Digital Commons Network^™

The Attitudes Of Spain's Political Parties Toward The European Union And The Integration Of The Euro, Meghan Miller

All Volumes (2001-2008)

This research endeavors to determine the ramifications of this new, grandiose, international order on a micro-political level through the study of four political parties in Spain. The parties include the People's Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE), both with a national base, and Convergence and Union (CiU) of Catalonia and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which are two of the most influential nationalist parties. The following analysis thoroughly examines the attitudes of these parties towards European Union as well as the recent introduction of the euro. This paper will explain how the European and monetary union has …

Health-Related Quality Of Life As Predictor Of Adherence With Antiretroviral Medication, Rakesh Joshi

Open Access Master's Theses

Title of the Study: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as predictor of medication adherence in patients infected with Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV).

Summary: Quality of life (QoL) is a broad term which involves evaluation of all aspects of life including, health, education, family life, housing, friendship, marriage, standard of living, and work. Health is one of the domains that affect our quality of life. The measurement of HRQoL is becoming an increasingly common activity in healthcare systems around the world. Health-related quality of life or biological outcome of treatment might predict adherence to HIV medication. This research is …

Self-Concept, Self-Monitoring And The Relationship Of Human Social Interaction, Crystal Rose Fonseca

Open Access Master's Theses

Self-monitoring research has developed into a significant literature that spans across disciplines. However, little research has examined the influence of self-monitoring on the development of the self-concept, which sets the stage for the current research endeavor. In the first study, it was hypothesized that directional questions “Are you extraverted?” would influence a self-concept of self-monitors to a greater extent, as they would be more likely to generate supporting thoughts which would mediate this effect. Findings generally supported the end effect of the hypothesis, but not the mediating process with high self-monitors reported a greater change in self-ratings after receiving a …

Making The Grade: Academic Literacies And First-Generation College Students In A Highly Selective Liberal Arts College, Theresa Perri Ammirati

Open Access Dissertations

Previous research on first-generation college students has concentrated largely on students enrolled in community colleges or universities. This study examines first generation students at a single, highly selective, four-year, liberal arts college, and uses an academic literacies approach to understand the relationship between first-generation status and written and oral literacies as illustrated in academic papers and classroom performance. Twelve first-generation college students were interviewed extensively about their early literacy experiences, family background, relationship to family and home community, high school preparation, selection of and transition into a highly selective college, and written and oral literacy experiences at that institution. Writing …

The Rhetoric Of Colin Powell, Scott Dauenhauer

Open Access Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the rhetoric of Colin Powell, while further examining his background and the forces impacting his rhetoric. The situation in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine is examined along with Powell's role in attempting to resolve the conflict. This study employs the Neo-Aristotelian method of rhetorical criticism to analyze his address, "Remarks at the 24th Annual National Leadership Conference of the Anti-Defamation League," given on May 6, 2002, along with portions of Powell's other rhetorical works. An interview was conducted Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff U. S. Department of State.

Subversion, Demystification, And Hegemony: Fight Club As A Postmodern Cultural Text, Matthew Ortoleva

Open Access Master's Theses

This thesis questions whether the film Fight Club, as a postmodern text, reaches a rhetorical goal of critical subversion, and if so, how does it reach this goal? Using a method of postmodern critical theory, this thesis argues that Fight Club does reach a goal of critical subversion by parodically installing and subverting modern hegemonic assumptions and challenging hegemonic cultural practices.

Longitudinal Study Of The Acquisition Of Locomotion, Motor Activity, And Infant Development, Janette Baird

Open Access Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between the age of development of 5 locomotor behaviors, the level of infant activity for the locomotor behaviors, and the performance of the sample of infants on standardized indices of infant development (Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence, FTII; Bayley Scales of Infant Development, BSID-II). A total of 157 infants were assessed at 6, 9, and 12 months for their activity levels on the 5 locomotor behaviors of interest, and the age at which each locomotor behavior occurred was obtained through records maintained by each infants' caregiver. The results of the regression path analysis indicates that …

