Digital Commons Network^™

Sentencing Decisions : The Public View Of The Effects Of Consequences Of Crime, Offender Remorse And Type Of Crime, Jodie S. Wright

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The Australian justice system is based in a conventional model of justice with the aim of uniformity in sentencing. It is important to ascertain public opinion on the relevance of different factors to be taken into account at sentencing as accurately as possible, in order to provide informed public opinion which may assist policy makers in making legislation or educating the public on these matters. The current study examined the impact of varying levels of victim harm (high or low) and offender remorse (high or low) for both person and property crimes on sentencing decisions made by both male (n …

Cognitive Apprenticeship In A Building Design Office, Craig A. Baird

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis presents a research study that investigated student learning in a mentor supported design office situation, using a cognitive apprenticeship learning approach that utilised authentic design project tusks. In this study, 29 final year Technical And Further Education (TAFE) building design students undertook authentic building design projects with expert building designers, who acted as mentors, in commercial design office situations. The mentors guided student learning by using a cognitive apprenticeship approach to learning, implemented with authentic design projects designed to replicate the everyday culture of practice activities typical of commercial design office operations. This study follows the progress of …

The Influence Of Male Gender Role Conflict On Life Satisfaction, Tracey Hancock

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study examined the relationship between male gender role conflict and life satisfaction, once the effects of both psychological symptoms and recent traumatic life events were accounted for. The study comprised 100 male participants, 50 from a clinical sample and 50 from a non-clinical sample. Participants were aged between 19 and 70. Participants were asked to complete 4 questionnaires: the Gender Role Conflict Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), and the Life Events Questionnaire. Results were obtained using standard and multiple regression analyses. Gender role conflict was found to impact on life satisfaction for both …

Downsizing : An Analysis Of Organisational Strategies And Human Resource Management Outcomes, Cecil A. Clabaugh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The objective of this research was to examine the relationship between loss and retention of key employees in downsizing organisations and organisational performance. The purpose of this was to develop an understanding of the organisational performance that results when downsizing organisations are unable to retain their key workers. The secondary objective of the research was to examine the factors that make up a downsizing organisation's employee selection process in order to determine how these factors affect loss and retention of key workers. The research was guided by a theoretical framework developed by Kozlowski et al (1993) and Thornhill and Saunders …

Internet Content Control In Australia : Data Topology, Topography And The Data Deficit, David Harte

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The success of the online adult industry has provoked a public policy controversy over the need for internet censorship, and in recent times there has emerged desire to protect minors from possibly unsuitable content. On January 1st 2000, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act (Cwlth, 1999) (BSA) was proclaimed. The Act purports to regulate and control Internet content in Australia. Operating in tandem with the Act is the Internet Industry Association Code of Practice, giving Australia a co-regulatory approach to Internet content control. The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) is charged with implementing the regime. This study sets out examine …

Trace And The Makers Of Meaning, Lindon J. Thompson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

One of the greatest accessible records of trace and the past is the landscape, which over time acts as a repository of evidence from natural forces and things that humans have created or changed. This thesis considers trace as material and nonmaterial evidence, remnants, marks, vestiges of events past and forgotten or remembered. How can a past that is evidenced only by its traces be read within a landscape context by disciplines of knowledge production? The subsequent interpretation, generation of meaning and understanding of traces contributes to the knowledge, mythology and perceptions of reality for differing groups in different places. …

Why People Don't Go To Church : A Study Of Factors Associated With Non-Participation And Participation In Church In Australia, John Bellamy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Church-based religion in the western world is considered by many sociologists to be in decline. The causes of this decline have been linked to secularising processes such as institutional differentiation, urbanisation, industrialisation, and the rise of scientific rationalism. The primary research aim of this study is to identify what contribution the religious beliefs of individuals, their demographic characteristics, their work and leisure patterns, their attitudes and experiences of churches and their experience of the urban environment, make towards understanding patterns of non-participation and participation in local churches. A secondary research aim is to identify to what extent theories of secularisation …

Early Childhood Teachers' Perceptions Of Their Leadership Roles, Glenda Boyd

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Early childhood education has long been regarded as having the lowest status in the education system. Recent government reforms in Australia based on financial rather than education concerns means early childhood education will continue to face declines in status, conditions and appropriate resources, unless educators exercise leadership skills in advocating for appropriate programs and curriculum for young children. A new model of Early Childhood Teacher Leadership was created to measure leadership skills, including leadership in advocating for young children, and tested in Phase One of the study. The model involved General Leadership (Classroom Leadership, Self-directed Leadership, Program Leadership and School …

