Digital Commons Network^™

Explaining Race Disparities In South Dakota Sentencing And Incarceration, Richard Braunstein, Amy Schweinle

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Absence Of Punishment And Custody Lead To An Absence Of Credit: Closs V. South Dakota Board Of Pardons And Parole, Hilary Williamson

South Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Passive Decisions And Potent Defaults, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, Andrew Metrick

Faculty Publications

Default options have an enormous impact on household choices. Such effects have now been extensively documented in the literature on 401(k) plans (Madrian and Shea 2001; Choi et al. 2002b, 2004). Defaults have been shown to affect participation, savings rates, rollovers, and asset allocation. For example, Choi et al. (2004) study three firms that use automatic enrollment. When employees at these firms are automatically enrolled in their 401(k) plan, only a tiny fraction opt out, producing participation rates exceeding 85 percent regardless of tenure. But when employees at these firms were not automatically enrolled, participation rates were significantly lower, ranging …

Can Individual Investors Beat The Market?, Joshua D. Coval, David A. Hirshleifer, Tyler Shumway

Faculty Publications

We document strong persistence in the performance of trades of individual investors. The correlation of the risk-adjusted performance of an individual across sample periods is about 10 percent. Investors classified in the top performance decile in the first half of our sample subsequently outperform those in the bottom decile by about 8 percent per year. Strategies long in firms purchased by previously successful investors and short in firms purchased by previously unsuccessful investors earn abnormal returns of 5 basis points per day. These returns are not confined to small stocks nor to stocks in which the investors are likely to …

The Influence Of Parenting Styles On The Development Of Moral Judgment In College Level Adolescents, Scott M. Hawkins

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research project addresses the relationship between parenting styles and the development of moral judgment in college students enrolled in a four year private University in Central Virginia. The purpose of this study is to identify the extent to which parenting styles are one of the "building blocks" for the development of moral judgment in adolescents. The instruments used are the Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1988) and the Defining Issues Test - II (Rest, 1999). The researcher hypothesized that the levels of moral judgment found in college students who perceive that they were parented by parents utilizing an Authoritative parenting …

Reducing Eating Disorder Risk Factors In Sorority Members: A Randomized Trial, Carolyn Becker, Lisa M. Smith, Anna C. Ciao

Psychology Faculty Research

Although sororities are often perceived as contributing to eating disordered behavior, limited research has investigated eating disorders in sorority members. The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of a highly interactive cognitive dissonance prevention program in reducing empirically supported risk factors in sorority members. Members (N=149) were randomized to the highly interactive intervention, a more passive intervention, or wait-list. Results indicated that both interventions reduced dietary restraint, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder pathology. Only the highly interactive group reduced thin-ideal internalization as compared to waitlist. Exploratory analyses also indicated that interventions were beneficial to both …

Suicide Attempt And Characteristics Of Religiously Affiliated Puerto Rican Adolescents And Young Adults, Saúl Rivera

Dissertations

Problem. Recent research has identified several risk factors associated with attempted suicide among the general population. Puerto Ricans, in general, and Puerto Rican Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs), in particular, may face unique challenges that are related to their familial, social, and religious environment that may affect the suicidal attempts among this group. Therefore, this study examined family-related factors, history of being abused, religiosity factors, sexuality factors, gender, substance abuse, age, and socioeconomic status factors among a sample of religiously affiliated Puerto Ricans (73.2% SDAs) living on the island.

Methodology. The data for the study came from the Avance PR study. Avance …

Aims Of Education In The Writings Of Ellen White, Erling Bernhard Snorrason

Dissertations

Problem. Ellen White’s educational philosophy and its application to the aims of education have not been systematically or thoroughly addressed within the parameters and demands of a graduate thesis. The present dissertation explores the aims of education, especially the ultimate aims of education, in the writings of Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and could be of value in assessing the present Seventh-day Adventist educational enterprise.

