Digital Commons Network^™

Japan's Missile Defense, Norifumi Namatame

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For some years, Japan has pursued its own missile defense system in cooperation with the United States. The Japanese government claims that the missile defense (JMD) program is purely defensive and will not pose a threat to other countries. JMD may seem justified by North Korea's development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. However, neighboring states regarded it as a sign of military ambition and revival of Japan's prewar militarism. The development and deployment of JMD could have grave implications for regional and global security. This dissertation focuses on these implications, domestic and international political considerations and the future direction …

Nurses' Attitudes Towards Continuing Formal Education: A Comparison By Level Of Education And Geography, Tanya Altmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Quality healthcare is a priority. Many healthcare organization representatives and mission statements, recent research, and research priorities support the contention that improved quality is related to higher educated nurses providing care. What is needed goes beyond what can be acquired through continuing education courses.

What we know is that few U.S. nurses continue their formal education after licensure and that the majority have an Associate Degree or Diploma in nursing. Thus, it is in the publics' interest to invest more in enticing and enabling nurses to achieve higher educational levels consistent with the trends of other health care professionals.

The …

Caribbean-China Relations: Foreign Policy And Small State Economic Adjustment, Dana Marie Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years the relationship between Caribbean states and China has intensified. This dissertation argues that the Caribbean's increased engagement with China is an important component of their economic adjustment strategy that was necessitated after changes in the orientation of the international economic system that they must operate within, particularly in relation to the loss of trade preferences and the sharp decline in official development assistance.

Despite the seemingly homogenous nature of these Caribbean states there is in fact significant foreign policy variation seen vis-à-vis engagement with China. Some Caribbean states have consistently recognized China, while others have vacillated between …

Lived Experiences Of Widows In Botswana: An Ethnographic Examination Of Cultural Rituals Of Death, Loss, Grief, And Bereavement: Implications For Counseling, Sithandazile Hope Msimanga-Ramatebele

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to examine experiences of widows in Botswana regarding the performance of cultural rituals, as they mourned their husband's deaths. The study sought to find out aspects of the rituals that enhanced or hindered healing; and how insights and knowledge gained from the results of the investigation can inform culturally relevant and sensitive psychosocial interventions. The study involved two focus group discussions and seven key informants from two villages in the Northern and Central districts of Botswana. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data through focus group discussions which were video-recorded; data from …

How American Student Journalists At A College Newspaper Consume, Perceive, And Disseminate News And Information About China, Xiaohua Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the increase of cooperation between America and China, the average person's perception of the other country could be an important factor that influences the development of the relationship between these countries. This study was designed to explore how Americans student journalists view China and how these student journalists select the news for a campus newspaper that might influence their readers' perceptions of China. Student journalists not only represent American youth but also act as connectors and filters between a huge flow of information outside and students on campus. A convenience census sample of student journalists at a campus newspaper …

Need Not Necessity: Purgatorial Torment And Healing In Medieval And Early Modern Drama, Nicole Andel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Seeking to expand on the work of Jacque Le Goff in The Birth of Purgatory, this dissertation examines Purgatory and purgatorial suffering on the early modern stage in Britain. Le Goff asserts in The Birth of Purgatory that "Purgatory, though a prominent if elusive feature of Christian thinking about the afterlife, seems to have been a perishable rather than an enduring idea" (358). I choose to look for those places in the British early modern dramatic imagination where the idea of Purgatory, even when used as a dramatic device or metaphor, managed to endure, even if it never quite flourishes. …

Performance Based Decision System In Determining Post Closure Care (Pcc) Duration In Florida Landfills, Asawari Kulkarni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is an evaluation of Post Closure Care (PCC) duration of landfills using performance based methodology. The post closure care phase begins once the landfill is closed. As required by the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle D, PCC duration for municipal solid waste landfills is 30 years. During the PCC period, the landfill operator/owner is required to conduct monitoring for leachate, landfill gas, and ground-water and maintain the integrity of the cap so that the landfill does not impose a threat to surrounding human health and environment (HH&E). The duration of PCC can be reduced by the director …

