Digital Commons Network^™

Determinants Of College Students' Opinions Towards Felon Voting Rights: An Exploratory Study, Edwards Brenda Cherie Dawson

Theses and Dissertations

The disenfranchisement of felons follows a long American tradition of selectively granting the most coveted democratic tradition - voting. As a collateral "civil" consequence to criminal conviction that is legally deemed as non-penal, felon voting prohibitions have been used as an exclusionary tool for certain otherwise eligible voting populations. Current research finds that African-Americans individually and collectively may experience diminished voting power due to felon voting laws (Uggen & Manza, 2002; Manza & Uggen, 2004; King & Mauer, 2004). The purpose of this research is to examine opinions toward felon voting prohibitions in a state that has one of the …

The Art Of Collaboration In The Classroom: Team Teaching Performance, Julie K. Phillips

Theses and Dissertations

The Art of Collaboration in the Classroom: Team Teaching Performance is a co-written masters thesis which records our research in the field of team teaching as it relates to theatre education at the university level. It is our intent that this text be used as a tool for helping universities and teachers decide if a collaborative teaching model is right for their courses. A portion of the text is research-based, examining the scholarly writings which have preceded our work. In Chapter 1, we compiled a set of definitions, in the hopes of codifying the language used within this document as …

Seeing It Straight, Heather Harvey

Theses and Dissertations

This Master of Fine Arts thesis is divided into four main sections:FAITH and DISBELIEF: In which I reckon with the implications of faith versus rationality as a secular nontheistic artist. IDEAS: The central locus of my work is a place of indeterminacy between what is known/familiar and what is just one step outside of that. This has nothing to do with mysticism, science fiction, or anything else unmoored from established fact. Section also touches on the particular vantage of a female artist with working class roots.THE WORK: Selection of work made during graduate school, and the the guiding thoughts behind …

Breadfruit Fantasies, Matthew Steven Spahr

Theses and Dissertations

Breadfuit is a strange thing. It's a starchy potato-like sustenance not particularly noteworthy by most accounts. But it's history is amazing, an epic journey. Relocated from the Samoan island of Upalu to Oahu, Hawaii in the 12th Century as well as transplanted from Tahiti, as an economical food source for slaves in the West Indies in 1780 the lowly breadfruit has been held in the hands of Fletcher Christian, Captain Bligh, James Cook, King Kamehameha and innumerous other nameless individuals including Matt Spahr. This fruit contains the weight of colonialism, capitalism, exploration and tropical fantasy under its skin. The collision …

Pi-Calculus In Logical Form, Marcello M. Bonsangue, Alexander Kurz

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Abramsky’s logical formulation of domain theory is extended to encompass the domain theoretic model for picalculus processes of Stark and of Fiore, Moggi and Sangiorgi. This is done by defining a logical counterpart of categorical constructions including dynamic name allocation and name exponentiation, and showing that they are dual to standard constructs in functor categories. We show that initial algebras of functors defined in terms of these constructs give rise to a logic that is sound, complete, and characterises bisimilarity. The approach is modular, and we apply it to derive a logical formulation of pi-calculus. The resulting logic is a …

Deer–Human Conflict And Hunter Access In An Exurban Landscape, Daniel J. Storm, Clayton K. Nielsen, Eric M. Schauber, Alan Woolf

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Exurban development (non-metropolitan, residential development) poses unique challenges for wildlife managers through increases in human–wildlife interactions. However, little is known about hunting activity and human attitudes toward white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in exurban areas. In 2004, we surveyed exurbanites near Carbondale, Illinois, regarding their experiences with and attitudes toward deer, whose population in the study area was at or above cultural carrying capacity. Deer–vehicle collisions (DVC) were common and a concern for most respondents (84%). However, DVCs were less influential than plant damage in determining landowner tolerance of deer. Only 19% of respondents allowed hunting on their property, …

Perceptions Of Wildlife Damage And Species Conservation: Lessons Learned From The Utah Prairie Dog, R. Dwayne Elmore, Terry A. Messmer, Mark W. Brunson

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens), a federally listed threatened species, causes damage to agricultural operations, yet little incentive exists for private landowners to conserve them. Therefore, we surveyed Utah residents to identify stakeholder attitudes regarding prairie dog management. We assessed how perceptions of wildlife damage affect respondent attitudes regarding conservation among agricultural producers, rural residents, and urban residents. Higher levels of perceived wildlife damage were reported for agriculture respondents (79%) than for urban (20%) or rural (45%) respondents. Compensation for damage caused by Utah prairie dogs was supported by those engaged in agricultural production but not by …

Use Of Snares To Live-Capture Beavers, Lance B. Mcnew Jr., Clayton K. Nielsen, Craig K. Bloomquist

