Digital Commons Network^™

Crisis, Farming And Community, Christine Hagar, C Haythornthwaite

Faculty Publications

In 2001, the UK was hit by Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) precipitating one of the biggest crises ever to affect the UK farming system. The crisis unfolded as a series of information and communication problems, from government to farmers and from farmers to farmers, with consequences for action in a time of crisis, social support, and the maintenance of community. What happens to a farming community during such a crisis? When the countryside shuts down, and no one can enter or leave the farm, how can information be disseminated? As methods of dealing with the disease change rapidly, as …

Are Empowerment And Education Enough? Underdiversification In 401(K) Plans, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian

Faculty Publications

At the end of 2000, current and former employees of the energy trading company Enron Corporation held $2.1 billion in the firm’s 401(k) retirement savings plan. Sixty-two percent of that money was invested in Enron stock, then trading at $83 a share. In October 2001 Enron’s finances began to unravel as its accounting improprieties came to light. Enron stock plummeted over the next several weeks, and on December 2, 2001, the company declared bankruptcy, rendering its shares worthless. Thousands of Enron employees lost their jobs and a large fraction of their retirement wealth simultaneously.

The Medieval Holocaust: The Approach Of The Plague And The Destruction Of Jews In Germany, 1348-1349, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

When the Black Death approached the German Empire in 1348, civic authorities in Germany tried to prevent the disease from striking their cities. No one knew what the Plague was, but there were unfounded rumors that the contagion was caused by Jews who were poisoning the water sources. Civic authorities soon tortured Jews for confessions, and the largest single persecution of Jews in Germany before the 1940s broke out. Jews were attacked in more than three hundred communities, their wealth was plundered, and many thousands were burned to death. The pogroms in Strasbourg and Basel are well-documented examples of what …

Life On A Tricycle A Case Study Of Language Impairment From 4 To 19, Lee Robinson, Bonnie Brinton, Martin Fujiki

Faculty Publications

This article presents a longitudinal case study of a child named Cody identified with specific language impairment. Cody was followed from 4 to 19 years of age, at which time he compared his social skills with those of peers: “It’s like they’re driving sports car and I’m on a tricycle.” His initial long- and short-term intervention goals are presented, along with the treatment methods employed and the resulting outcomes. Although long-term goals remained consistent, as the nature of Cody’s academic, social, and emotional challenges shifted, it was necessary to gear treatment to address his changing needs. Cody’s case illustrates the …

Maternal Education And Child Nutritional Status In Bolivia: Finding The Links, Michelle Bellessa Frost, Renata Forste, David W. Haas

Faculty Publications

This study models various pathways linking maternal education and child nutritional status in Bolivia, using a national sample of children. Pathways examined include socioeconomic status, health knowledge, modern attitudes towards health care, female autonomy, and reproductive behavior. The data come from the 1998 Bolivia Demographic and Health Survey. Logistic regression results suggest that socioeconomic factors are the most important pathways linking maternal education and child nutritional status, and that modern attitudes about health care also explain the impact of education. Health care knowledge accounts for less of the effect of maternal education on child nutritional status, with autonomy being the …

Sex, Lies, And The Duty To Disclose, Michelle Oberman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Queer To Paternity: How Primary Gay Fathers Are Changing Fatherhood And Gay Identity, E. Gary Spitko

Faculty Publications

In this symposium paper, I reflect upon how public images of gay fathers who raise children from the start as a gay couple are likely to impact the identity both of gay men and of fatherhood. I consider both the perceptions of the larger society as well as the self-images of gay men and their perceptions of fatherhood. For ease of reference, I refer to such gay fathers who begin fathering while in a gay relationship as primary gay fathers. I contrast primary gay fathers with the first generation of gay fathers to come to American public consciousness - gay …

Elicited Priors For Bayesian Model Specifications In Political Science Research, Jeff Gill, Lee D. Walker

Faculty Publications

We explain how to use elicited priors in Bayesian political science research. These are a form of prior information produced by previous knowledge from structured interviews with subjective area experts who have little or no concern for the statistical aspects of the project. The purpose is to introduce qualitative and area-specific information into an empirical model in a systematic and organized manner in order to produce parsimonious yet realistic implications. Currently, there is no work in political science that articulates elicited priors in a Bayesian specification. We demonstrate the value of the approach by applying elicited priors to a problem …

Competing Perspectives During Organizational Socialization On The Role Of Certified Athletic Trainers In High School Settings, James M. Mensch, Candice Crews, Murrary F. Mitchell

Faculty Publications

When certified athletic trainers (ATCs) enter a workplace, their potential for professional effectiveness is affected by a number of factors, including the individual's ability to put acquired knowledge, skills, and attitudes into practice. This ability may be influenced by the preconceived attitudes and expectations of athletes, athletes' parents, athletic directors, physical therapists, physicians, and coaches.

