Digital Commons Network^™

World Economic Prospects [Book Review], Leticia Camacho

Faculty Publications

Companies are entering the world market knowing that current global economic conditions are pivotal to their future success. Understanding internal conditions and existing challenges in a target country are as important as knowing whether a product has export potential. This publication explores global economic performance, major challenges, and other issues that could play a vital role in the success or failure of a company’s efforts at globalization.

The End Of Farming In The Northern Periphery Of The Southwest, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

The area once called the northern periphery of the Southwest was occupied for approximately 1,000 years by prehistoric farmers identified by archaeologists as Fremont and Virgin Anasazi, although hunter-gatherers occupied the area at European contact. Although the timing is similar, possible relationships between the end of farming in the northern periphery and the Four Corners abandonments have not often been considered. This paper reviews the cultural context and timing of, as well as explanations for, the end of the Fremont and Virgin Anasazi sequences, and explores the linkages with the better documented abandonments in the Four Corners region.

Mano And Metate Manufacturing Techniques Of The Maya: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach To Understanding Standardization And Measurements, Michael T. Searcy

Faculty Publications

Prehistorically, maize was the bulk of the Mayan diet, which made grinding stones an indispensable tool. Basalt quarries located in Highland Guatemala are still exploited by metateros who produce manos and metates today. This paper reports the recent research among metateros of two quarries in Guatemala and how they can be use to build new analogies that aid in the interpretation of prehistoric production economies of metates. It specifically investigates how systems of measurement are linked to standardization.

The Effects Of Immediate And Delayed Feedback On Secondary Distance Learners, Duane C. Lemley, Richard Sudweeks, Scott L. Howell, R. Dwight Laws, Octavia Sawyer

Faculty Publications

This study explores the effects of immediate and delayed feedback for 2 noncohort groups of high school students enrolled in distance learning courses at Brigham Young University. One group received immediate feedback while the second group received delayed feedback. Those students receiving immediate feedback performed significantly better on final exams, but those who received delayed feedback completed courses in significantly less time. The findings promise to inform best practices for providing feedback to secondary students in a distance learning setting and also give cause for further research.

Analysis Of Ultraviolet Energy Distribution In Uv Disinfection Systems Using Monte Carlo Ray -Trace Method, Khoi Trung Nguyen

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Determination of fluence rate in ultraviolet (UV) disinfection systems is a crucial part in evaluating disinfection efficiency of the systems. A robust Monte Carlo Ray Trace (MCRT) method has been developed to determine fluence rates in three-dimensional space of the systems. This is a statistical sampling method in which millions of random light energy bundles are simulated from the axis of each UV lamp and traced through the system until their energies reduce to a minimum threshold level. Inherent phenomena including refraction through quartz tubes, specular reflection at quartz tube surfaces, and absorption by quartz and water, along with specific …

The Effect Of Survey-Based Sentiment Measures On The Predictability And Volatility Of Stock Returns Conditioned On The Payout Yield And Issue Yield, Darryl Philip Samsell

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Survey-based sentiment indexes from the American Association of Individual Investors, Investors' Intelligence, and the Yale University International Center for Finance show strong in-sample monthly return predictability and are strong factors in explaining the cross-sectional variation in monthly returns and in explaining the excess volatility in returns beyond that explained by cash flow fundamentals proxied by the payout yield and the issue yield from Boudoukh, et al. (2007). These finding are robust to the use of numerous methods of sentiment variable computation. Sentiment is a more significant factor during the period from January 1997 to December 2005 when U.S. stock valuations …

Two Essays On Corporate Spin-Offs, Yingchou Lin

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation investigates two possible sources that contribute to the gains of corporate spin-offs. In the first essay, I investigate the relation between the value created by corporate spin-offs and the misvaluations of the parent firms and their spun-off divisions. I argue that spin-offs could create value even though the efficiency of the firm remains unchanged. Corporate spin-offs could be driven by the desire to correct the undervaluation of the parent firm or the spun-off unit. Thus, the gains of spin-offs should be highly correlated with the degree of misvaluation. By examining a 263 corporate spinoffs sample in the period …

Investigation Of A Possible Lead-Lag Relationship Between The Innuitian And Laurentide Ice Sheets, Arctic Canada, Paula Zimmerman

OES Theses and Dissertations

Peaks of iron-rich grains in Arctic Ocean sediment cores matched to the Laurentide and Innuitian Ice Sheets appear to show a lead-lag relationship during the Late Pleistocene when grain abundances are plotted against time and depth below sea floor. Cores from across the Arctic have been analyzed to determine if this is the case. Of the six IRD events identified, the Innuitian leads 68% of the time with 26% of events in all cores occurring simultaneously. The Innuitian seems to lead 33.3% of the time when peaks from the Innuitian and Laurentide occur within close proximity (less than 1 cm), …

Freelib: A Self-Sustainable Peer-To-Peer Digital Library Framework For Evolving Communities, Ashraf A. Amrou

