Digital Commons Network^™

Likelihood-Based Specification Analysis Of Continuous-Time Models Of The Short-Term Interest Rate, Garland B. Durham

Finance

An extensive collection of continuous-time models of the short-term interest rate is evaluated over data sets that have appeared previously in the literature. The analysis, which uses the simulated maximum likelihood procedure proposed by Durham and Gallant (2002), provides new insights regarding several previously unresolved questions. For single factor models, I find that the volatility, not the drift, is the critical component in model specification. Allowing for additional flexibility beyond a constant term in the drift provides negligible benefit. While constant drift would appear to imply that the short rate is nonstationary, in fact, stationarity is volatility-induced. The simple constant …

Adult Esl Oral Reading Fluency And Silent Reading Comprehension, Kristin Lems

Dissertations

A descriptive study of second language adults studying ESL at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels in a post-secondary academic program revealed that their oral reading fluency had a significant, low-to-moderate correlation with scores on a measure of silent reading comprehension. The correlation was slightly stronger for measures of accuracy than speed, and strongest for miscue ratio. The correlation increased as proficiency level increased. Among different first language groups, the correlation was highest for Hispanic learners, and lowest for Chinese. Furthermore, all fluency measures correlated better with a listening measure than with the silent reading comprehension measure. When a system …

The "Horizontal Effect" Of Constitutional Rights, Stephen Gardbaum

Michigan Law Review

Among the most fundamental issues in constitutional law is the scope of application of individual rights provisions and, in particular, their reach into the private sphere. This issue is also currently one of the most important and hotly debated in comparative constitutional law, where it is known under the rubric of "vertical" and "horizontal effect." These alternatives refer to whether constitutional rights regulate only the conduct of governmental actors in their dealings with private individuals (vertical) or also relations between private individuals (horizontal). In recent years, the horizontal position has been adopted to varying degrees, and after systematic scholarly and …

Yesterday's Lei Feng And Today's Young People's Liberation Army Soldiers, Che Po Chan

CAPS Working Paper Series

Lei Feng has been propagandized as a model of emulation for the People's Liberation Army soldiers since the 1960s. This paper uses Lei Feng as a yardstick to measure contemporary young soldiers' general behaviors and orientations. We are interested to find out to what extent contemporary young soldiers have accepted the Chinese Communist Party's political education and have followed the norm set by the Party. It is found that the widely publicized Chinese role model has exerted little influence on contemporary young soldiers. Young soldiers today are utilitarian and materialistic, sharing the same youth culture with most Chinese youths of …

Up From The Parishes: Reclaiming The Public Voice Of Catholicism, Richard L. Wood

Sociology Faculty and Staff Publications

An important story is being told in the land, of the unrecognized but powerful role of faith communities in challenging American political and economic institutions to live up to their democratic promise. That story involves Catholic, historic black Protestant, liberal and moderate Protestant, Jewish, Unitarian, and evangelical congregations working to influence local and state-level public policy through faith-based community organizing (FBCO) models.'

Understanding The Impact Of Shill Bidding In Online English Auctions, Bharat Bhargava, Mamata Jenamani, Yuhui Zhong

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Selected Bibliography Of Work About And Of Edward Said's Texts, Clare Callaghan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Building Energy-Efficient Web Servers Using Low Power Devices: Opportunities And Challenges, Le Cai

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technical Reports

Power consumption has become one major challenge in designing highperformance servers. Recently, some researchers postulate that better energy e±ciency can be achieved by using low power devices originally designed for mobile embedded systems. In this report, we validate this hypothesis by measuring the power and the performance of web servers on system level. We consider the power and the energy consumption of processors, memory, and hard disk drives. Our data indicate that, compared with a Pentium4-based web server, a XScale-based computer can achieve more than 1.7 times higher energy e±ciency (web pages per Joule) while its throughput (web pages per …

On Improving Recursive Bipartitioning-Based Placement, Chen Li, Cheng-Kok Koh

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technical Reports

We present an improved partitioning-based placement tool in terms of the half-perimeter wirelength. In contrast to placement tools that exploit white spaces to reduce the routing congestion, our placement tool exploits white spaces to reduce the total wirelength. In particular, we generate white spaces during the legalization step and treat white spaces as pseudo cells during the detailed placement step. On IBM benchmarks, our results are better than those of Feng Shui [1] and Capo [4] by 1.8% and 11.1%, respectively, on the average. Our results are comparable to those of Dragon [17]. On the synthetic benchmarks PEKO, our placement …

Alternative Methods And Assignments For Teaching Business Information Resources In An Slis Course, Hal P. Kirkwood Jr

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The author discusses alternative methods of instruction, which focus on interactive lecturing and concept maps, in the context of a graduate-level business information course in an SLIS program.