Method. This dissertation is a description and an analysis of Ellen White’s concept of education as revealed by her understanding of the aims of education. It is a …

Youth Ministry And Beliefs And Values Among 10- To 19-Year-Old Students In The Seventh-Day Adventist School System In North America, A. Barry Gane

Dissertations

Problem. A survey of the literature revealed that there was little by way of empirical study on the relationship between youth ministry and attitudes, beliefs, and values held by young people. We empirically tested the anecdotal evidence that youth ministry is effective in the transmission of beliefs and values. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether Seventh-day Adventist youth ministry in North America makes any difference in the lives of youth in the Seventh-day Adventist school system.

Method. The sample for this study was 10,832 10- to 19-year old students enrolled in SDA schools in 2001. …

Wendell Berry's Sociological Imagination: Agrarian Values And Good Leadership In A Postmodern Culture, Paul Alan Kaak

Dissertations

Problem. The question guiding my dissertation research was: In what ways do the writings of Wendell Berry, reflecting his sociological imagination, address and advance leadership theory with specific regard for the issue of agrarian values?

Method. I used the writings of Wendell Berry as a modified case study for my inductive, theoretical, exploratory research in a qualitative vein. As I reviewed his writings, I identified his moral ideology and extracted his value-set. Along the way, I observed Berry's use of a method promoted by C. Wright Mills in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959). Since sociological imagination finds …

A Dynamic Neuro-Fuzzy Model Providing Bio-State Estimation And Prognosis Prediction For Wearable Intelligent Assistants, Yu Wang, Jack M. Winters

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Intelligent management of wearable applications in rehabilitation requires an understanding of the current context, which is constantly changing over the rehabilitation process because of changes in the person's status and environment. This paper presents a dynamic recurrent neuro-fuzzy system that implements expert-and evidence-based reasoning. It is intended to provide context-awareness for wearable intelligent agents/assistants (WIAs).

Methods

The model structure includes the following types of signals: inputs, states, outputs and outcomes. Inputs are facts or events which have effects on patients' physiological and rehabilitative states; different classes of inputs (e.g., facts, context, medication, therapy) have different nonlinear mappings to a …

Staying In Ministry: A Qualitative Study Of Seventh-Day Adventist Women Pastors, Leslie Helfer Bumgardner

Dissertations

Problem. Women pastors in the Seventh-day Adventist Church function under limitations not imposed upon their male colleagues. This study explored the pastoral experiences of 11 Adventist women clergy serving in the United States and what contributed to their longevity in ministry.

Method. This qualitative study followed a narrative design. Data from the purposive sample were obtained through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. The constant comparative method was utilized to code data into emergent themes. The following methods were utilized to enhance internal validity: triangulation; member checks; clarifying researcher bias; rich/thick description; including negative or discrepant information; and peer debriefing. Two …

Supporting The Successful Transition Of Youth With Disabilities Between Secondary School And Postsecondary School, Megan A. Conway, Kelly B.T. Chang

Faculty Publications - Psychology Department

No abstract provided.

Imaginary Relish And Exquisite Torture: The Elaborated Intrusion Theory Of Desire, David J. Kavanagh, Jackie Andrade, Jon May

School of Psychology

The authors argue that human desire involves conscious cognition that has strong affective connotation and is potentially involved in the determination of appetitive behavior rather than being epiphenomenal to it. Intrusive thoughts about appetitive targets are triggered automatically by external or physiological cues and by cognitive associates. When intrusions elicit significant pleasure or relief, cognitive elaboration usually ensues. Elaboration competes with concurrent cognitive tasks through retrieval of target-related information and its retention in working memory. Sensory images are especially important products of intrusion and elaboration because they simulate the sensory and emotional qualities of target acquisition. Desire images are momentarily …

The Importance Of Expectation Fulfillment On Domestic Violence Victims’ Satisfaction With The Police In The Uk, Amanda L. Robinson, Meghan S. Stroshine

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate what victims of domestic violence expect police to do for them, and how these expectations subsequently influence their levels of satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach – Structured interviews with 222 victims of domestic violence were conducted by staff from an integrated community-based service delivery agency in Cardiff, Wales. Multivariate analyses were performed to reveal the factors that contribute to domestic violence victims' satisfaction with the police.