Towards A Land Conservation Ethic In Zimbabwe: An Ethical And Religio-Cultural Analysis Of Land Conservation Policies And Practices In Communal Areas, Maaraidzo Elizabeth Mutambara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study I analyze the problem of land degradation in Zimbabwe's Communal Areas (CAs) from the viewpoint of the Shona of Zimbabwe with the aim to formulate a land conservation ethic that motivates people in CAs to promote ecological stability. The Shona in CAs are proximate agents as well as victims of environmental degradation. The imperative to survive in a situation characterized by drastic inequalities in the allocation of land and an exploitative global economic system, forces them to engage in unsustainable land use practices. Land conservation policies in Zimbabwe marginalize Shona values and norms, especially as they relate …

Persistence In The Periphery : Archaeological Investigations At Baateelek, Caves Branch River Valley, Belize, Jillian Michelle Jordan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Problem Of Substantial Generation In Aristotle's Physical Writings, Michael Ivins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relation between Aristotle's account of the generation of substances and his attempt to lay the foundations for his natural philosophy. The central question concerns the injunction posed by the Eleatic philosophers to the study of nature on the basis of the principle "ex nihilo nihil" which they formulated into argument against the intelligibility of nature. Aristotle's Physics begins with a sustained attempt to defeat the Eleatic prohibition by demonstrating that change in general can be understood once a few principles are established. My reading of the arguments that constitute Aristotle's refutation of the Eleatics and the …

Phylogeny, Hybridization And The Evolution Of Fire-Stimulated Flowering Within The Grass-Leaved Goldenasters (Pityopsis, Asteraceae), View-Hune Teoh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Creating Marginality And Reconstructing Narrative: Reconfiguring Karen Social And Geo-Political Alignment, Barbara Verchot

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pre-modern conceptualization of shifting borderlands and territories rather than fixed boundaries often allowed for the dynamic flow of peoples between polities. Until the late 1800s and the colonization of Burma in 1886 by the British Empire, this permeability of the borders of its territory was how Siam (currently Thailand) viewed its geo-political sphere (Thomson 1995:272). Britain extended the boundaries of its empire beyond India to guarantee the economic interests of the British Empire. With this push eastward, Siam abutted a polity that rejected the idea of shifting borderlands. The British ascribed to the modern concept of non-permeability of borders. This …

A Historical Analysis Of Teacher Preparation Program Contentbeginning With Teacher Normal Colleges In 1839 Throughschool Distric, Julie Helton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore teacher preparation program content throughout American history in order to determine trends in programs of study, specifically including coursework in education foundations, teaching methods involving the behavioral sciences, and subject area content. These categories were selected because their content is responsible for teachers' working knowledge of their subject area, as well as student learning, behavior management and motivation. The study also examined documented teacher knowledge voids: student behavior management, time management, organization, dealing with parents, motivating students, and meeting individual students' needs to determine which aspects of teacher education could improve teachers' …

A Genre Of Collective Intelligence: Blogs As Intertextual, Reciprocal, And Pedagogical, Rachel Gramer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the rhetorical features of blogs that lend them dialogic strength as an online genre through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of speech genres, utterances, and dialogism. As a relatively new online genre, blogs stem from previous genres (in print and online as well as verbal), but their emergence as a popular form of expression in our current culture demands attention to how blogs also offer us different rhetorical opportunities to meet our changing social exigencies as online subjects in the 21st century. This thesis was inspired by questions about how blogs redefine the rhetorical situation to …

A Comparative Analysis Of Green Roof Designs Including Depth Of Media, Drainage Layer Materials, And Pollution Control Media, Matt Kelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Population growth has lead to an increase in development and impervious areas in urban settings. Post-development conditions cause several problems for stormwater management such as limited space for stormwater storage systems and the conveyance of pollution picked up by runoff to near by water bodies. Green Roofs with cisterns have been shown to attenuate the peak flow of storm events and reduce the pollution load leaving a site and entering nearby water bodies. The purpose of this research is to expand the available research data on green roofs with cisterns by investigating the water quality and hydrology effects of different …