Vlsi Implementation Of A Massively Parallel Wavelet Based Zerotree Coder For The Intelligent Pixel Array, Geoffrey N. Alagoda

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In the span of a few years, mobile multimedia communication has rapidly become a significant area of research and development constantly challenging boundaries on a variety of technologic fronts. Mobile video communications in particular encompasses a number of technical hurdles that generally steer technological advancements towards devices that are low in complexity, low in power usage yet perform the given task efficiently. Devices of this nature have been made available through the use of massively parallel processing arrays such as the Intelligent Pixel Processing Array. The Intelligent Pixel Processing array is a novel concept that integrates a parallel image capture …

Characterization Of The Human Cytomegalovirus Ul75 Late Gene Promoter, Bernard J. P. Mcwatters

Theses and Dissertations in Biomedical Sciences

Gene expression during productive infection by the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) occurs in an ordered and sequential manner, beginning with immediate early (IE), then early (E) and finally late (L) gene expression. Significant work has addressed the regulation of IE and E gene expression while relatively little work has addressed the control of late gene expression. In order to further address HCMV late gene expression, the promoter of the HCMV UL75 (glycoprotein H, gH) late gene was characterized. The data obtained in this study were combined with observations made in two other studies that have addressed HCMV late gene expression to …

The Relationship Between Workplace Absenteeism And Alcohol Use: A Day-To-Day Examination, Susan Kay Mcfarlin

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This investigation examined the conditional day-to-day relationship between alcohol use and workplace absenteeism among participants (N = 302) employed full-time in one of three large companies located in the northeastern U.S. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather information from employees on their daily use of alcohol and other drugs during a 1-month period. Employees' absenteeism and work injury data during the same target time period were gathered from personnel files residing in the companies' human resources departments. The presence of a current alcohol use disorder also was determined. The following primary hypotheses were tested: (a) there would be a …

A Study Of The Effects Of Constructivist Based Vs. Traditional Direct Instruction On 8th Grade Science Comprehension, Clair T. Berube

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education

Studies conducted nationwide over the past several decades point consistently to the evidence that American school children lag behind several other countries in science scores. Problems arise from this dilemma, including the question of the ability of our youngsters to compete nationally and globally in the sciences as adults. Current research in this area of scores currently studies mostly mathematics. The few studies conducted concerning science mainly highlight students in other countries and neglects minorities and females regarding outcomes.

By contrast, this study investigated the effects of teacher types (also defined as teaching styles or classroom orientation) on student outcomes …

Volume 25, No. 4

The Weldon Times

A student-run newspaper published at the School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Editors: Andrew Wadden, Alanna Robinson, Cameron MacKeen, Laurelle Funk

Tidal And Subtidal Lateral Structures Of Density And Velocity In The Chesapeake Bay Entrance, Austreberto Cristobal Reyes-Hernandez

OES Theses and Dissertations

Hydrographic and velocity data collected along the Chesapeake Bay Entrance during seven 25-hours cruises centered around neap or spring tides, were used to assess the fortnightly variability in the transverse structure of the tidal and subtidal density and velocity fields. Amplitude and phase of the semidiurnal and diurnal harmonics reflected the influence of bathymetry, buoyancy conditions and fortnightly variability. Tidal amplitudes were almost twice as large in springs than in neaps. Both Chesapeake and North Channels had similar along-channel amplitudes, which suggested a higher vertically integrated mixing energy in North Channel. Tidal velocity convergences were more intense for springs than …

A Framework For Performance And Value Assessment Of E-Business Systems In Corporate Travel Distribution, A.M. Chircu, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This chapter proposes and illustrates a framework that the authors call the value life cycle for e-commerce systems. Based on recent research results that relate to technology investments in the corporate travel industry and related theoretical and empirical perspectives, the authors lay out the corporate travel e-commerce system solutions value life cycle. The perspective involves estimating the maximum value that that an organization can obtain by implementing an e-commerce system in a specific industry and competitive environment. It also considers multiple factors that act as value contingencies for the implementation process. These create barriers to value accrual and to …

Ecological Studies On Cucumber (Cucumis Sativus L.) Pest Spectrum, Yield Loss Assessment And Potential For Use Of Neem Products In Kenya, Tom Charles Mboya Matoka

All Master’s Theses

Cucurbit vegetable crops, especially cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) offer a good potential for urban and export marketing in Kenya. The crop also shows a promise for commercial production in Eastern African while pests are reckoned as one of the major production constraints. There is very little published information on the range and relative importance of different pests on the crop and appropriate control measures in the region. Exploratory studies conducted from November 1998 to August 2000 at KISE, Nairobi and November 1998 to March 1999 at Kibwezi, Eastern province in Kenya brought to focus arthropods (pests and natural enemies) associated …

