Digital Commons Network^™

Engagement, Trust, And Reciprocity: Exploring The Relationship Between Social Captial And Participation In Nonprofit Organizations, Rebecca Feiler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the extent to which various forms of social capital impact participation in nonprofit organizations. Previous research has focused on the importance of trust and engagement among social and political networks to form strong community ties that can cultivate the growth of social capital and promote participation in nonprofit organizations. The data analyzed in this study were derived from the Central Florida Social Capital Benchmark survey, collected at the University of Central Florida's Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences. To represent social capital, related variables from the survey are combined to create indices that represent civic engagement and …

Memory-Craft: The Role Of Domestic Technology In Women's Journals, Tammy Powley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term "memory-craft" refers to arts and crafts media where personal memorabilia and journaling are combined and assembled into book form. Examples of memory-crafts include scrapbooks, art journals, and altered books. Traditionally, women have been the primary assemblers of memory-crafts, using this form as a method of autobiography and genealogical archiving. Memory-crafting is often associated with the amateur home-crafter, and while historians have long understood its cultural significance, academia has not properly considered memory-craft as a type of alternative discourse. The purpose of this study is to examine the use of memory-crafting as a non-traditional method of writing, especially among …

Portraits Through The Lens Of Historicity: The American Family As Portrayed In Ladies Home Journal 1950-1959, Nancy Patton Mills

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problems associated with communication and the American family have often been the subject of academic research projects. The 1950s family is unique and offers the researcher a complex web of interwoven narratives and situational hermeneutics that have affected the American family. In an attempt to understand what was happening in the 1950s, it is imperative that an understanding of the historical moment and its significance be explored.

This dissertation examines the American family through the lens of several interpersonal communication paradigms and theories to generate a conceptual framework for understanding the "story" of the family told through its communicative …

Transparency, Accountability And Public Participation As Foundations For Effective Operations Of Natural Resource Funds: Implications For The Russian Stabilization Fund, Lada Progunova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that in order to operate successfully a Natural Resource Fund (NRF), no matter what its goals are, must be transparent, accountable and open for public scrutiny. Otherwise, a NRF could be useless or even harmful. "Resource curse," "Dutch disease," and "rentier" behavior are theoretical rationales for establishing NRFs. Corruption is viewed as a "transmission channel" of natural resource effects on growth.

Guidelines to evaluate NRFs for transparency and accountability were developed. Analysis of selected NRFs' websites revealed that Norway and Alaska provide directions to incorporate transparency into a NRF. Alberta demonstrates that even if democracy is strong, …

Disenfranchising The Black Other: A Critique Of American Drug Laws, Heather Dorsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Presently, approximately 4.7 million Americans are unable to vote, a population which is disproportionately black and stripped of their civic rights because of their status as present or former felons. I propose that unequal drug laws which provide different sentences for crack cocaine, used more often by poor blacks because of its cheapness and availability in poor neighborhoods, and powder cocaine, used more often by upper class whites, punish blacks for their status as Other. Disproportionately punishing them for a habit in which people of all races participate has created a class without the ability to participate in the system …

Microbial Transformation Of Arsenic And The Characterization Of Clostridium Sp. Strain Ohilas, Edward Fisher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The impact of electron donor (acetate, pyruvate, lactate, formate, and hydrogen) and arsenate concentration (1, 5, 10, and 20 mM) on microbial arsenate reduction in freshwater sediments from the Ohio River, Pittsburgh PA was investigated. Hydrogen (with acetate as the carbon source) appeared to be the best electron donor and 5 mM sodium arsenate the most effective for both growth and orpiment (As2S3) production. A mesophilic, spore-forming, motile, low-mole %GC gram-positive bacterium was isolated from Ohio River sediments on medium with 20 mM lactate and 10 mM arsenate. Although pH 8 was optimal for growth, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis …

Teacher-School Board Member Trust Relationships And Their Perceived Influence On School Effectiveness, Pamela A. Lenz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the attention devoted to school reform in the past century, mandated initiatives enacted by policymakers have wrought few long lasting improvements in education. Throughout the last six decades of reform, federal and state lawmakers have exercised unparalleled sway on student learning, with political agendas taking precedence over breakthroughs in educational pedagogy. Taking a different approach, recent research suggests that systemic reform is more likely to occur at the local level, with schools whose culture fosters positive trust relationships being more effective than their lower trust counterparts. This collective instrumental case study expands upon extant research by examining the perceived …