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Wildlife managers, researchers, and nuisance-control operators often require a nonlethal means of capturing beavers (Castor canadensis). Historically, live-capture has relied on enclosure-type traps such as Bailey or Hancock traps. We describe the live-capture of 231 beavers using snares in southern Illinois from 2002 to 2005. Capture success averaged 5.4 beavers/100 trap-nights. Capture success did not differ between sexes (P = 0.57) or age-classes (P = 0.68). We captured most beavers in haul-out slide sets, surface run sets, or channel sets. Recaptures accounted for 28% (n = 65) of all captures. Mortality rate using snares was …

Appreciating Feral Hogs: Extension Education For Diverse Stakeholders In Texas, Dale Rollins, Billy J. Higginbotham, Kenneth A. Cearley, R. Neal Wilkins

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Texas harbors the largest population of feral hogs (Sus scrofa) in the United States, with populations estimated at >2 million. Depending on one’s perspective, feral hogs are either a pariah (from the farmer’s standpoint) or a popular sporting animal (from a hunter’s standpoint). As feral hogs increase in range and density, conflicts among stakeholders are sure to increase. Texas Cooperative Extension (TCE) initiated educational programs in 1991 to address concerns regarding the presence and management of feral hogs. Since that time, we have developed various workshops, symposia, and educational materials (e.g., print, videotape, and website) as means of …

Range Size, Habitat Use, And Dial Activity Of Feral Hogs On Reclaimed Surface-Mined Lands In East Texas, Robert C. Mersinger, Nova J. Silvy

Human–Wildlife Interactions

During the last decade, surface lignite mines in eastern Texas have experienced damage by feral hogs (Sus scrofa) to reclaimed areas. Specifically, feral hogs have caused damage to plants used in reclamation. In addition to vegetative losses, erosion control problems and water quality impacts have been noted. Big Brown Lignite Mine in Freestone County, Texas, had tried to control feral hogs through year-long trapping, which proved expensive. We hypothesized that hogs were using reclaimed areas only at night and seasonally. If so, knowledge of travel lanes into the mine and seasonal use would help concentrate trapping efforts and …

The Day The Dialogue Died: A Comment On Sauve V. Canada, Christopher P. Manfredi

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In Sauvé v. Canada (2002) a sharply divided Supreme Court of Canada nullified the inmate disenfranchisement provision of the Canada Elections Act. One of the more important aspects of the majority decision by Chief Justice McLachlin is her refusal to let the concept of dialogue take her down the path of judicial deference. This commentary examines the chief justice's reasons for not taking this path and explores how these reasons reveal the limitations of the dialogue metaphor as originally articulated by Peter Hogg and Allison Bushell. The commentary concludes that any meaningful concept of legislative-judicial dialogue must recognize a coordinate …

Book Notes: Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis Of The Federal Judiciary, By Cass R. Sunstein, David Schkade, Lisa M. Ellman And Andreas Sawicki, Dean Ardron

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Personal Is Political--And Economic: Rethinking Domestic Violence, Deborah M. Weissman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Blogging: Rants, Raves, And Random Thoughts, Linda Jones

The Christian Librarian

Unless you have been asleep or just born in the past three years, you will have found many library articles touting the growth and value of the weblog.1 You may also have attended one of the many technology/library conferences, such as Computers in Libraries, and even an ACL Conference and gone to a presentation on blogs. You will have heard that you must blog, and in conjunction use RSS – whatever that is – if you wish to communicate more effectively with your patrons, your staff, or anyone else.2 Hopping on the blogging bandwagon can “save” your institution, make you …

Resource Reviews, Phyllis Fox

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Frontmatter (The Christian Librarian 50:2)

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

William Tyndale As An Evangelical Theologian, Donald Dean Smeeton Ph.D.

The Christian Librarian

William Tyndale is rightly remembered as a sixteenth century Bible translator, but he was also a significant contributor to the formation of the English language and, more importantly, he was a theologian. This article highlights Tyndale’s contribution in each of these three areas and shows that his theology is compatible with ACL’s Statement of Faith. His theology motivated and guided his work as a translator and as a polemical and exegetical theologian.

Reaching Out To The Faculty: Providing Subject-Specific Academic Resources, John Jaeger

The Christian Librarian

Library journals frequently have articles emphasizing the large gulf that seems to exist between academic librarians and teaching faculty members.1 Librarians view this divide as a serious problem and have suggested different strategies to overcome it. Ideas that have received particular prominence include establishing library liaison relationships, providing course-integrated instruction, and encouraging library/faculty research collaboration.

This article focuses primarily on a different method of engaging the faculty. Regularly sending teaching faculty helpful articles and web sites related to their academic disciplines is an easy and effective way to do outreach.

Managing Up: Subtle But Effective Communication With The “Powers That Be”, Lindsay L. Van Sicklen

The Christian Librarian

There are plenty of resources on managing employees but only in recent years has there been an emphasis on managing those to whom we report. The article entitled “Social Styles and the Art of Managing Up” by John R. Darling published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship in 1987 was the springboard for a lively discussion that included seven library directors and eight individuals from a variety of positions.