Imagining The Unimaginable : Witnessing Trauma In The Post-Segregation South / By Becca Walton, Becca Walton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

New Perspectives On Celtic Feasting, Emily Greene

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Distributed Team Training: Effective Team Feedback, Kevin Oden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States Army currently uses after action reviews (AARs) to give personnel feedback on their performance. However, due to the growing use of geographically distributed teams, the traditional AAR, with participants and a moderator in the same room, is becoming difficult; therefore, distributed AARs are becoming a necessity. However, distributed AARs have not been thoroughly researched. To determine what type of distributed AARs would best facilitate team training in distributed Army operations, feedback media platforms must be compared. This research compared three types of AARs, which are no AAR, teleconference AAR, and teleconference AAR with visual feedback, to determine …

Experiences, Attitudes And Beliefs About Interpersonal Violence: A Study On Costa Rican Adolescents, Monica Mendez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research in Latin America regarding interpersonal violence and adolescents is rare if not nonexistent. In a collaborative effort with the Costa Rican Ministry of Education and the National Institute of Women (INAMU), qualitative data were collected from three high schools and one after-school program from rural and urban locations of the Central Valley. The discussion groups/open-ended questionnaires were done with a total of 154 students ranging from ages 14 to 17 and grade levels 8th to 12th. Information was obtained concerning students' perceptions, definitions and opinions on issues relating to interpersonal violence and gender roles and rules. The results show …

Maximizing Special Education Teacher Retention: Teacher's Perceptions Of Administrative Support In Pre K-12 Public Schools As Implications For Improvement, Dawn R. Showers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of special education teachers regarding administrative support provided by their building principals as related to teacher retention, gender, and disability category taught. Research over the course of the past decade indicates that teachers are more likely to leave the teaching profession when they fail to receive an adequate amount of administrative support. A survey questionnaire was used to collect 125 responses from special education teachers working in South Central Pennsylvania public schools. The population sample consisted of teachers from four special education teacher certification categories including classroom and itinerant staff. …

Historic Preservation Leading To Heritage Tourism As An Economic Development Strategy For Small Tennessee Towns., Robert A. Justice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historic preservation has been a successful economic development tool that has led to heritage tourism in some Tennessee towns but not in others. The problem studied was to determine if there was a set of tangible attributes a town must possess to be successful in using historic preservation as an economic development tool. Through an extensive literature review, 59 predictor variables were identified and arranged into 6 research questions looking at the tangible attributes related to town demographics, geography, organizational structure, historic preservation organizations, heritage tourism organizations, and town financial structure. Data were collected from a mailed survey of 32 …

A Kenyan Revolution: Mau Mau, Land, Women, And Nation., Amanda Elizabeth Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in Kenya, resisted colonial authority, which culminated into what became known as Mau Mau, led by the Kenya Land Freedom Army. During this time, the British colonial government imposed laws limiting their access to land, politics, and independence. The turbulent 1950s in Kenyan history should be considered a revolution because of its violent nature, the high level of participation, and overall social change that resulted from the war.

I compared many theories of revolution to the events of the Mau Mau movement. Then, I explained the contention for land in the revolution, the role …

"Reclaiming The Child": Mountain Mission School As A Successful Appalachian Home Mission., Rachel Rebecca Hood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mountain Mission School of Grundy, Virginia, founded by Samuel Robinson Hurley in 1921, is an anomaly of the mission school era of 1880 to 1940. Unlike other mission schools, Mountain Mission School was independent from its inception and was founded by a self-taught, self-made millionaire from southwest Virginia. The school's purpose to "reclaim" the child from material and spiritual poverty lay in Hurley's desire to develop a child's mind, body, and soul through a Christian, industrial education. Through personal commitment to the school and tireless fund-raising efforts for the school, he inspired others to continue the mission he began. Primary …