Lyric Subjectivity, Ethics, Contemporary Poetics: Claudia Rankine, Fanny Howe, Elizabeth Robinson, Maureen Gallagher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates ethics and lyric subjectivity in the writings of three American women poets. I consider select poems and poetics of Claudia Rankine, Fanny Howe, and Elizabeth Robinson, in order to argue that their postlanguage lyric poetry retains lyric subjectivity and reformulates it as ethical insofar as it is "circumspective" or "other-oriented"; that is, the lyric "I" is depicted as constituted through its relations with alterity. I apply contemporary literary-ethical methodology, notably the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, the poetics of Paul Celan, the hauntology of Jacques Derrida, and the poethics of Joan Retallack, in order to demonstrate how …

Examining The Impact Of Crisis Assessment Training In The Triage Assessment Model, On The Self-Efficacy Of Residential Treatment Facility Staff, Chad Snyder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The differences between residential treatment facility staffs' self-efficacy levels post-crisis assessment training are investigated in order to identify alternative means to restraints as the primary crisis intervention strategy. In order to assess the participants' level of self-efficacy to deal with crises, the self-efficacy assessment tool for crisis (SEAT-C) was developed utilizing a semantic differential design. Through pilot testing, the SEAT-C was determined to be a reliable and valid instrument. Training in the Triage Assessment Model for crisis intervention was provided to 79 residential treatment facility staff employed at a child and adolescent residential treatment facility in the southwestern part of …

Model Validation For Aqua Ammonia Scrubber Process And Exploratory Research Into Alkyltin Pollutants: Alkyltin Method Evaluations, Kathleen Stutz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

NETL Project Abstract: This study constitutes an application of electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ESI/TOF-MS) for the analysis of aqueous ammonia chemical species produced in a model reactor developed by The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the US Department of Energy. The reactor is the result of experimental research performed by NETL on applying aqueous ammonia solution for the simultaneous reduction of acidic gaseous emission from fossil fuel-fired utility plants. The goal of using ESI/TOF-MS was to evaluate NETL process efficiency through analysis of the aqueous ammonia species present at various points aqua ammonia scrubber process, and to validate …

The Isolation Of Intragenic Suppressors To Point Mutations In The 3' Coding Region Of Ftsz Of Streptomyces Coelicolor, Andrew Joseph Szabo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

FtsZ is the earliest known acting protein in the prokaryotic division machine. In Streptomyces coelicolor, mutations in ftsZ result in hyphae that cannot support division and the formation of uninucleoid spores. Part of this study focused on isolating intragenic suppressors to the ftsZ(A275V) mutation to investigate the function of the C-Terminal Domain of the protein. To date, eight intragenic suppressors of A275V have been isolated, three in this study. Their distribution in FtsZ is scattered, although there seems to be a preference for mutations that are near the GTP-binding domain. Also, the function of the highly conserved C-Terminal Core Domain …

Engaging Vernacular Voices: Exploring Online Public Spheres Of Discourse For Everyday Citizens, Linda Schifino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project considers the ways in which ordinary citizens engage in public discourse. This work is guided by what Michael Schudson calls the triumph of democratic sensibilities--the expectation that everybody owns public life. A politically active citizenry is, therefore, vital to a healthy democracy. Further, this inquiry assumes a rhetorical view of civic engagement, arguing that participation in a democracy is more than merely casting one's vote. Consequently, it is essential to identify and evaluate the vehicles by which individual citizens can take part in discursive civic life.

The challenge to healthy public spheres of discourse in contemporary American society …

Does Hope Vi Deep-Six The Poor? Analyzing The Effects Of Displacement Former Residents Of Distressed Public Housing In A Mid-Sized Southern City, David Zeller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Do downtown revitalization efforts detrimentally affect people who are displaced? HUD's HOPE VI grant program provides local housing authorities with funds to leverage private investment to demolish blighted, severely distressed public housing units and replace them with mixed-use, mixed-income units. In 2002, the OHA secured an $18 million grant to redevelop a public housing project then known as Carver Court. 212 units of public housing were razed and former public housing residents were displaced to make way for redevelopment. Interviews with 55 former residents of Carver Court are analyzed to determine the self-reported effects of the local implementation of federal …

Development And Evaluation Of A Single-Session Expectancy Challenge Intervention To Reduce Alcohol Use Among Heavy Drinking College Students, Hoyee Lau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While overall rates of college student drinking have declined slightly since 1980, extreme forms of drinking are escalating. A comprehensive review of all aspects of alcohol use among college students completed by a panel of scientists and college presidents concluded that very few approaches for dealing with student drinking can be considered empirically validated, and they strongly encouraged additional efforts to develop and validate effective strategies. Expectancy challenge approaches designed to reduce risky drinking through changing key expectancies have been identified as one of the few validated strategies, but this approach has not been developed into a format that is …