Preparing For Abhe Accreditation: Suggestions For Essential Elements 7 And 11, Carol Reid

The Christian Librarian

What can you do to bring your library up to the ABHE Standards for Accreditation? At the 2006 ACL Conference, a panel of librarians (Patty Agee, Tony Garrett, and Carol Reid) looked at two essential elements of the requirements to see how our libraries measured up. Our areas were the library’s relationships with the faculty (essential element number seven) and with the information technology personnel on our campuses (number eleven). After examining the new Library Guidelines for ABHE Colleges and Universities, which are posted on the ACL website as a member benefit under the Bible College section link, we graded …

An Unhealthy Case Of Mold, Mary S. Lane

The Christian Librarian

Mold is a serious problem which threatens the well-being of both collections and staff. Preventative maintenance and a good disaster plan are the most effective way of handling mold. However, unforeseen circumstances can infect a library; in which case, librarians must be able to recognize and treat the problem immediately. Finances can affect the manner in which the mold is cleaned. Librarians need to be aware of a variety of options open to them, as well as, a variety of resources upon whom to call in the event of a breakout. A low budget process is presented as an alternative …

Improve Your Church Library, John Engle

The Christian Librarian

I began my journey as librarian for my church sometime at the end of 2004. I truly enjoyed the library experience at my previous church and wanted my new church home to offer a wide variety of great materials for our congregation. The good news for me was that we already had a room and materials that served as our church library. The bad news was that most of the materials were really outdated and only a very few people were using the library. So, I took a step back and devised a strategy for bringing our library back to …

A Christian Librarians Response To Government Secrecy, Dora Wagner

The Christian Librarian

The nature of Christian librarianship requires professionals to remain aware of current political decisions made in our government that directly affect the public’s access to relevant information. Utilizing past literature concerning what it means to practice Christian librarianship and exploring the current administrations’ actions regarding The Freedom of Information Act, the author concludes the Christian library community must educate itself and its patrons and demand honesty and integrity from the government.

Resource Reviews, Phyllis Fox

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Performance Prediction Based Resource Selection In Grid Environments, Peggy Lindner, Edgar Gabriel, Michael M. Resch

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Deploying Grid technologies by distributing an application over several machines has been widely used for scientific simulations, which have large requirements for computational resources. The Grid Configuration Manager (GCM) is a tool developed to ease the management of scientific applications in distributed environments and to hide some of the complexities of Grids from the end-user. In this paper we present an extension to the Grid Configuration Manager in order to incorporate a performance-based resource brokering mechanism. Given a pool of machines and a trace file containing information about the runtime characteristics of the according application, GCM is able to select …

Prediction Of Interference Pathloss Inside Commercial Aircraft Using Modulated Fuzzy Logic And Neural Networks, Madiha Jamil Jafri

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Although several modeling techniques have been used to model indoor radio wave propagation and coupling patterns, to date no efficient model exists that calculates indoor-outdoor radio wave propagations on commercial aircraft. Due to the complexity of an aircraft structure, with the additive introduction of creeping wave phenomenon and unknown back-door propagation values from the exterior aircraft antenna to the avionics bay, numerical modeling approaches using Method of Moments (MoM) or Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) prove too complex with limitations. This dissertation presents an expert neuro-fuzzy (NF) model for Interference pathloss (IPL) predictions inside an Airbus 320 (A320) airplane, for …

Social Contagion Of Violence, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Deanna L. Wilkinson, Garth Davies

Faculty Scholarship

In this chapter, we assess whether the roller-coaster pattern of homicides in New York City beginning in 1985 fits a contagion model and identify mechanisms of social contagion that predict its spread across social and physical space. This framework for interpreting the homicide trends as an epidemic includes two perspectives. First, the sharp rise and fall are indicative of a nonlinear pattern in which the phenomenon spreads at a rate far beyond what would be predicted by exposure to some external factor and declines in a similar pattern in which the reduction from year to year exceeds what might be …

Al-Qaeda And The Law Of War, A. Mark Weisburd

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Imagination Of James Boyd White, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

For several decades, James Boyd White has been a unique voice in the law. It is a voice of extraordinary intellectual range, of erudition, and of deep commitment to a life of self-understanding and of humane values. His point of access is language – all language, in every context. Armed by a lifetime of thought about words, he justifiably has regarded no field or discipline or communicative activity as foreign and outside his ken. Whoever reads him must feel his sense of intellectual empowerment that our world, sectioned as it is by expertise, would deny us.

Proteinparser:A Community Based Tool For The Generation Of A Detailed Protein Consensus And Fasta Output, Barry Ryan, Ronan Barrett

Articles

Comparison of bioinformatic data is a common application in the life sciences and beyond. In this communication, a novel Java based software tool, ProteinParser, is outlined. This soft- ware tool calculates a detailed consensus, or most common, amino acid at a given position in an aligned protein set, whilst also generating a full consensus protein FASTA output. A second application of this software tool, computing a consensus amino acid given a toler- ance threshold, is also demonstrated. The phytase and the common bacterial �-lactamase proteins are analysed as ‘proof of concept’ examples. Consensus proteins, as generated by ProteinParser, are regularly …