Constance Cary Harrison, Refugitta Of Richmond : A Nineteenth-Century Southern Woman Writer's Critically Intriguing Antislavery Narrative Strategy, Gaillynn Marie Bowman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Although often maligned by literary scholars, Constance Cary Harrison, nineteenth-century novelist, journalist, essayist, and short-story author, achieved popular success with her subtle, but often radical, explorations of gender, and slavery during the antebellum and post-Civil War years. Furthermore, Harrison developed innovative characterizations of African-Americans while seeking nineteenth-century southern and northern readership through conciliatory prose. In particular, Harrison characterized a slave who gained his freedom and maintained a successful, independent life, without white assistance. This unique perspective for a Southern writer of her era stemmed from the war time destruction of her homestead, Vaucluse, which compelled Harrison to recreate an idealized …

Stock Structure Of Yellowtail Flounder Off The Northeastern United States, Steven Xavier Cadrin

Open Access Dissertations

An interdisciplinary study incorporating geographic patterns of abundance, geographic variation in growth and maturity, morphometry, and genetics suggests that yellowtail flounder Limanda ferruginea on the principal U.S. fishing grounds should be managed as separate stocks despite genetic homogeneity. Significantly different patterns of abundance and biomass over time suggest two harvest stocks of yellowtail flounder with a boundary on southwest Georges Bank. Geographic patterns of size and proportion mature at age indicate two phenotypic stocks of yellowtail flounder, with a boundary on northern Georges Bank. With respect to current U.S. management units, southern New England yellowtail form a separate harvest stock …

Specializations Of Whist Tournament Designs, Stephanie Anne Costa

Open Access Dissertations

In the 1970's the existence of whist tournaments on 4n and 4n + 1 players for any positive integer n was established. Since the early 1990's, mathematicians have been interested in studying specializations of whist tournament designs. This study considers some of these specializations including directed whist tournaments, ordered whist tournaments, and triplewhist tournaments. In addition a new specialization of whist tournament design called a directed-ordered whist tournament is introduced. An existence result for ordered and directed-ordered whist tournaments as well as the existence of many new classes of Z-cyclic triplewhist tournaments is established.

Relationship Of Early Intervention Service Coordination Model To Quality Of Transition And Family Empowerment, Candace Adams

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship that variability in early intervention service coordination model has with the quality of transition from early intervention to preschool special education services and with the degree to which families feel empowered to advocate for their child and families' needs. Eighty-five service coordinator and family pairs in the state of New York were recruited for the study based on their adherence to one of two service coordination models: (1) dedicated service coordination or (2) service coordination plus provision of other developmental services (dual role model). Both service coordinators and families rated …

The Personalization Of The School Environment: The Relationship Of Students' Access To Support From An Adult With Student Adjustment Outcomes And Experiences Of School Climate, Arthur William Lisi Jr.

Open Access Dissertations

Although personalizing the school environment is increasingly at the center of many calls for school reform, there has been little empirical data actually provided to substantiate claims that having an adult in the school who knows a child well--often the operational definition for such personalized communities--are actually associated with or have a positive impact on students' views of their schooling, their own feelings of self-worth and adjustment, and academic performance. The current study sought to examine the critical role an adult in the school can have in providing such instrumental and affective support. Data were collected from 27,604 middle school …

Globalization Of Innovations: A Multilevel-Multimethod Framework To Explain Diffusion And Adoption Of The Internet, Nir B. Kshetri

Open Access Dissertations

Little research has been conducted to understand the factors influencing the global diffusion of information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet. Moreover, the existing literature has a severe lack of studies dealing with the diffusion of ICTs in developing countries. The developing countries' increasingly important roles in international relations and global e-commerce make research focusing on Internet diffusion in these countries still more important. A focus on the developing world--home to 80% of humanity--is also an antidote to the tendency in the field of consumer research of becoming "increasingly isolated and of marginal relevance". To fill these research …

Parenting The Child With Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Sandra Ruth Mott