Findings – Consistent with the expectancy disconfirmation model, results indicate that the most important determinant of satisfaction is the extent to which victims' expectations about police behaviour and demeanour are …

Perceptions And Attitudes Of Selected Adventist And Non-Adventist Parents Of School-Age Children Toward Adventist Schools In Canada, Mike Mile Lekic

Dissertations

Purpose of the Study. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions and attitudes toward Adventist schools in Canada of Adventist parents with children in Adventist schools, of Adventist parents without children in Adventist schools, and of non-Adventist parents who at the time of this study had children in Adventist schools, and to look for reasons why these parents send or do not send their children to Adventist schools in Canada.

Method. The Adventist Education in Canada Parents' Attitude Survey was developed and used to gather information about spiritual focus, academic excellence, school accessibility, administrators and teachers, …

Spiritual Well-Being And Quality Of Life As Correlates Of Job Stress Among Academic Chairpersons In Selected Seventh-Day Adventist Tertiary Institutions, Russell Mark Aldridge

Dissertations

Problem . Stress, like pain, begins at birth and remains common to the human condition throughout life, and it is a factor in the experience of every human being who ever lived. It is not merely universal but it is also endemic and omnipresent. Chairpersons, due to the bi-directional demands of administration and students are in a stressful environment. This study was undertaken to identify whether quality of life and spiritual well-being play an important role in occupational stress levels in chairpersons of Seventh-day Adventist Tertiary Institutions.

Method. Three questionnaires were used to get responses from 137 chairpersons in …

Job Satisfaction And Its Relationship To Organizational And Religious Commitment Among Workers At Northern Caribbean University, Donna Brown

Dissertations

Problem. Recruiting teachers and motivating them to stay in their jobs present a challenge to educational institutions in Jamaica. Given the importance of workers' satisfaction to the health of an organization and the link between job satisfactionand turnover rate, then an examination of job satisfaction at Northern Caribbean University (NCU) is a priority. Based on this background, the primary focus of this study was to investigate job satisfaction and its relationship to organizational and religious commitment among workers at NCU.

Method. This study utilized a quantitative, descriptive research design. A survey questionnaire was sent to all full-time administrators …

Child Custody, Religious Practices, And Conscience, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

This article asks to what extent considerations relating to religion should figure in custody disputes. One inquiry is whether the kind of religious life that a parent plans for his or her child should figure in the decision whether to grant custody to that parent. The article focuses on a religious life that involves very substantial deprivation no after-school activities, no television, no pets, no reading except schoolwork and the Bible-from an ordinary secular perspective. A second inquiry is whether one parent of a divorced couple should be able to prevent the other parent from exposing a child to various …

Summary Of Hymon V. State, 121 Nev. Adv. Op. 23, Bryson D. Perkins

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In April 2001, Hymon stole a purse from a woman in the lobby of an auto repair shop. He ran, and two of the shop’s mechanics pursued him. They caught up to him when he fell on the curb, but he stood and swung a four- to six-inch long pocketknife. They backed away, allowing him to escape, but the police apprehended him shortly thereafter. After Hymon requested to represent himself, the district court conducted a Faretta canvass,2 and concluded that Hymon was competent to waive his right to counsel. Hymon was uncooperative and unwilling to communicate with the prosecutor, so …

Applying The Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Model Of Hiv- Risk To Youth In Psychiatric Care, Geri R. Donenberg, Rebecca Moss Schwartz, Erin Emerson, Helen W. Wilson, Fred B. Bryant, Gloria Coleman

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study examined the utility of cognitive and behavioral constructs (AIDS in-formation, motivation, and behavioral skills) in explaining sexual risk taking among 172 12–20–year-old ethnically diverse urban youths in outpatient psy-chiatric care. Structural equation modeling revealed only moderate support for the model, explaining low to moderate levels of variance in global sexual risk taking. The amount of explained variance improved when age was included as a predictor in the model. Findings shed light on the contribution of AIDS informa-tion, motivation, and behavioral skills to risky sexual behavior among teens re-ceiving outpatient psychiatric care. Results suggest that cognitive and behavioral factors …

Finance Theory And Accounting Fraud: Fantastic Futures Versus Conservative Histories, Lawrence A. Cunningham

