Digital Commons Network^™

The Establishment Of Danish Lutheran Churches In Canada, Rolf Buschardt Christensen

The Bridge

This paper presents a brief history of the establishment of Danish Lutheran congregations in Canada during the twentieth century. As they will continue to evolve, the paper ends with a short discussion of challenges facing the Danish congregations in Canada as they enter the twenty-first century.

The Relationship Between Giftedness And Resiliency Among Head Start Children, Angela R. Fry

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between characteristics of giftedness and resiliency in preschool children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The literature suggests that giftedness and resiliency may be related. For example, there appears to be considerable similarity between the traits identified as characteristics of giftedness and those traits identified as characteristic of resiliency. However, only limited research has been conducted directly examining similarity between of giftedness and resiliency. In the current study, 54 children attending Head Start programs were rated by their teachers on a measure of resiliency, the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA), and a …

Restoring The Individual Plaintiff To Tort Law By Rejecting ‘Junk Logic’ About Specific Causation, Vern R. Walker

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Judges are removing the individual plaintiffs from many torts cases, and are instead conducting fact-finding about abstract statistical individuals. But the reasoning about specific causation in those cases is often fallacious. This Article critiques the error by analyzing direct inferences from causal generalizations about groups to probabilistic conclusions about causation in individuals. It identifies six distinct types of uncertainty in such inferences: measurement uncertainty, sampling uncertainty, modeling uncertainty, causal uncertainty, uncertainty about plaintiff representativeness, and uncertainty about assigning a probability to a specific plaintiff. These six uncertainties are logically necessary to this type of inference, and are not peculiar to …

Integrating Perception, Language And Problem Solving In A Cognitive Agent For A Mobile Robot., Deryle W. Lonsdale, D. Paul Benjamin, Damian M. Lyons

Faculty Publications

We are implementing a unified cognitive architecture for a mobile robot. Our goal is to endow a robot agent with the full range of cognitive abilities, including perception, use of natural language, learning and the ability to solve complex problems. The perspective of this work is that an architecture based on a unified theory of robot cognition has the best chance of attaining human-level performance.

This agent architecture is an integration of three theories: a theory of cognition embodied in the Soar system, the RS formal model of sensorimotor activity and an algebraic theory of decomposition and reformulation.

These three …

Adapt: A Cognitive Architecture For Robots, Deryle W. Lonsdale, D. Paul Benjamin, Damian M. Lyons

Faculty Publications

The goal of the ADAPT project is to create a robot that can model its environment accurately in real time, and use that model to perform tasks and interact with people using natural language.

Expanding Tree Adjoining Grammar To Create Junction Grammar Trees, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Ronald Millett

Faculty Publications

Junction Grammar (JG) combines junction operators, multiple linked syntax/semantics trees, and flexible traversal algorithms. The multiple tree and flexible ordering characteristics of MC-TAG and other TAG extensions are somewhat analogous. This paper proposes that these similarities can be integrated to form a new approach, JG-TAG. Relevant aspects of both theories and the proposed new model are discussed in turn, and representative examples are sketched.

Description Of A Program For Social Language Intervention: “If You Can Have A Conversation, You Can Have A Relationship, Lee Robinson, Bonnie Brinton, Martin Fujiki

Faculty Publications

Adolescents with impaired language comprehension and formulation skills often experience difficulty keeping up with the linguistic and social demands of peer interaction. This clinical exchange describes an individualized treatment program designed to increase the conversational skill of an adolescent male with language impairment. Treatment focused on increasing awareness of the listener’s needs and on balancing the exchange of conversational turns. Clinical performance, parent report, and client report were used to assess outcomes.

The Deferred Action Program Of The Bureau Of Citizenship And Immigration Services: A Possible Remedy For Impossible Immigration Cases

San Diego Law Review

This beneficent operations instruction permitted two alternative interpretations, each of which was taken up by the federal courts. In the case of Nicholas v. INS, the petitioner asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overrule the district director’s decision to deny his nonpriority status application. The court determined that the operations instruction confers a “substantive benefit upon the alien, rather than setting up an administrative convenience,”and thus is essentially a legislative rule requiring a strict standard of application, and not one allowing the INS a significant amount of discretion. The Fifth Circuit held in Soon Bok Yoon v. INS …

Announcements

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

To Cover Ancient Prejudice With The Palladium Of Scientific Argument: Women, Reproduction, Pseudo-Science, And The Alarm Of Race Suicide, 1870-1915, Sarah Hamilton '04

Honors Projects, History

In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt presented the decreasing size of native born American families to Congress as "one of the greatest sociological phenomena of our time" and of"far greater importance than any mere political or economic question," although by that time the size of the American family had been shrinking steadily for about a century. He condemned the tendency towards smaller families as decadent, a sign of moral disease and, like others who worried about "race suicide," he specifically condemned women by categorizing those who avoided large families as criminals against the race and the objects of detestation by healthy, …

An Exploratory Study Of How Decisions Are Made In The Yield Management Environment Of Four Star Dublin Hotels, Tony Kiely

Other resources

Yield management in the hotel industry has been described as a method of profitably managing fixed capacity. A critical element of yield management is the decision strategy employed as this determines the degree to which optimum solutions are generated. Recent research has indicated that the use of technology assisted decision optimising models (the management science model) would greatly improve the optimisation of decisions by minimising the need to employ guesswork in achieving optimum solutions. Despite this assurance, yield management remains couched in uncertainty through being inextricably associated with forecasting future demand for a perishable product in an increasingly competitive environment. …

2004 - 2006 Postgraduate Prospectus, Dublin Institute Of Technology

DIT Publications

Postgrad prospectus for years 2004 - 2006, containing information on applications to studies, disability services, research funding, international student office, contact persons.

