one another.

The research hypothesis was that administrative virtue in legislative leadership is best described in terms of utilitarian ethics, the ability to control and manage factionalism in the interest of incremental change. The rival hypothesis was that …

Hydrogeology And Hydrogeochemistry Of Government Marsh, North St. Joseph County, Michigan, Michael C. Kasenow

Dissertations

A hydrogeologic and hydrogeochemical investigation was conducted at Government Marsh located in St. Joseph County, Michigan from May, 1988, to November, 1993. Information on glacial geology, topography, drainage patterns, hydraulic conductivity, vegetation, water chemistry, and static water table elevations has been collected and analyzed. Data were collected in order to determine directions of ground water flow and areas of recharge and discharge. Bail-down tests, grain-size analysis, and permeameters were used to determine hydraulic conductivity adjacent to and within the wetland. Water table elevations and chemistry were analyzed from wells adjacent to the wetland perimeter and within the boundaries of the …

Preservice Elementary Education Students’ Beliefs Regarding The Teaching And Learning Of Mathematics, Elsa L. Geskus

Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the entering and exiting beliefs of preservice elementary education students in three domains. The domains are: (1) the nature of teaching mathematics, (2) the nature of learning mathematics, and (3) the nature of the underlying source of their success or failure in mathematics. The data collection for this study was comprised of two questionnaires. The first questionnaire with 72 items used a five point Iikert scale. The second questionnaire took 10 of the Iikert items and formatted them as an open-ended response questionnaire. Students were to respond favorably or negatively to the statements and provide support for …

Effective Changes In Hospital Patient Accounting Since The Prospective Payment System (Pps), Carol L. Francke

Dissertations

This is a multiple case study that examined three hospital patient accounting departments since the adoption of the prospective payment system (PPS). The cases were chosen based on similarities such as their size and dependence on government programs for reimbursement, interviews were conducted and documents were reviewed from 1985 and 1990. Measures of gross revenue days in accounts receivable and the ratio of the number of full time equivalents (FTEs) to patient encounters were used to determine whether these patient accounting departments were more efficient in 1990 than in 1985.

Despite their selection of different forms of adaptation, all three …

Isospectral Graphs And The Expander Coefficient, Ian Campbell Walters Jr.

Dissertations

The expander coefficient of a graph is a parameter that is utilized to quantify the rate at which information is spread throughout a graph. The eigenvalues of the Lapladan of a graph provide a bound for the expander coefficient of the graph. In this dissertation, we construct many pairs of isospectral graphs with different expander coefficients.

In Chapter I, we define the problem and present some preliminary definitions. We then introduce two constructions that are related to graph composition and that may be employed to produce cospectral and isospectral graphs.

In Chapter II, we investigate the connectivity of and distance …

The Effects Of Regular Aerobic Exercise On Sexual Desire In Women, Joanne Louise Kolean-Burley

Dissertations

A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate the effects of an 8-week aerobic walking program on sexual desire in 7 previously sedentary married women who met the DSM-III-R criteria for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD). Sexual desire was assessed on a weekly basis through a 6 to 9-week baseline period and the 8-week walking intervention using the Self-Acceptance and Mate- Acceptance subscales of the Sexual Interaction Inventory (SII) (LoPiccolo & Steger, 1974), the Sexual Activity Form, developed for this study to measure the frequency of female sexual initiation and responsivity, a behavioral counter and the Sexual Thoughts …

Nutrition, Fitness, Stress And Genital Herpes Recurrences, Carman E. Stark

Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to extend the existing literature by assessing the relationship between several factors separately and combined, nutrition, fitness and stress, and herpes recurrence rates. It was hypothesized that the results from this study would indicate an inverse correlation between nutrition, fitness, and genital herpes recurrence rates and a positive correlation between stress and genital herpes. Each participant was asked to complete and return (a) two Computerized Nutrition Assessment Forms that provide a health history profile and a record of food choices and portions over two, three-day periods; (b) The Hassle Scale that provides a weekly …

Rear Seat Belt Usage And Comfort, Kuntal Thakurta

Masters Theses

Seat belts have been shown to be effective in reducing car crash fatalities and injuries. Despite consistent evidence that seat belts when worn can provide the greatest vehicle occupant protection of all currently available occupant restraint systems, seat belt use rates remain low. The rates of occupants wearing seat belts in rear seats is much lower than front seat occupants. One of the primary causes for occupants not using seat belts in rear seats has been lack of comfort. The purpose of this thesis was to study the relationship of comfort and seat belt use in rear seats. The current …

Urban Teachers’ Views And Ranking Of Five Home And School Variables With Respect To Effective Teaching Of Disadvantaged Students, Loraine Constance Enniss

Dissertations

There is a range of information on effective teaching of disadvantaged students, with educators supporting either the home or school, as the variable with the greatest impact. What are the opinions of classroom teachers on this topic?