Open Access Dissertations

What is it like to parent a child born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS)? Until recently these children did not live beyond infancy so the question was mute. With the advent of new technologies and care these infants are surviving and thriving. However, they require intense care during their first few years of life. A literature search revealed many publications related to the infant's physical care before, during and between surgeries but little that addressed parenting expectations or concerns. To discover what it was like to be the parent of a child, who was living with a reconstructed heart, …

Self-Organization, Hierarchy, And Task Structure In Workgroups: An Empirical Study Of Complexity Theory, Matthew G. Paldy

Open Access Dissertations

Complexity theorists argue that an optimal organizational form results from the interactions of individual agents in the absence of an imposed management hierarchy (Anderson, 1999; Begun, 1994; Berreby, 1998; Coveney & Highfield, 1995; Guastello, 2002). There have been few empirical studies to support this claim. This research investigated the effects of self-organization and task interdependence types on group effectiveness and member satisfaction. Results show that groups allowed to self-organize had greater member satisfaction in sequential and reciprocal task structures, shorter task completion times in sequential task structures, and lower satisfaction in pooled task structures versus comparable groups with hierarchy imposed. …

The Embedded Writing Institute: A Study Of Professional Development, Beverly A. Paesano

Open Access Dissertations

In this ethnographic inquiry, I examined the experiences of twenty-one teachers who engaged in a job-embedded model of professional development in the teaching and learning of writing. This initiative, which became known as the Embedded Institute, draws from the National Writing Project model of teacher development that is commonly referred to in Writing Project sites across the country as the Summer Institute. The Embedded Institute reflected a nation-wide shift in the principles that inform practices of teacher development and of teaching and learning writing. Such a shift from product to process-oriented and from teacher to learner-centered practices both in teacher …

Spc For Quality And Risk: Monitoring Processes With Cross-Sectional And Serial Interdependence, And Higher Moments, Xia Pan

Open Access Dissertations

This study attempts to improve the statistical process control (SPC) methods for quality control and improvement and introduce SPC methods into risk control. With systematic viewpoints, the quality and risk control in business organizations is an issue of the control of cross-sectional and serial interdependent processes. Quality and risk are also determined by not only the first and second moments but also the higher moments of the probabilistic process. Several contributions were made in this study. A correct bias correction coefficient with unequal sample sizes for Shewhart chart was given. The concordance of Shewhart mean and variability pair charts was …

From Free/Slave Binaries To Black/White Dialectics: The Problem Of Race In Antebellum Discourse (1831-1861), Sally Gomaa

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation argues that the death of slavery in the nineteenth-century paralleled the birth of "race" as an operational term in matters of social policy, cultural production, and legal disputes. This claim requires investigating the dialectical relationship between Blackness and Whiteness as categories of being. Therefore, this project operates on two levels: fixing the boundaries between Blackness and Whiteness in the antebellum period in order to unfix them, and contesting the idea of boundaries or boundary-making as an ontological act. Specifically, this project looks at four dimensions of the discourse of race in antebellum America: law as a constitutive element …

Review Of Ruthless Democracy, By Timothy B. Powell, Matthew Wolf-Myer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Joining Forces To Fight Aids, Amber Nesbitt

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

High Schools Must Give Access To Military Recruiters, Amanda Strainis-Walker

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Special Registration: Past And Present, Consequences And Remedies, Diana C. Bauerle

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Representative Conyers Proposes National Health Insurance Act, Amber Nesbitt

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Fcc's Media Ownership Plan Axed: Deregulation And The Debate Over Democracy, Alice Nam

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Ban On Partial-Birth Abortion Clears Another Hurdle, Eileen D. Collins

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Chicago Police Install Controversial Surveillance Cameras, Gavin Mhley

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Courts Determine The "Best Interest" Of A Child, Karine Polis

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Adult Guardianship: Protecting The Elderly Or Shielding Abusers?, Marguerite Angelari

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

National Do-Not-Call Registry To Stay: Opt-In Feature May Be Its Saving Grace, Amanda Strainis-Walker

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Chicago City Council Opposes Patriot Act, Andrew Dougherty

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.