Objective: To examine the perspectives of high school coaches and ATCs toward the ATC's role in the high school setting by looking at 3 questions: (1) What are coaches' expectations of ATCs during different phases of a sport season? (2) What do ATCs perceive their …

Reliability And Validity Of The Behavioral And Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition: Parent Rating Scale, Paul Mooney, Michael H. Epstein, Gail Ryser, Corey D. Pierce

Faculty Publications

Three studies are reported addressing the test-retest reliability and convergent validity of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition (BERS-2): Parent Rating Scale (PRS). In the first study, test-retest reliability was investigated over a one-week period to determine the stability of the BERS-2 PRS over time. Reliability coefficients were at or above.80. Convergent validity was assessed as parents completed the PRS and a second measure of perceived child functioning. In the second study, the six BERS-2 PRS subscales and overall strength index were correlated with composite scores from the parent forms of the Social Skills Rating System. Correlations were generally …

Devotion To Tibetan Lamas, Self Psychology, And Healing In The United States, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

This essay offers an alternative, self psychological model for understanding the possible healing dynamics of the guru-disciple relationship. Previous psychological studies often have interpreted the devotion of Americans to Eastern gurus as inherently enriching pathology for the disciple, yet this understanding does not helpfully explicate much data derived from more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a Tibetan Buddhist center in the United States. Instead, re-exploration of the dynamics of the transference and the vicissitudes of Buddhist practice for disciples reveals positive healing processes for some disciples as a result of guru devotion practice.

Myths And Realities In The Sameness/Difference Debate, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Remarks made by Lawrence H. Summers, the President of Harvard University, suggesting by his "best guess" that "intrinsic aptitude" primarily accounts for the paucity of women holding senior academic positions in math, physics, engineering, and technology' have touched off a new round in a timeless debate over gender sameness and difference. This seeming bow to biology, emanating from the head of the nation's most prestigious academic institution, conjures up memories of yet another Harvard figure almost a century and a half ago. At that time, Dr. Edward Clarke, a member of Harvard's Board of Overseers and a former member …

Congressional Threats Of Removal Against Federal Judges, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

The federal judicial branch has lately become the object of increasing scrutiny and distrust by its legislative counterpart. Congressional suspicion is often directed toward judicial discretion in criminal sentencing and, more generally, the degree to which judges are perceived to be beholden to a particular ideological point of view or personal bias. This distrust has bred a potent strain of political opportunism that Congress has manifested in several recent bills. One of these, the Feeney Amendment to the PROTECT Act, all but eliminated judicial discretion in sentencing and tacitly threatens judges' continued employment. Though the Supreme Court's recent decision in …

In Response To The Remarks By Lawrence H. Summers, Presenting Empirical Data On The Differences In Learning Styles Between Males And Females, Robin A. Boyle, Andrea Honigsfeld

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Lawrence H. Summers' remarks at a conference on "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce," raise provocative issues regarding reasons for the disparities of "women's representation in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions." He postulated that one reason for this disparity was the "different availability of aptitude at the high end." One suspects that the word "aptitude" struck a raw nerve in the audience. After all, most academics in the audience would be familiar with the research of Carol Gilligan, and her well-known book, In A Different Voice, suggesting that women have different …

Judicial Valuation Behavior: Some Evidence From Bankruptcy, Keith Sharfman

Faculty Publications

This Article presents an empirical study of judicial valuation in the bankruptcy context, focusing on twenty-four valuation disputes in which a bankruptcy judge reached a valuation outcome between the values contended for by the parties. Two main findings emerged from the cases studied: (1) bankruptcy judges on average allocated 65.2% of the value in controversy to debtors and 34.8% to secured creditors; and (2) bankruptcy judges were more than three times as likely to allocate most of the value in controversy to debtors as they were to secured creditors. These results lend empirical support to the behaviorist intuition that loss …

On Discovering Doctrine: "Justice" In Contract Agreement, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Discourse Beneath: Emotional Epistemology In Legal Deliberation And Negotiation, Erin Ryan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sir Walter Raleigh Revived: The Supreme Court Re-Vamps Two Decades Of Confrontation Clause Precedent In Crawford V. Washington (Or, What You Learned In Law School About Confrontation Is Passé, Christine Hutton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Deception Detection Through Automatic, Unobtrusive Analysis Of Nonverbal Behavior, Thomas O. Meservy, Matthew L. Jensen, John Kruse, Judee K. Burgoon, Jay F. Nunamaker Jr., Douglas P. Twitchell, Gabriel Tsechpenakis, Dimitris N. Metaxas

Faculty Publications

Every day, hundreds of thousands of people pass through airport security checkpoints, border crossing stations, or other security screening measures. Security professionals must sift through countless interactions and ferret out high-risk individuals who represent a danger to other citizens. During each interaction, the security professional must decide whether the individual is being forthright or deceptive. This task is difficult because of the limits of human vigilance and perception and the small percentage of individuals who actually harbor hostile intent. Our research initiative is based on a behavioral approach to deception detection. We attempted to build an automated system that can …