Israeli Coalition Governments: Formation And Duration (1949-1999), Imad Salamey

Wayne State University Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation identifies key aspects that have contributed to the formation and duration of Israeli coalition governments. Most importantly, it differentiates between two historical periods that have shaped Israeli coalition politics. Prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the election of the 7th Israeli Knesset in 1969, Israeli political parties formed consensual and inclusive coalitions in response to economic, immigration, and external pressures. Low levels of party competition and the dominance of Mapai in the Israeli Knessets further contributed to the formation of large alliances. Post-1969, following the gradual decline of Labor’s electoral dominance, Israeli parties became further polarized …

Nonlethal Techniques For Managing Predation: Primary And Secondary Repellents, John A. Shivik, Adrian Treves, Peggy Callahan

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Conservation biology requires the development of practical tools and techniques to minimize conflicts arising from human modification of ecosystems. We applied behavioral theory of primary and secondary repellents to predator management by using aversive stimulus devices (electronic training collars) and disruptive stimulus devices (behavior-contingent audio and visual repellents) in a multipredator (Canis lupus, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Ursus spp. ) study in the United States. We examined fladry and a newly developed disruptive stimulus device contingent upon behavior on six wolf territories in Wisconsin, (US.A.) and determined that the disruptive stimulus device gave the greatest degree of protection from predation. We …

From Plato To Derrida And Theories Of Play, Simona Livescu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "From Plato to Derrida and Theories of Play," Simona Livescu proposes a reevaluation of the concept of play. By examining various critical interpretations of this term from Greek antiquity to modern structuralists and poststructuralist theories, Livescu analyzes the common denominator in philosophical, cultural, and religious facets of the play. In her discussion, Livescu emphasizes the ultimate importance of the ludic presence in every fundamental human action. Among the conclusions of the paper, Livescu suggests that play exists as an essence of consciousness and that it is, actually, a way of being, not only a way of knowing. …

On Edward Said, Scholar And Public Intellectual, F. Elizabeth Dahab

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "On Edward Said, Scholar and Public Intellectual," F. Elizabeth Dahab pays tribute to Edward Said, 1935-2003. Dahab discusses selected aspects of Said's trajectories as a scholar and Palestinian-American activist including aspects of Said's numerous activities and work as a musician, an ardent political polemicist, a music critic, a Columbia University professor of comparative literature, a humanist, President of the Modern Language Association of America, and an exiled Palestinian as evident in the vast corpus of this eminent scholar's publications over the course of almost four decades (twenty-four books and hundreds of articles and interviews). Said's work elicited …

Cultures Of Populism And The Political Right In Central Europe, Patricia Chiantera-Stutte, Andrea Petö

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their paper, "Cultures of Populism and the Political Right in Central Europe," Patricia Chiantera-Stutte and Andrea Petö analyze the common points and differences in which imagined and mythologized histories are serving as a mobilizing force for extreme-right movements in three Central European countries, in Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The authors discuss how populist and right-wing political parties in these countries construct their conceptions of an alternative identity for the European Union. Further, the authors analyze the politico-territorial myths constructed by the three populist right-wing parties, the Freedom Party in Austria, the Northern League in Italy, and the Party of …

Dorian Gray, Tom Ripley, And The Queer Closet, Jonathan Alexander, Deborah Meem

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their paper, "Dorian Gray, Tom Ripley, and the Queer Closet," Jonathan Alexander and Deborah Meem present and portray an imaginary conversation among an impossible but intriguing group of writers, critics, and fictional characters. These individuals speak in their own (published) voices, which are moderated by the author-facilitators and shaped into an extended rumination on art, the Doppelgänger, queerness, and literary influence. Through their dialogue, the actors reveal a tradition of the queer novel, running in this case from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray to Patricia Highsmith's five Tom Ripley books, whereby the closet functions simultaneously as refuge …

Postcolonial African Consciousness And The Poetry Of Agostinho Neto, Irene Marques

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Postcolonial African Consciousness and the Poetry of Agostinho Neto," Irene Marques introduces the magic words of a great poet with the question: can poetry carry enough sorrow, enough strength, enough fire, enough love, enough wisdom, enough care, and enough horror to penetrate the hearts and the souls of the oppressed and the oppressors so that both will desperately want to escape their sinister labels? For Marques, this question represents an old quandary and one that many of us wish could be answered with a simple yes. Marques analyses Neto's poetry in the context of littérature engagé: if …

Comparative Literature Versus Comparative Cultural Studies, Tomo Virk

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Comparative Literature versus Comparative Cultural Studies," Tomo Virk discusses debates of the role, essence, and the future of comparative literature as it has developed since the 1995 publication of the Bernheimer Report. Virk explores the situation of the discipline in its North American context: "contextualists" argue for the abandoning of comparative literature understood as the study of literature with theoretical investigations of literariness while the "non-contextualists" underscore the study of the linguistic structure(s) of the text. Virk supports comparative literature understood as the traditional concentration of the discipline with focus on the specificities of literary questions while …

