Digital Commons Network^™

Role Of Venture Capital Financing In Inflating The Technology Stock Market Bubble, Jessica Rosenbloom

Honors Theses

Comprising nearly one-third of the nation's gross domestic product from 1995 to 1999, the growth of the Information Technology industry took a backseat to dot.com mania. Its companies, however, were just as influential in creating the stock market bubble. Characterized by high technology, high research and development, high profits, and high risk, the Information Technology industry had always been attractive to venture capital investors. This study will find that a Telecommunications Deregulation Act passed in 1996, in conjunction with an eight percent capital gains tax cut in 1997, flooded venture capitalists with business plans pertaining to the Information Technology industry. …

Ecuador's Indigenous University Movement, Uinpi: Reconstructing Identity In The Search For Equality, Joshua Gerber

Honors Theses

The following chapters address Ecuadorian history, identity politics. and the education system to analyze UINPI's role in the reformation of indigenous identity. To provide a backdrop for UINPI's identity project, chapter one establishes a historical framework of the development of racialized constructions of indigenous identity in Ecuador. It utilizes Plumwood's hierarchical dualism to address the ways in which identity ideology justified and motivated the often-brutal socio-political domination of euro-mestizo peoples in Ecuador. Chapter two addresses the role of identity at UlNPI, arguing that the university's identity project is oriented towards the reformation of indigenous identity, rather than the representation of …

Communicator-In-Chief: Presidential Use Of Television Past, Present, And Future, Jenna Wasson

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to determine how television has changed as a communication medium for presidents over the past half century. An evaluation of the evolving ways presidents use television to communicate with and to build support from the American people has been conducted. Presidential communication strategies have been identified by drawing primarily from primary sources written by presidents and White House staff. Television technology and the television audience have changed over the years. Presidents have taken a more pro-active, aggressive role in their efforts to harness television for their own purposes. Why have these changes occurred? What impact have these …

Integrated Test For Exploitation And Discrimination In The National Basketball Association, Kathleen Carney

Honors Theses

Over the past thirty years, economists have become increasingly interested in the labor market for professional sports. These studies have focused primarily on exploitation, the difference between marginal revenue product and salary, or discrimination, salary differentials based on race, or ethnic background. This paper attempts to combine both areas of research, that is, to explain the systematic deviation of marginal revenue product from salary as a function of race, or ethnic background. Using NBA data collected over three seasons 1995-98, we specify a three-equation model, an enhancement of the Scully two-step method presented in 1976. We then ask if players …

Medicine Men Of The Anti-Progressive Party : Sacred Sites, Public Lands, And The Construction Of Religious Liberty, Jacob Culbertson

Honors Theses

On December 29, 1890 the United States Seventh Calvary descended upon a group of practitioners of the blossoming Ghost Dance religion and killed more than 300 Indians belonging to multiple Northern Plains nations. The massacre at Wounded Knee Creek was the apex of the United States government's violent campaign to win the American west from its original inhabitants, and it marked a transition in strategy in the young republic's assault on Native America. Having essentially won the land battles to annex the bulk of the economically valuable Native territory, the United States turned its attention away from the physical disposal …

Synthesis And Dna Binding Of Cis And Trans-Rucl2 (Dmso)4, Thomas Curran

Honors Theses

The synthesis of both cis and trans-RuCl?(DMSO)? has been reported in literature, and is currently the only way of acquiring these compounds. Because these metallodrugs have shown similar antitumor properties to cisplatin, they are currently under investigation for use in clinical trials as potential chemotherapeutics. It is believed that these drugs act in a way similar to cisplatin by causing intrastrand crosslinking of adjacent guanine residues in DNA. In an attempt to better understand any Ru/DNA interaction for these compounds, both cis and trans-RuCl?(DMSO)? were synthesized with reasonable yields (~40%). The compounds were then characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), …

Suits Or Pajamas: An Economic Analysis Of The Causes And Consequences Of Telecommuting, Jonathan Marlow

Honors Theses

While the concept is not new, the popularity of telecommuting has increased with the expansion in telecommunications and technology througb the last twenty years. Telecommuting, or the ability to work away from one's regular office site, is now easier than ever to do with the advancements in reliable telephone systems, personal computers, and internet access that allow one to go to the office virtually rather than physically. This concept has gained the attention of policymakers and public planners because of its potential to address various issues, possibly leading to a better quality of life, increased productivity, and improved air quality. …

The Boundaries Of Liberalism In A Global Era: A Critique Of John Stuart Mill, Chris Daly

Honors Theses

The following study examines three works of John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Utilitarianism, and Three Essays on Religion, and their subsequent effects on liberalism. Comparing the notion on individual freedom espoused in On Liberty to the notion of the social welfare in Utilitarianism, this analysis posits that it is impossible for a political philosophy to have two ultimate ends. Thus, Mill's liberalism is inherently flawed. As this philosophy was the foundation of Mill's progressive vision for humanity that he discusses in his Three Essays on Religion, this vision becomes paradoxical as well. Contending that the neo-liberalist global economic order is …