The Interaction Of The Bilingual’S Two Phonetic Systems: Differences In Early And Late Korean-English Bilinguals, Wendy Baker

Faculty Publications

One of the basic questions of bilingual research is to what extent the bilingual’s two phonetic systems influence each other, a question that has occupied a prominent place in bilingual research almost from the outset of the field (see, for example, Weinreich, 1953). Recent studies in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) demonstrate that, at least in simultaneous bilingual acquisition, infants exposed to two languages are developing what appear to be two phonetic/phonological systems from the beginning (Johnson and Wilson, 2002; Kehoe, 2002; Bosch and Sebastian-Galles, 2001, Vihman, 2002), although their two systems may differ from monolinguals of either language (Mack, …

Web Site Quality And Usability In E-Commerce, Mei Cao, Qingyu Zhang

Faculty Publications

Web sites are being widely deployed commercially; however, the factors that affect the customer’s perception on the quality and acceptance of Web sites are unclear. Through a literature review on information systems success, ServQual, and trust, this chapter examines and integrates four sets of factors to capture the quality of e-commerce Web sites: system quality (functionality), information quality (content), service quality, and attractor. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model in comparison with the Theory of Reasoned Action and the theory of Human-Computer Interaction/Usability, a framework is developed relating the Web quality to customers’ beliefs (perceived usefulness and ease of use …

Speech Interactions With Linguistic, Cognitive, And Visuomotor Tasks, Christopher Dromey, Emily Bates

Faculty Publications

Lip movements were examined across several repetitive speaking conditions (speech alone and speaking concurrently with a linguistic, cognitive, or visuomotor challenge task) in 20 young adults. Performance in these nonspeech activities was also compared between isolated tasks and concurrent speech conditions. Linguistic challenges resulted in increased spatiotemporal variability of lip displacement across repetitions. Motor challenges led to more rapid speech with smaller lip displacement. These qualitatively different changes suggest that different aspects of attention are required for linguistic versus manual visuomotor activity. Vocal intensity increased for all concurrent task conditions compared with speech alone, suggesting increased effort compared to the …

Distance Learning And University Effectiveness: Changing Educational Paradigms For Online Learning, Scott L. Howell

Faculty Publications

Howell reviews Distance Learning and University Effectiveness: Changing Educational Paradigms for Online Learning by Caroline Howard, Karen D. Schenk, and Richard Discenza.

Legal Revolutions: Six Mistakes About Discontinuity In The Legal Order, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

A legal revolution occurs when chains of legal dependence rupture-causing one legal system to be replaced by a different and incommensurable legal system. For example, before the French Revolution chains of legal dependence ultimately led to Louis XVI, but after this legal revolution they led to the National Assembly (or the people of France it represented). The very possibility of legal revolutions depends upon laws being structured into legal systems in this fashion. And yet, despite substantial academic interest in legal revolutions, there has been a reluctance to examine the structure that makes them possible. The goal of this Article …

Beyond Breimhorst: Appropriate Accommodation Of Students With Learning Disabilities On The Sat, Nancy Leong

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sexual Violence And International Criminal Law: An Analysis Of The Ad Hoc Tribunal's Jurisprudence & The International Criminal Court's Elements Of Crimes, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Historical Quirks, Political Opportunism, And The Anti-Loan Provision Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Jayne W. Barnard

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Marriage In The Ten Commandments, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Job Demands And Job Search Among High-Level Managers In The United States And Europe, John B. Bingham, Wendy R. Boswell, John W. Boudreau

Faculty Publications

High-level managers are often faced with challenging demands at work, and much of the managerial development literature has researched the responses to these challenges. The authors propose an extension to this research by investigating the influence of challenge-related and obstacle- related job demands on job search among a sample of U.S. managers and a sample of international managers. Specifically, the authors propose divergent relationships among job search and the type of job demands managers experience, and we also explore the mediating effect of job satisfaction. The authors’ study provides further insight into the complexities of managerial responsibilities and their behavioral …

Passive Decisions And Potent Defaults, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, Andrew Metrick

Faculty Publications

Default options have an enormous impact on household choices. Such effects have now been extensively documented in the literature on 401(k) plans (Madrian and Shea 2001; Choi et al. 2002b, 2004). Defaults have been shown to affect participation, savings rates, rollovers, and asset allocation. For example, Choi et al. (2004) study three firms that use automatic enrollment. When employees at these firms are automatically enrolled in their 401(k) plan, only a tiny fraction opt out, producing participation rates exceeding 85 percent regardless of tenure. But when employees at these firms were not automatically enrolled, participation rates were significantly lower, ranging …