Community Norms And Organizational Practices: The Legitimization Of Wage Arrears In Russia, 1992-1999, John S. Earle, Andrew Spicer, Klara Sabirianova Peter

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

What role do community norms play in the diffusion and persistence of new organizational practices? We explore this question through an examination of the widespread practice of wage arrears, the late and non-payment of wages, in Russia during the 1990s. Existing research on wage arrears most often examines this practice as a means of flexible wage adjustment under difficult economic conditions. We develop an alternative theory that explains wage arrears through their acceptance as a legitimate form of organizational behavior within local communities. Our empirical analysis finds some support for the neoclassical position that wage arrears reflect adjustment to negative …

Determinants Of Balance Confidence In Community-Dwelling Elderly People, Janine Hatch, Kathleen M. Gill-Body, Leslie G. Portney

All PTHMS Faculty Publications

Background and Purpose. The fear of falling can have detrimental effects on physical function in the elderly population, but the relationship between a persons' confidence in the ability to maintain balance and actual balance ability and functional mobility is not known. The extent to which balance confidence can be explained by balance performance, functional mobility, and sociodemographic, psychosocial, and health-related factors was the focus of this study.

Subjects. The subjects were 50 community-dwelling elderly people, aged 65 to 95 years (X̄=81.7, SD=6.7).

Methods. Balance was measured using the Berg Balance Scale. Functional mobility was measured using the Timed Up & …

Essays On Monetary Policy In Bangladesh, Sayera Younus

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

"Fine Designs" From Italy: Montessori Education And The Reggio Approach, Carolyn P. Edwards

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Italy is not a huge country, nor one that dominates research in scientific areas like biotechnology or computer science; but in the particular field of early childhood, it can be described as a kind of gifted, creative giant. Italians have always revered beauty, architecture, painting, cuisine, and creative design. In a similar fusion of art and science, they have produced two of the 20th century's most innovative and influential leaders in early education, along with their methods of pedagogy and philosophies of education. The two figures were Maria Montessori (1 870-1952) and Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994).

Both Montessori education and the …

The Many Roads Traveled, Helen Lydia Melton

Digitized Theses and Dissertations (prior to 2008)

This is to certify that the Master of Education Portfolio of Helen Lydia Melton has been appropved by the Supervising Committee for the portfolio for the Master of Education in Special Education in the Department of Special Education

A Reflection On Becoming A Subject Matter Expert, A Facilitator Of Learning, And A Collaborative Professional, Traci Garrett Mcpherson

Digitized Theses and Dissertations (prior to 2008)

A Portfolio Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Kennesaw State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF EDUCATION

Software Development Productivity And Cycle Time Reduction, Victor A. Clincy

Faculty Articles

Increasing software developers' productivity and reducing the software development process' cycle time are key goals for organizations responsible for building software applications. This paper proposes four major areas impacting an organization's ability to increase developer productivity and reduce development cycle time. The four areas are (1) organizational structure and climate, (2) reward system, (3) software development process and (4) the use of software design and testing tools.

An Algorithm For Clearing Combinatorial Markets, Josiane Domgang Nzouonta

Theses and Dissertations

It was recently shown possible to solve single item auctions without revealing any secret except for the solution. Namely, with vMB-share [4], the seller and the buyer only learn each other's identity and the selling price for a chosen M+1 pricing scheme. No trusted party was necessary. In this thesis, we show how vMB-share can be extended for the clearing of combinatorial negotiations with several items, buyers and sellers. We first show how the more general problem can be reduced to a virtual form, relatively similar to the single-item auctions. Then, some modifications in the cryptographic techniques of vMB-share are …

Nationwide, State Law Class Actions And The Beauty Of Federalism, Jesse Tiko Smallwood

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents - Cardozo Public Law, Policy And Ethics Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. 1

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

The War Powers In Brief: On The Irreducible Politics Of The Matter, Roger Pilon

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that the president does not require congressional authorization under the Declare War Clause to engage in hostile acts, as the Constitution's sparse language on war powers intentionally allows flexibility in foreign affairs. It contends that the Declare War Clause is a juridical act, not a prerequisite for initiating hostilities, and that the war powers are fundamentally political rather than legal in nature.

National Security Entry Exit Registration System (Nseers), Kareem Shora

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) disproportionately targets Arab and Muslim individuals, violating their civil rights under the pretext of national security. It contends that the program exceeds the authority granted by Congress and is implemented in a discriminatory manner, leading to significant detentions and deportations without substantial security benefits.