Harmony And Health In The Huang Ti Nei Ching Su Wen (The Yellow Emperor's Classic Of Intemal Medicine), Kendall Castillo

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Autistic Behavior Modification Techniques, Evana Sandusky

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Opium Illusion, Katrina S. Blasingame

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Cycle Of Friendship: Creating A Story In Dance, Megan Leigh Spencer

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

A History Of Fruitdale, Alabama, Julie Elizabeth Dunn

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Global Stock Market: Implications To American Investors, Angela Giordano

Honors Theses

Investors in most industrialized nations have many alternatives beyond the traditional checking and savings accounts. Alternatives such as stocks, which can be purchased off over 180exchanges worldwide, bonds, mutual funds, retirement plans (401k, 501c, 403b), annuities, money market accounts and CDs are often used as investment tools. With all these alternatives, how does one determine which tool or tools to utilize in investing their hard-earned income?

Improving The Campus Sustainability Assessment Process, Andrew Nixon

Honors Theses

The human enterprise is rapidly overwhelming the Earth’s ecological systems and draining its natural resources. According to Vitousek et al., as much as one-half of the planet’s land surface has been transformed by human activity; more than half of the world’s available fresh water is used by humans; and a quarter of the planet’s bird species have been driven to extinction by human activity (Vitousek et al, 1997). These and many other negative trends pose catastrophic implications for the future of our species and for the planet’s other inhabitants.

Locating Postmodern Epistemology, Organizational Structure And Postcolonial Workers In The Knowledge Rhizome, Viren Mascarenhas

Honors Theses

The three excerpts from Amitav Ghosh's novels find the main characters speculating about the relationship between organizational structures, epistemology and knowledge production. In the first excerpt, Arjun tells Dinu that he does not believe that the colonial bureaucracy known as the British Anny will continue to exist if the policy of separating Indian and British officers persists. Anticipating the problems created from Indians holding leadership positions, he doubts that the British Anny "can go on." Murugan explains how the counter-scientists operate in the second excerpt, noting that members were revising epistemology by distorting knowledge through mutation. They were not following …

Non-Classical Level Control Of The Utc Distillation Column, Mevan Ranasinghe

Honors Theses

This paper researches the enhancement of accuracy for level control for an operational distillation column. This was achieved through an analysis of both controller and sensor components. The UTC distillation column reboiler level control, like any control system, has multiple sources of error resulting in increased imprecision and inaccuracy. Several fundamental inaccuracies in processing of data were identified and then minimized by the introduction of a non-linear mathematical model prior to any actual controller development. This provides more accurate level measurement and a base for developing accurate controllers.In exploring the effectiveness of alternative controllers, two non-classical controllers are considered in …

Rethinking The Great Divide : A Rhetorical Study Of Orality, Literacy And The Human Experience, Danielle L. Joyce

Honors Theses

Our technologizing of the world has not only drastically been changing the way we live, work, and play but also the rhetoric that we employ within it to communicate with one another. "Cyberspace" and "virtual reality" have become commonplace descriptors of social forms where people do not have to live, meet, or work face-to-face in order to develop or maintain significant social relationships (Gackenbach, 227). We no longer only meet "in person" for important discussions or send hand written letters to loved-ones for reception weeks later. Instead, today, we talk into cameras attached to telephones to close multi-million dollar business …

Escaping The Auction Block And Rejecting The Pedestal Of Virtue : Slave Narratives Redefine Womanhood In Nineteenth-Century America, Candice E. Renka

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is not, as Carby states, to "establish the existence of an American sisterhood between black and white women," an overly optimistic effort, of which Carby is rightfully wary. Rather, this understanding of womanhood as an ideology existing concordantly with slavery, reveals the limits of personhood as it was defined for women in antebellum America. Although the dominant paradigm of womanhood did not articulate White as a race, it was acutely aware of "whiteness ... as a racial categorization" in opposition to Blackness (Carby 18). Similarly, Black women were reconstructing womanhood, creating a model that empowered …

Self-Similarity In Network Traffic, Francisco Chinchilla

Honors Theses

It is critical to properly understand the nature of network traffic in order to effectively design models describing network behavior. These models are usually used to simulate network traffic, which in turn are used to construct congestion control techniques, perform capacity planning studies, and/or evaluate the behavior of new protocols. Using the wrong models could lead to potentially serious problems such as delayed packet transmissions or an increase in packet drop rates.

Traditionally, packet arrivals were assumed to follow a Poisson arrival process. Although Poisson processes have several properties that make them easy to work with, they do not accurately …

Western Michigan University Occupational Therapy Department Web Page, Holly Pietrzak, Melissa Byrne

Honors Theses

Website designed for WMU's Occupational Therapy department.

Rape Myths Among A Sample Of Utc Students, Nicolette Mendenhall

Honors Theses

Rape has a tremendous impact upon victims. The victim has to come to terms with the reality that she was raped,as well as face the new perceptions that other people will have about her. These perceptions will be a result of conceptions about rape that are not realistic. These unrealistic beliefs are called 'rape myths.' There has been much research on rape myths for the following reasons: they may upset the victim, they provide justification for rapists to rape someone, and they may affect a woman's behavior because she may avoid activities she believes will lead her to be raped. …

Girls In Motion: World War I As A Catalyst For Change In The Cultural And Fictive Landscape Of American Girlhood, Emily Honey

Honors Theses

The girls' series fiction of the First World War is particularly adept at portraying both the service of women and their idealization, simultaneously encouraging young women to go out into the workforce in the name of patriotism and discouraging them from giving up their roles as the traditional caretakers of men.