The Learning Garden: A Case Study, Laurie Ann Kellogg Hayzlett

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

How do we best capture the interest of our students? Are there environments that would better serve the needs of our students and the objectives of our schools? Reflection on these questions led to the planning and development of the Leaming Garden. This research was a case study of the use of the Leaming Garden. Proposed and actual uses were identified using teacher questionnaires, student and teacher interviews and researcher field notes. Teachers and students were asked about their use of the Leaming Garden both in conjunction with classes and for activities during off-school hours. This study was conducted in …

Sources Of Stress And Its Impact On Health Behaviors And Academic Performance Of International Students At The University Of Northern Iowa, Israel Gabriel Msengi

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

International students travel from their home countries in search of continuing education abroad without expectations that they will encounter stress. However, upon arriving at American college and university campuses, international students start noting differences with their respective countries. Challenges start developing related to a range of issues including language difficulties, immigration, and cultural shock/alienation concerns which, if not dealt with promptly, might impede their health behaviors and academic performance. This study investigated sources of stress and its impact on academic performance and health behaviors of international students at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). Investigated also were coping strategies that …

Origin Of The Term 'Hot Dog', Gerald Leonard Cohen, Barry A. Popik, David Shulman

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Literatur, Politik, Identität: Literature, Politics, And Cultural Identity (Book Review), Kathrin M. Bower

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

Literatur, Politik, Identität showcases thirty-five of Leslie Bodi’s writings published between 1959 and 2001, ranging from chapter-length articles to three-page notes. Framed by an introductory essay explaining the organization of the volume, and a biographical essay and interview at the book’s conclusion, Bodi unequivocally emphasizes the links between his life and his scholarship. Bodi spent his youth and early adult life in Budapest as a multilingual, assimilated Jew with a passion for German literature and intellectual exchange. He lived through the Nazi occupation of Hungary and left Budapest after the failure of the revolution; by 1957, he was in Melbourne, …

Modified Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Logic Based Controllers For A Static Compensator In A Multimachine Power System, Salman Mohagheghi, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Takagi-Sugeno (TS) based fuzzy logic controllers have been designed for controlling a STATCOM in a multimachine power system. Such controllers do not need any prior knowledge of the plant to be controlled and can efficiently control a STATCOM during different disturbances in the network. Two different approaches for the TS fuzzy logic controller are proposed: a conventional TS fuzzy logic design and a modified TS fuzzy logic design based on shrinking span membership functions. Simulation results, along with a comparison of the conventional TS fuzzy logic controller performance with that of the proposed controller are presented.

Navigation Of Mobile Sensors Using Pso And Embedded Pso In A Fuzzy Logic Controller, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Sheetal Doctor

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents novel structures for optimization and communication of a swarm of mobile sensors or robots for maximizing local and global tasks such as firefighting, landmine detection, radioactivity detection, etc. The navigation of the sensors is carried out using two strategies. The first strategy is based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the second strategy is based on a swarm of fuzzy logic based controllers. In addition, the membership functions and the rules of the fuzzy logic controller (FLC) are optimized using the PSO algorithm. Navigation of mobile sensors is considered in this paper to locate desirable target sources …

Educational Change Process: A Case Study Of A Rural School District's Reading Reform, Barbara M. Havel Bohach

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Beginning reading instruction is the subject of much debate in educational fields as well as in the political arena. The product of such debates is often a push to reform reading programs and teachers are targeted as the ones to carry out these reforms. If reading educators have been actively involved in a reading change process, what are their concerns about change and the influence of mandated legislation?

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to examine how teachers and administrators initiated and implemented a balanced reading innovation. It also investigated how the Concerns-Based Adoption Model identified teachers' concerns …

Using Interactive Multimedia (Imm) To Help Year Four And Five Students Identified As Experiencing Reading Difficulties: A Formative Approach, Grace Oakley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study involved four formative experiments, each of which investigated ways in which IMM (Interactive Multimedia) could be used to help children who experienced reading difficulties. In each of the four contexts, classroom teachers identified a number of students with reading difficulties, selected pedagogical goals for them and worked with the researcher to plan IMM-based activities that targeted the selected goals. The implementations were evaluated formatively and modifications were made accordingly, with the intention of 'fine-tuning' them to facilitate achievement of the pedagogical goals. Facilitative and inhibitive factors were identified during and after each formative experiment, as were unplanned outcomes. …