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Intellectual tension between the fields of finance and accounting may help to explain explosion of public company frauds. Finance theory diminishes the relevance of accounting information. Enron exploited this consequence while the SEC bought into it. After widespread frauds were exposed, Congress passed laws that address symptoms of finance's futurism, not disease. Laws essentially prohibit pro forma financial reporting and regulate the selective flow of futuristic information to financial analysts. Untouched is the underlying disease of regulatory mandates requiring extensive disclosure of forward-looking information. Until the 1970s, the SEC prudently prohibited such futuristic disclosure as inherently unreliable; assisted by finance …

The 'Wildavsky Heuristic': The Cultural Orientation Of Mass Political Opinion, Donald Braman, John Gastil, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In a provocative 1987 article, Aaron Wildavsky asserted that culture operates as the fundamental orienting force in the generation of mass public opinion. The meanings and interpersonal associations that inhere in discrete ways of life, he argued, shape the heuristic processes by which politically unsophisticated individuals, in particular, choose what policies and candidates to support. We systematize Wildavsky's theory and integrate it with existing accounts of mass opinion formation. We also present the results of an original national survey (N = 1843), which found that the cultural orientations featured in Wildavsky's writings accounted for policy-related attitudes on gun control, environment, …

On The Alienability Of Legal Claims, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Courts have become increasingly skeptical about rules restricting plaintiffs' ability to sell legal claims, and legal commentators have argued that markets for claims would be efficient, moving claims to those who can prosecute them most efficiently. Claim sales intuitively might appear to present a clash of economic and philosophical arguments, with perceived efficiency benefits coming at the expense of societal commitments to values other than efficiency. In this Article, Professor Abramowicz argues that economic and philosophical arguments do point in opposite directions, but in the reverse directions from what one might expect. A range of philosophical and other noneconomic considerations, …

Modeling Cultural Cognition, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Jame Grimmelmann

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In this article we defend our contention that culture is prior to facts in resolving the gun debate. The basis for this position, simply put, is that culture is prior to facts in human cognition. Through an overlapping set of psychological and social mechanisms, individuals adopt the factual beliefs that are dominant among persons who share their cultural orientations. Far from being updated in light of new evidence, beliefs so formed operate as an evidentiary filter, inducing individuals to dismiss any contrary evidence as unreliable, particularly when that evidence is proffered by individuals of an opposing cultural affiliation. So even …

Whither Color-Blind Love? A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis Of Love In Black And White, Brian A. Mcelwain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interracial marriage remains one of the most emotionally charged issues in the troubled racial history of the United States. Love in Black and White: The Triumph of Love over Prejudice and Taboo is Mark and Gail Mathabane's relatively popular memoir of their interracial marriage. Using this text as a means of access to the discourses surrounding interracial marriage in the post-Civil Rights era, this study applies the key Foucauldian concepts of discourse, power, subjectivity, and critique to an interpretation of this text in relation to its sociohistorical context. Color-Blind Love emerges as the dominant discourse of the memoir and this …

San Francisco. Exhibit: Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video: California College Of The Arts/Wattis Institute Of Contemporary Art, Logan Galleries, Dore Bowen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Promise And Limitations Of International Human Rights Activism, Rebecca Evans

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Breaking Silence: The Case that Changed the Face of Human Rights by Richard Alan White. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004. 320 pp.

Democratization In Iraq, Kate Lotz, Tim Melvin

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the war in Iraq over, Coalition forces are still present as the cultivation of Iraqi democracy is underway. Coalition-led democratization in Iraq will prove to be a lengthy and complex objective, but one which will be pursued until successfully accomplished.

Neotrusteeship In Iraq, Tim Melvin

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This section deals with literature that examines the role and effectiveness of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in administering Iraq from 2003 till 2004. Foreign rule plays an important role in developing failed state’s infrastructure and institutions. By examining critical elements of the CPA’s administration, this section focuses on the overall success and failures of the CPA administrative capacity, and what this means for the future of Iraq’s new government. Since the cessation of the CPA, the Iraqi government has had its ups and downs and is still heavily reliant on the American presence. But some positive elements have been …