Elementary History Education And Children's Perceptions Of Time, Christine M. Mccreedy

Honors Theses

When I was in upper elementary school, social studies, history in particular, was often nothing more than reading a text to imprint for a short period of time the "facts" of history. I read books through most of the instruction. I read so many wonderful works of historical fiction, the Holocaust and the Civil War being among the most interesting subjects. Through excellent and not-so-good works of historical fiction, I saw history unfolding in the present, not just the past. The characters gave faces, stories, and meaning to the text we used in class. I grew up with a strong …

Modeling A Real-Time Economics Simulation With User-Coded Agents In An Object-Oriented Database, Kevin Simons

Honors Theses

A simulation tbat models the stock market with real-time stock quotes was created. Users can translate their own theories about investing into Java code, which is then used to create an intelligent agent. The agent is inserted into the simulation, which allows the agent to gather data from the model. Based on this data, the agent uses the algorithm the user wrote to buy and sell stocks. Such as model provides a means of testing investment theories before investing.

Above And Beyond The Rim: An Examination Of Customer Discrimination In The National Basketball Association, Carl E. Tugberk

Honors Theses

I present a study of customer discrimination in the NBA by examining total annual attendance for all 29 teams for the five-season period from 1996 to 2001. Several previous studies have been conducted on this issue and seldom have found evidence of discrimination by measuring the racial composition of a team as the percentage of _white players on the roster. However, using this measure and several alternative measures of racial composition, I find that fans do discriminate against black players, and this discrimination occurs in a variety of ways. Specifically, spectators alter their decisions to attend games based on the …

Attributes Of A Successful Confederacy: A Comparative Analysis Of The Political Institutions Of The Articles Of Confederation And The European Union, Kim Victor

Honors Theses

Following the devastation and instability in Europe in the aftermath of World War II, six of the continent's nations entered into the European Coal and Steel Community. The agreement to enter this organization provided the impetus for the modern day European Union (EU)I. Although its relatively short history may not be sufficient to consider the relationship perpetual, the European Union shows promise of continual integration. While these two political systems are fundamentally different in a number of respects, the basic structure of each organization be categorized as a confederacy. Using the notion of a confederacy as a point of comparison, …

Investigations Of Intramolecular Copper (I)-Arene Interactions Using A Ns2-Macrocyclic Ligand With Different Pendant Aryl Arms, Paul J. Lee

Honors Theses

Two macrocyclic ligands with a pendant phenyl group -N-[2-(l-phenyl)ethyl]-1-aza-4,8di thiacyclodecane (L1) and N-[2-0-phenyl)propyl]-1-aza-4,8-dithiacyclodecane, (L2) has been synthesized and characterized. The copper(I)-triphenylphosphine complex [LICu(PPhJ)]OTf , (2) was synthesized from L1 1/2(C6H6)[CuOTf]2, and PPh3. The complexes [LICu]OTf 1 and [L2Cu]OTf 3 were also synthesized and characterized using DC and IH NMR, UV-vis and lR spectroscopy, and ESI-MS. In CD2Cl2, 1 was found to have a fluxional behavior with the barrier ΔG to the process estimated at 9-11 kcal/mol. Variable temp. NMR spectroscopy of 1 gave compelling evidence that the phenylappended group is bound in an intramolecullar η2-fashion with the copper center. At …

Local Participation As A Determinant Of Success In World Bank Environmental Projects: What Is The Evidence?, Catherine Benson

Honors Theses

The current impoverished, environmentally degraded state of Africa suggests that international aid projects have proven largely unsuccessful in tackling the enormous development and environment challenges faced by Africa. Africa has historically been inundated with groups trying to implement change in the form of political, economic, and environmental agendas, beginning in the colonial period and continuing today. The abundance of advice and financial assistance poured into this region have resulted in a continent lagging behind other developing regions to an even worse extent than prior to aid projects. The environment of development in Africa is complex; nowhere else in the world …

Pharmacists' Perceptions Of Practice Roles: Opportunities And Challenges Facing Pharmacy With Respect To Expanding The Scope Of Practice In Mississippi, Peter John Pattridge Jr.

Honors Theses

Title: Pharmacists' Perceptions of Practice Roles: Opportunities and Challenges Facing Pharmacy with Respect to Expanding the Scope of Practice in Mississippi Objective: To provide objective evidence as to the opportunities and challenges that pharmacists will encounter when implementing an expanded role in the health care system from the perspective of the practicing pharmacist. Methods: Questionnaires were mailed to Mississippi licensed pharmacists. The first section contained questions dealing with the demography of the respondent including a utilization of skills scale and several domains of job satisfaction. The second section contained the health care activities inventory. Respondents were asked to report which …