Barriers To The Acceptance And Utilisation Of Knowledge Management Systems: An Exploratory Study, Patricia Kennett

Theses : Honours

Organisations entering the 21st Century arc exposed to an environment of continuous change, a challenge that requires a movement away from more predictable structures of the past, with hierarchies and formal chains of command. The emerging fluid and network like structures present new challenges for ensuring the development and dissemination of organisational knowledge. An area of considerable current debate involves the issue of harmony and balance between and organisation's culture and its Knowledge Management (KM) systems. The focus of this study is on organisations that are recognising the implications of these changes and are responding by installing knowledge systems in …

Picturing A Postcolonial Australia : Breaking The 'White' Norm In Contemporary Creative Practice, Rebekah Rousi

Theses : Honours

This dissertation is about addressing social issues relating to colonial encounters from the perspective of a 'White' colonial Australian artist. The discussion seeks to address representational imbalances which occur within image construction as the result of a history of Imperial investment in defining the 'civilised Self against the non-European 'primitive Other' (Said, 1978). The label 'White' is analysed in terms of its contradictions and generalisations, where it is linked to a culturally assumed 'Self' positioning of human centrality and neutrality. This centrality (humanity) was used by Imperialists to justify reasoning behind colonial expansion. The thriving mechanisms of Euro-centric perception are …

Making A Federal Case Of It: Sabri V. United States And The Constitution Of Leviathan, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

The popular expression “Don't make a federal case out of it!” only makes sense if federal involvement is something unusual or special that is reserved for matters of urgent national interest. It assumes that a “federal case” is, or at least ought to be, something relatively rare and noteworthy.

For the founding generation, federal involvement in people's affairs, especially through the criminal law, was in fact a relatively rare and noteworthy event. In The Federalist, James Madison told the citizens of New York that the powers of the proposed new national government “will be exercised principally on external objects, as …

Rationale For User Oriented Design Technique Selection, Susan M. Saeger

Theses

This paper analyzes a set of guidelines for selecting a user oriented design technique. A fictional case study is used to illustrate the application of the guidelines.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration In Graphic Design, Jill M. Kepler

Theses

Not Included

Teaching Twice Exceptional Children: Gifted With Learning Difficulties: Professional Development And Provision In A Montessori School, Elaine Lewis

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study seeks to investigate the teaching of gifted children in a Montessori school, with particular reference to gifted students with learning difficulties in writing. A review of the literature on the Montessori method of education and on provision for gifted children, shows considerable philosophical and practical overlap in these two fields. However, it appears that this theoretical overlap is not necessarily realised in practice. Furthermore, although considerable research has been conducted on the characteristics, identification and classroom provision for the gifted, very little has been undertaken on the actual provision for gifted children in Montessori schools or gifted children …

Children's Efl Motivation: An Investigation Of 7-12 Year Old Students In Training Schools In China, Daosheng Liao

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

English training schools in China are a new EFL phenomenon and infromation about EFL for 7-12 year old students is also new. There appears to be little research done regarding their motivation to learn EFL, and this constitutes a gap in theory addressing this area. This research attempts to fill the gap by investigating the factors that affect the motivation of learners in this age group. Questionnaires wers administered to 200 students and the responses were analysed to establish the motivational factors associated with learning English in training schools in Xi'an, China.

The Effect Of Technology-Based Lessons On Primary School Students Working In Mixed And Single-Gender Groupings, Brian Clarence

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study investigated primary school students working in mixed and single- gender groupings around a computer during technology-based lessons. In particular it observed the patterns of peer interaction that took place when students worked co-operatively in groups in lessons. In so doing, this study attempted to explain the effects of gender of the student and gender composition of the group, on peer interaction in such a situation. The study also focussed on the effect of gender groupings on the motivation of students and children's collaborative behaviours. The subjects for the study were twenty-nine students (sixteen boys and thirteen girls) in …

Year 7 Students' English Reading Comprehension And Attitudes And Behaviours: Collaborative Genre-Based Versus Traditional Teaching Methods In Thailand, Sanguansri Torok

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

A new system-wide educational change has been introduced in Thailand that requires English as a foreign language (EFL) to be taught from primary to university level. This study investigates a genre-based method of teaching English to grade 7 secondary students in Thailand. The study was conducted in three phases. In phase 1, Rasch measures of reading comprehension (based on three kinds of genre texts) and of attitudes and behaviour towards genre-based learning of English were created for use in phase 2. An interval scale of 36 items (18 real and 18 ideal perspectives) was created from an original attitude and …

The Effect Of Cross-Linked Learning On Visual Arts Education, Cassandra Zervos

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study examined how computer technology had an effect on a Year 9 visual arts education class with regard to the Western Australian four Arts Learning Outcomes (WA 4ALO). The research was administered concurrently with a learning approach called Cross-Linked Leaming (CLL) (Zervos, 1997), which consisted of three components: (1) the subject (e.g., visual arts education in relation to the WA 4ALO); (2) the learner (i.e., a target group and how they learn); and (3) the tool (e.g., computer technology). This study addressed the problem of how to promote learning in visual arts education, especially with visual arts theory. Historically, …