Claudius Greer Clemmer, Doctor Of Humane Letters January 4, 1911-November 20, 2005., Sheila Breen Agen Pedersen Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While there are facts that are known about Claudius Greer Clemmer, there is much that is not known. By most accounts, he was a generous man who grew up during some of the hardest years of the Great Depression, worked to get an education, and had a successful teaching career. Clemmer worked diligently to do what he could to support himself and his family, working at two jobs. When his career track changed from teaching to business, in 1946, he experienced success in business and investments, sharing that wealth with East Tennessee State University and others. The intent of this …

New Teacher Job Satisfaction : Effects Of General Job Facets And Teacher Job Specific Facets., Aimee G. Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed the job satisfaction of new teachers in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The JCPS district is the 29th largest in the United Sates and serves over 98,000 students. Understanding what contributes to the satisfaction and retention of new teachers in a large urban school district has implications for cost effective human resource management and student achievement. The researcher mailed a district-wide survey questionnaire about new teacher job satisfaction using procedures developed by Dillman (2000). The survey mailing yielded a sample of 630 participants. The researcher computed: (a) descriptive statistics, (b) principal components factor …

The Mausoleum Of Augustus : Expanding Meaning From Its Inception To Present Day., Susan L. Fugate Brangers 1970-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I examine the meaning of the Mausoleum of Augustus and how this meaning has evolved and expanded over its two thousand years of existence. The discussion of the meaning of the tomb has often been neglected in previous scholarship due to the continuing debates over possible reconstructions of its appearance, probable antecedents for its design and questions concerning its date of construction. I propose the Mausoleum was constructed primarily as a victory monument. This message is conveyed through the use of architectural elements typical of victory monuments that can be found in and around the city of …

The Learner In The Learning Environment : A Multiple-Case Study Of Nursing Students In The Hospital Clinical Setting., Rhonda Stuart Helm 1951-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The clinical experience represents a critical component in nursing education. During the clinical, students apply classroom theory to nursing practice and become socialized into the nursing profession. Because of the current nursing shortage, understanding clinical education is vital and may help in retaining and graduating increased numbers from nursing programs (Vollman, 1989). This multiple-case study is grounded in the literature on the history of clinical education and the perspectives of students, faculty teachers, and clinical staff nurses of nursing clinical education. Narratives of the three students clinical experiences were constructed from data from interviews, observations, and document analysis. Data from …

The Arab Quest For Modernity: Universal Impulses Vs. State Development., Kevin Wampler Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Arab Middle East began indigenous nation building relatively late in the twentieth century. Issues of legitimacy, identity, and conflicts with the West have plagued Arab nations. Arab states have espoused universal ideologies as solutions to the problems of Arab nation building.

The two ideologies of Pan-Arabism and Islamic modernism provided universal solutions to the Arab states. Both Pan-Arabism and Islamic modernism gained validity in political polemics aimed against colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, and the West. Both ideologies promised simple solutions to complex questions of building modern Arab society. Irrespective of ideology, Arab states have always acted in self-interest to perceived …

An Analysis Of The Attitudes Of Higher Education Leaders In 18 High-Immigration States About The Appropriateness Of Providing Education Benefits To Undocumented Immigrants., Elizabeth Feranchak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Institutions of public higher education must meet the challenges presented by providing education services to the significantly increasing number of undocumented students. However, public policy has not clearly addressed undocumented immigrants' residency status in regard to college and university admissions standards. This issue will affect education leaders in public institutions of higher education who have the authority to define admissions criteria and influence state legislation.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of higher education leaders' attitudes toward the appropriateness of providing education benefits for undocumented immigrants. Data collected from 384 returned surveys representing 18 states were …

An Assessment Of Read 180 Regarding Its Association With The Academic Achievement Of At-Risk Students In Sevier County Schools., Jayson Nave

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

READ 180 is an intensive reading intervention program designed to meet the needs of students whose reading achievement is below the proficient level. The program addresses individual learning styles through adaptive software, interesting literature, and direct instruction with reading skills. The purpose of this study was to compare the achievement of academically at-risk students in Sevier County Public Schools in East Tennessee who participated in the READ 180 pilot program with the achievement of their academically at-risk peers not enrolled in the intervention program before and after its implementation in order to assess the reading intervention program. The Sevier County …