Probing Random Media With Singular Waves, Chaim Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years a resurgence of interest in wave singularities (of which optical vortices are a prominent example), light angular momentum and the relations between them has occurred. Many applications in various areas of linear and non-linear optics have been based on studying effects related to angular momentum and optical vortices. This dissertation examines the use of such wave singularities for studying the light propagation in highly inhomogeneous media and the relationship to angular momentum transfer. Angular momentum carried by light can be, in many cases, divided in two terms. The first one relates to the polarization of light and …

Gender Stereotypes And The Governor's Mansion, Adrienne Mathews

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the effects of gender stereotypes on women gubernatorial candidates in the post "Year of the Woman" era to determine whether or not the electoral gains made by women running for legislative office in 1992 also extended to women contesting executive elections in subsequent years. This study proceeds in two parts. The first part of this study provides an empirical analysis of contextual and candidate specific factors thought to affect the way in which gender stereotypes surface during gubernatorial campaigns and how they affect women candidates accordingly. The contextual factors include state culture, party dominance, and tradition of …

Quantitative High-Angle Annular Dark Field Scanning Transmission To Electron Microscopy For Materials Science, Rumyana Petrova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) has been widely used for characterization of materials; to identify micro- and nano-structures within a sample and to analyze crystal and defect structures. High-angle annular dark field (HAADF) STEM imaging using atomic number (Z) contrast has proven capable of resolving atomic structures with better than 2 A lateral resolution. In this work, the HAADF STEM imaging mode is used in combination with multislice simulations. This combination is applied to the investigation of the temperature dependence of the intensity collected by the HAADF detector in silicon, and to convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) to measure the …

Analyzing The Effects Of Single-Sourcing Methodologies On The Role Of The Technical Communicator, Jeremy Boehl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the specific effects of single sourcing methodologies on the role of the technical communicator, his or her job responsibilities, qualifications, collaboration with coworkers, employee and employer expectations, and the effects on career progression. The methodologies discussed included all types of single sourcing methods for technical documentation (such as XML-based), advanced and non-advanced Content Management Systems (CMS), and Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems. Other topics explored are an overview of single sourcing for technical documentation, a comparison of the "craftsman model" to the current trend of single sourcing and structured content, specific effects on technical communicators such as …

Assessing The Web-Based Destination Marketing Activities: A Relationship Marketing Perspective, Liza Cobos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Innovations in information technology have played an important role in the way business is conducted. Technology innovations have great impact on tourism destination marketing organizations such as convention and visitor bureaus, since they are highly dependent on information and timely distribution of it to the public. Information technology innovations such as the Internet allow CVBs to perform their marketing functions in a more efficient manner. The implementation of web-based marketing functions is impacted by organizational characteristics that either foster or hinder their implementation (Thong, 1999; Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990; Wang & Fesenmaier, 2006; Zhu & Kraemer, 2005). Information technology innovations …

An Analysis Of Major Facilitators To Their Success As Reported By Successful Women Administrators., Lisa Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study was designed to review the history of women in leadership and to evaluate the identified facilitators of success for women in leadership positions. Participants were asked to identify the facilitators that they considered important to their success. The facilitators were then compared to determine the most commonly occurring and the most influential among those cited by the participants. The results reflected those facilitators such as mentoring programs, training programs, as well as informal opportunities. Emotional intelligence was also examined in the context of this research.

The findings of this qualitative study yielded the facilitators of success as …

Evaluating Alternative Methodologies To Teaching Reading To Sixth-Grade Students And The Association With Student Achievement., Susan Carol Salyer Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if an association exists between reading methodologies and reading achievement as measured by the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) for sixth-grade students. The four reading methodology groups were: developmental reading, literature-based reading, Accelerated Reader program, and Accelerated Reader program with vocabulary study. The sample included 236 students in one middle school located in Northeast Tennessee during the 2004-2005 school year. Comparisons were made using TCAP criterion-referenced test reading/language arts scores, TCAP proficiency levels for content, meaning, and vocabulary categories for 2005, and pretest and posttest scores on the student assessment of reading. …

Perceptions Of Middle-School Parents Regarding Factors That Influence Parent Involvement: A Study Of Four Middle Schools In Northeast Tennessee., John K. Boyd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The cultivation of parent involvement in America's public schools is no longer an option. Under the provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: No Child Left Behind (Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 2001), it is now a mandate. Moreover, in the current climate of emphasis upon student performance and school accountability, schools need not just the support of parents, but also their full involvement in meaningful partnerships.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a better understanding of the factors that significantly affect the level of parent involvement during the middle-school years. This was accomplished through the …

Perceived Effectiveness Of Assessments Used In Online Courses In Western North Carolina Community Colleges., Kim Marie Yates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the most appropriate methods of assessment for online courses. Internet instructors were surveyed and asked which methods of assessment they use in the online courses that they teach and how effective they perceive those methods to be in determining if the learning objectives have been met for the course(s) that they teach online.