The Complimentary Role Of Wild Habitats In Crop Pollination: A Case Study On The Eggplant (Solatium Melongena L., Solanaceae), Alfred Ochieng Oluoch

All Master’s Theses

In this study, carried out in Nguruman, southwestern Kenya, 10 bee species were identified as eggplant pollinators. Their foraging behaviour was shown to be affected by the prevailing ambient temperature and not time of the day or the number of flowers per square meter in the eggplant fields. Only 2 bee species, Xylocopa caffra and Narnia sp., visited the eggplant blossoms at a great frequency. Their pollinator effectiveness was determined in two eggplant cultivars (the Black Beauty and the Early Long Purple). X caffra proved to be the most effective pollinator of the eggplant. Floral manipulations performed to study the …

Ontologies And Electronic Commerce, Dieter Fensel, Deborah L. Mcguinness, Ellen Schulten, Wee-Keong Ng, Ee Peng Lim, Guanghao Yan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Ontologies are the first step toward realizing the full power of online e-commerce. Ontologies enable machine-understandable semantics of data, and building this data infrastructure will enable completely new kinds of automated services. Software agents can search for products, form buyer and seller coalitions, negotiate about products, or help automatically configure products and services according to specified user requirements. The combination of machine-processable semantics of data based on ontologies and the development of many specialized reasoning services will bring the Web to its full power. The authors discuss: taxonomies; information sources; future issues; business viewpoints; the e-marketplace; and B2B e-commerce standardisation …

Incorporating Window-Based Passage-Level Evidence In Document Retrieval, Wensi Xi, Richard Xu-Rong, Christopher Soo Guan Khoo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study investigated whether document retrieval can be improved if documents are divided into smaller sub-documents or passages and the retrieval score for these passages are incorporated in the final retrieval score for the whole document. The documents were segmented by sliding a window of a certain size across the document and extracting the words displayed each time the window stopped. A retrieval score was calculated for each of the passages extracted and the highest score obtained by a passage of that size was taken as the document’s passage-level score for that window size. A range of window sizes was …

The Technologies Of Property Rights: Choice Among Alternative Solutions To Tragedies Of The Commons, Bruce Yandle, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

Garrett Hardin's classic description of the tragedy of the commons tells us that all environmental problems require a property rights solution. The property solution or rule may call for the definition and enforcement of common, public, or private property rights, but any escape from the tragedy requires some rationing mechanism that allocates a form of property rights to some entity. These solutions fall into one of two broad traditions within economics: the Pigouvian, or regulatory tradition, and the Coasean, or market-based tradition. Any proposal for action in either tradition implies some definition of property rights. The difference lies in the …

Lessons From The Development Of Western Water Law For Emerging Water Markets: Common Law Vs. Central Planning, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

The story of water in the American West shows that political intervention is unnecessary. Local institutions and rules could be the basis for a legal regime sufficient to deal with water issues that arise. The importation of central planning regimes for water can thus not only lead to the allocation of water in ways that harm the interests of indigenous peoples, but also can contribute to the destruction of customary legal systems, which themselves form a valuable part of indigenous people's cultural heritage. Failing to resist the attempts by special interests at a water grab may thus leave both the …

Measurement Of Open Beauty Production In Photoproduction At Hera, J. Breitweg, S. Chekanov, M. Derrick, D. Krakauer, S. Magill, B. Musgrave, A. Pellegrino, J. Repond, R. Stanek, R. Yoshida, Margarita C. K. Mattingly, P. Antonioli, G. Bari, M. Basile, L. Bellagamba, D. Boscherini, A. Bruni, G. Bruni, G. Cara Romeo, L. Cifarelli, F. Cindolo, A. Contin, M. Corradi, S. De Pasquale, P. Giusti, G. Iacobucci, G. Levi, A. Margotti, T. Massam, R. Nania, F. Palmonari

Faculty Publications

The production and semi-leptonic decay of heavy quarks have been studied in the photoproduction process e+p → e+ + dijet + e- + X with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.5 pb-1. Events with photon-proton centre-of-mass energies, Wγp, between 134 and 269 GeV and a photon virtuality, Q2, less than 1 GeV2 were selected requiring at least two jets of transverse energy Ejet1(2)T > 7(6) GeV and an electron in the final state. The electrons were identified by employing the ionisation energy loss measurement. The contribution of beauty quarks was determined using the transverse momentum of …