In this exploratory study, Group 1 teachers included all those who ranked the impact (on their ability to effectively teach disadvantaged students), of the home variables: parental involvement, dialects of English, socioeconomic status as 3, 4. and 5 and the school variables: teaching methodology and teacher expectations, as 1 and 2. All others were in Group 0. Scores of these two groups of …

An Interactionist Perspective On Centrality And Racial Discrimination In Professional Baseball, David S. Czurak

Masters Theses

The structuralist version of centrality has measured racial discrimination in professional baseball for the past two decades. Its reliance on positional groupings, based on location, has resulted in a count of racial occupancy at these locations, often without a comparative racial baseline. The structuralist premise has accused baseball of playing field discrimination, citing it as a black versus white issue while discounting other motivations. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, this structuralist account of centrality is flawed in that it lacked action. Nor has it correctly identified what is central to baseball, and many of its findings have been inconclusive. An …

The Ethnic Aspects Of Population Change In Latvia After Independence, Ilmars Mezs

Masters Theses

This study examines current and historic ethnic and demographic trends and their spatial and cultural contexts within Latvia. Comparisons with the other two Baltic states are also presented and discussed. The Latvian population underwent fifty years of Soviet rule, with deliberate policies to dilute the homogeneity of Latvians through Russification, in-migration, and political dominance. The period from 1940 to 1991 greatly impacted Latvians and immigrants, who were mainly Russians, by placing stresses on the spatial structure of the ethnic groups and their cultural relationship.

Latvians in particular feared ethnic and cultural extinction. The process of ethnic dilution and mixing under …

Children's Tool Making Capabilities: Implications For Hominid Intelligence Models And Skill Acquisition Theory, Jill S. Mccleary

Masters Theses

The focus of this study was on morphological differences in stone tools that could be attributed to varied instruction and cognition levels.

In this study two groups of children, one second grade class and one fourth grade class, were selected to make stone tools. The tools that they made included both Oldowan-type flake tools and Acheulean-type handaxes. The primary variables considered in this study were the subjects' level of cognitive development (pre-operational versus concrete operational) as determined by a series of Piagetian tests, and the effects of varied instructional techniques.

Results suggest that Oldowan flake tools can be produced, at …

Total Organic Carbon In A Glacial Aquifer: Measurement And Effects Upon Transport Of Organic Compounds, Jiang Wu

Masters Theses

Organic contaminant transport processes in subsurface systems have been paid increasing attention recently. Sorption of organic compounds on the aquifer solid matrix (retardation) is one of the most important processes influencing contaminant transport. The extent of sorption has been estimated by determination of organic carbon in aquifer materials and assumptions concerning sorption constants.

This paper focuses upon the sensitivity of organic contaminant transport to the total organic carbon (TOC) content in a natural aquifer. This study was composed of two phases. The first phase was methodology development and laboratory analysis of organic carbon contents in soil samples. Acidification and furnace …

Effective Supervision In Community-Based Services For The Developmentally Disabled, Laura L. Methot

Masters Theses

This study investigated the effects of a supervisor training program on the subsequent use of objective measures and contingent consequences by a manager when monitoring and evaluating the performance of supervisors, and by supervisors when monitoring and evaluating the performance of direct care staff in a human service agency. Data also were collected to examine whether changes in supervisor performance produced changes in the direct care staff's use of contingent consequences for client performance and changes in client behaviors. One manager, 4 supervisors, 7 staff and 16 clients from an employment training center and a group home participated in the …

A Descriptive Study Of Offenders Sentenced To Special Alternative Incarceration From 1988-1990 In Kalamazoo County, Sherri Deboef Chandler

Masters Theses

This is a descriptive study of the first two-year cohort of offenders sentenced in Kalamazoo County to Special Alternative Incarceration (SAI). Data were compiled from the Kalamazoo County Probation Department records which indicated 84 young men were sentenced to SAI from its inception in 1988 to 1990. Data were gathered on these offenders spanning 1988 to 1992. Successful graduation from SAI, completion of the probationary period, and recidivism were compared to offense, race, SES, education, employment, and other variables. The data of this group were also compared to national data of those sentenced to Special Alternative Incarceration programs. This group …

A Procedure For G-Matrix Calculation From A Momentum Space Potential, Zhaohui Gao Busche

Masters Theses

In this work a numerical procedure was found to calculate the G-matrix in momentum space with a momentum space potential. The integral equation for the G-matrix was solved by conversion to a matrix equation. Two numerical integral methods, three-point Simpson method and Gaussian integral method, were employed in this process to determine the more efficient method.

The resulting G-matrix in momentum space was Fourier transformed into coordinate space. This was compared with the results of the G-matrix calculated from coordinate space directly as well as the results from solving the Bethe-Goldstone equation. A 2% accuracy was achieved with both the …

Gis Application For Nitrogen Dioxide Pollution Monitoring In Moscow, Russia, Maria V. Privalsky

Masters Theses

The focus of this study was nitrogen dioxide pollution monitoring in Moscow, Russia. ERDAS GIS was used to create maps of nitrogen dioxide distribution on the territory of the city for the years from 1983 to 1991.

A special model was written to compare the consecutive pairs of years in respect to the nitrogen dioxide pollution change. Results of model application were analyzed in order to determine the territories that experienced maximum changes during the study period.

Relationship between street density as a measure of car flow and nitrogen dioxide pollution was estimated. Two measures of the relationship were used: …

Evidence For The Endoparasite Giardia Lamblia In Human Paleofeces From Salts Cave. Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, Lisa Karen Ruppert

Masters Theses

Three desiccated human feces recovered from Salts Cave, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, were analyzed for evidence of parasitic infection, specifically Giardia Lamblia. Positive detection of Giardia cysts was made using a direct immunofluorescent assay (IFA) technique. Scanning electron microscopy revealed what appear to be Giardia lamblia trophozoites. One additional fecal sample, analyzed for its dietary content, was composed primarily of Helianthus annuus (sunflower) and Chenopodium berlandieri (goosefoot). Over one hundred seeds of Cucurbita pepo (squash) were also contained within this specimen. This sample has been radiocarbon dated to 2420±90 B.P., falling into the cluster of previous dates from …