The findings of this study indicated that there is a difference between some academic disciplines in relation to the type of assessment methods being used in online courses. There is a difference in perceived effectiveness of assessment methods among …

The Perceived Effects Of The Rapid Rise Of Hispanic English Limited Language Learners On The School Systems Of Northeast Tennessee., Dwayne Phillip Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the rapid rise of the number of ELL/ Hispanic learners who are enrolling in the public school systems of Northeast Tennessee. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect that the rapid rise of ELL/Hispanic learners was having on these school systems.

The approach to the study was a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from respondents using a survey instrument that included both Likert-type responses and short answer questions. The population of this study were the 132 building-level principals of the 17 public school districts located in the First Congressional District of Northeast Tennessee. There …

Stop The Presses: Representations Of Women's Progress In Corporate America Reported Through Popular News Media., Suzanne Marie Cloyd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the following key areas: women in the public sphere, women in the private sphere, and how media portrayals in these areas portray women's progress in obtaining executive positions in corporate America.

Topics of interest include wage differences between genders, executive placement, and attainment in board positions throughout Corporate America.

Eating Disorder Symptoms, Body Image Attitudes, And Risk Factors In Non-Traditional And Traditional Age Female College Students., Jennifer E. Caldwell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates whether there are certain age groups in college that are more susceptible to eating problems and the contributing factors for eating disorders. The participants were 144 college women divided into traditional and non-traditional age groups. The EDI-2, BSI, RSE, and additional items were administered. The results show that non-traditional age college women were as likely to have eating disorder symptoms and more likely to possess body dissatisfaction than traditional age college students. The data support body dissatisfaction, aging concerns, perfectionism, depression, anxiety, and having children as potential risk factors for eating disturbances. This study suggests that there …

Telling The Stars: A Quantitative Approach To Assessing The Use Of Folk Tales In Science Education., Margaret B. Meyers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the impact of paired folk tales and science explanations on students in third through sixth grades who viewed program modules from the SkyTeller Project of Lynn Moroney and the Lunar and Planetary Institute of Houston, Texas. The audience consisted of over 3500 students in eight locations in the United States. Because few quantitative studies have been conducted to examine the use of stories in science education, the development of an instrument to assess students' attitudes toward science and stories forms a major part of this research. During the final stage of testing, the revised instrument and methods …

From Condemnation To Conformity: Carter And Reagan's Foreign Policy Towards The Argentine Junta, 1977-1982., William Houston Gilbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan responded to the widespread human rights abuses committed by the Argentine military during the country's Dirty War between 1977 and 1982. The objective is to gain a broader understanding of the policies pursued by both administrations. Under Carter, who brought human rights to the forefront of American foreign policy, Argentina was heavily targeted and sanctioned with the anticipation that such measures would enhance the human rights status in Argentina. Ultimately, such policies resulted in open hostility in bilateral relations, culminating in Argentina's refusal to support Carter's proposed grain …

A Profile Of Strength And Conditioning Coaches At National Collegiate Athletic Association Division Ii And Iii Member Institutions., Leonard Haggerty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this study were to compile demographic characteristics, educational backgrounds, coaching experiences, and duties of strength and conditioning (STC) coaches at NCAA Division II and III institutions, and compare the profile of Division II and III STC coaches to the Martinez (2004) study of Division I-A STC coaches. NCAA Division II and Division III athletic personnel (N=578) received an electronic survey for this study. The return rate from Division II and Division III STC coaches were as follows: Division II, 23 responses (n=175), Division III, 34 responses (n=403). Descriptive statistics were used …

"Inspired Industry.", Amanda M. Dock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis supports the Master of Fine Arts exhibition entitled "Inspired Industry" at Johnson City Area Arts Council, Johnson City, Tennessee, from November 14 - December 22, 2005. It is the culmination of studies and research affected by the artist's own industry vis-à-vis personal inspirations, including: discussion of aesthetics and personal utilization of the techniques learned in relation to both functional and non-functional ceramic forms. This is a self-evaluation of personal preferences and how this body of ceramic work evolved.