Unified Modeling Language: A Complexity Analysis, Keng Siau, Q. Cao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the standard visual modeling language for Object Oriented (OO) systems development, but it has been criticized for its complexity, inconsistent semantics, and ambiguous constructs. A set of complexity indices for UML and the nine diagramming techniques in UML was compiled recently. The complexity analysis is formulated based on the number of constructs, associations, roles, and so forth, in a modeling method. We argue that this set of metrics provides an indication of the theoretical complexity of the modeling methods. On the other hand, the theoretical complexity of the modeling methods does not necessarily relate to …

What Happened To Property In Law And Economics?, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Property has fallen out of fashion. Although people are as concerned as ever with acquiring and defending their material possessions, in the academic world there is little interest in understanding property. To some extent, this indifference reflects a more general skepticism about the value of conceptual analysis, as opposed to functional assessment of institutions. There is, however, a deeper reason for the indifference to property. It is a commonplace of academic discourse that property is simply a "bundle of rights," and that any distribution of rights and privileges among persons with respect to things can be dignified with the (almost …

Information Technology And Non-Legal Sanctions In Financing Transactions, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay investigates the effect of advances in information technology on the private institutions that businesses use to resolve information asymmetries in financing transactions. The first part of the Essay discusses how information technology can permit direct verification of the information, obviating the problem entirely; the Essay discusses the example of the substitution of the debit card for the check, which provides an immediate payment that obviates the need for the merchant to consider whether payment will be forthcoming when the check is presented to the bank on which it is drawn.

The second part of the Essay discusses how …

The Dynamic Analytics Of Property Law, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

The standard property trilogy of private, commons, and state has become so outdated that it now impedes imagination and innovation at the frontiers of ownership. This essay suggests two approaches – creating new ideal types and synthesizing existing ones – that may help update our static property metaphors. Using these dynamic approaches to property analytics, legal theory can move beyond polarizing oppositions that have made jurisprudential debates unsolvable and rendered concrete problems invisible.

Look Who's Extrapolating: A Reply To Hoffmann, Valerie West, Jeffery Fagan, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

In late March, a reporter called with news of a pirated copy of Professor Joseph Hoffinann's soon-to-be-published "attack" on our study, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995. Did we care to comment? Obtaining our own copy revealed that Professor Hoffmann's fusillade missed its mark (he misstates what we did) and boomeranged (his mischaracterizations of our analysis accurately describe his own). We do care to comment, and Hoffmann and the Indiana Law Journal have graciously let us do so.

Hoffmann's main claim is that we "extrapolated" the 68% rate of reversible error we reported for capital verdicts …

Joel Feinberg On Crime And Punishment: Exploring The Relationship Between The Moral Limits Of The Criminal Law And The Expressive Function Of Punishment, Bernard Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

When I was originally approached to participate in this Symposium on the work and legacy of Joel Feinberg, I immediately began thinking about the influence of his essay The Expressive Function of Punishment on contemporary criminal law theory in the United States. That essay has contributed significantly to a growing body of scholarship associated with the resurgence of interest inexpressive theories of law. In the criminal law area, the expressivist movement traces directly and foremost to Feinberg's essay. As Carol Steiker observes, "Joel Feinberg can be credited with inaugurating the "expressivist" turn in punishment theory with his influential essay, The …

Lembaga Tabung Haji : Suatu Kajian Sumbangan Terhadap Ekonomi Umat Islam Di Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Tengku Aziz Raja Abdullah

Student Works (2000-2009)

TENGKU AZIZ BIN RAJA ABDULLAH - Pilgrimage Fund: An analysis on its contribution to Muslim community in Federal Territory, Kuala Lumpur. Dissertation for Usuluddin Faculty, Islamic Academy University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Pilgrimage Fund is a statutory body established to provide services among Muslim community in Malaysia especially in the haj management. The fund was set to assist Muslim in saving their money gradually to eventually perform haj or umrah. It was also responsible in expanding the saving through profitable investment for the benefit of depositors. Indirectly it has assisted in improving the economic level of Muslim community. To achieve this, …

Rural Out-Migration And Remittances : A Case Study Of Four Districts In Peninsular Malaysia, Chuie Hong Tan

Student Works (2000-2009)

This research report examines the socio-economic differentials of remittances in Kerian, Hilir Perak, Sabak Bemam and Rembau, using data from a based on a survey on "Consequences of Rural Depopulation on the Agricultural Communities" conducted in 1997 by a group of researchers from the University of Malaya. The survey provided a host of socio-demographic information for the detailed analyses of remittances in terms of:

• the proportion of households in the study areas that had received remittances from their migrant children and the amount received, and

• the proportion of migrant children who had sent remittances and the amount remitted. …