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The need for efficient solutions to the problem of disseminating and sharing of data is growing. Digital libraries provide an efficient solution for disseminating and sharing large volumes of data to diverse sets of users. They enable the use of structured and well defined metadata to provide quality search services. Most of the digital libraries built so far follow a centralized model. The centralized model is an efficient model; however, it has some inherent problems. It is not suitable when content contribution is highly distributed over a very large number of participants. It also requires an organizational support to provide …

Using Principles Of Momentum Conservation To Develop A Coastal Storm Impulse Scale (Cosi), Chris Adam Klentzman

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Coastal engineers have long recognized the need for a storm classification system that combines wave conditions, storm surge, and the length of time for the storm event. A new classification system has been developed that is based on the conservation of total horizontal momentum. This research concentrated on developing the theory and then applying that theory for a 10-year period of data from the Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility (FRF) in Duck, North Carolina. When fully developed, the Coastal Storm Impulse scale (COSI) may be applied to all previous Hurricane and Northeaster storm events along a coast and …

Development Of Fast, Distributed Computational Schemes For Full Body Bio-Models And Their Application To Novel Action Potential Block In Nerves Using Ultra-Short, High Intensity Electric Pulses, Ashutosh Mishra

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An extremely robust and novel scheme for computing three-dimensional, time-dependent potential distributions in full body bio-models is proposed, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first of its kind. This simulation scheme has been developed to employ distributed computation resources, to achieve a parallelized numerical implementation for enhanced speed and memory capability. The other features of the numerical bio-model included in this dissertation research, are the ability to incorporate multiple electrodes of varying shapes and arbitrary locations. The parallel numerical tool also allows for user defined, current or potential stimuli as the excitation input. Using the available computation …

Exploring Special Places: Connecting Secondary Art Students To Their Island Community, Mark Graham

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Structural Ambiguity Collecting As A Tool For Teaching Grammar, Dallin D. Oaks

Faculty Publications

Structural ambiguities can be a valuable resource for grammar students. Because structural ambiguities present more than one possible grammatical interpretation, authentic examples of such ambiguities lend themselves well to meaningful grammatical discussions. One particularly useful way for involving students in the recognition and analysis of structural ambiguities is to assign them to find designated ambiguity types. This paper will consider some benefits of structural ambiguity study and will provide some ideas and suggestions related to a specific type of assignment that involves students in collecting structural ambiguities.

Of Frivolous Litigation And Runaway Juries: A View From The Bench, Thomas A. Eaton

Georgia Law Review

Tort reform has been largely driven by the executive and legislative branches of government. Governors have proposed and legislatures have enacted statutes that, for the most part, scale back on the ability of injured persons to recover from purported wrongdoers. Both the public perception and political rhetoric of tort reform are grounded in the images of runaway juries and frivolous litigation. The voices of politicians and interest groups shape the terms of the popular debate. Largely absent from the policy discussions are the voices of the one group of public officials who are in the best position to observe the …

Civil Fraud Liability And Iraq Reconstruction: A Return To The False Claims Act's War-Profiteering Roots?, Jessica C. Morris

Georgia Law Review

During its short existence, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S.-led occupation regime that governed Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, entered into security and reconstruction contracts amounting to billions of dollars. Fraud pervaded the chaotic contracting environment of CPA-era Iraq. The False Claims Act (FCA), enacted by Congress during the Civil War to protect the Union from profiteering suppliers, remains the U.S. government's most effective tool in combating fraud. Whistleblower or qui tam provisions within the FCA function to assist the under-staffed contractingcorps ferret out fraud. This Note will argue that the FCA should apply to all CPA …

Milner Ball: Mentor, Teacher, And Friend, Rebecca H. White

Georgia Law Review

Milner is one of the most accomplished and well-known scholars on our faculty; this symposium issue in his honor is testament to that. But when I heard him deliver a keynote address at a university academic conference many years ago, I learned how extraordinarily powerful and gifted a teacher he is as well. Milner can make ideas come alive in the classroom. His attention to communicating his own ideas to others, and to drawing on his research in the process, powerfully demonstrated to me that outstanding scholarship and teaching can and should go hand in hand. Milner taught me much …

Milner S. Ball: Proof That One Professor Can Make A Difference, David E. Shipley

Georgia Law Review

Can one person make a difference in the world? When asked about their accomplishments during their careers, people often respond by saying something like, "I just hope I made a difference, and that I am leaving the place a little bit better than when I arrived." Milner S. Ball, the Harmon W. Caldwell Chair in Constitutional Law, is proof positive that one person can make a difference in the world. There is no doubt that he has made a substantial difference for the better during his distinguished career at the University of Georgia, as a campus minister, as a non-traditional …

The Practice Of Law In The Peaceable Kingdom, Robert P. Burns

Georgia Law Review

Milner Ball would be the last person to claim to have constructed a system. After all, he writes in the essay form, one that is "tentative, reflective, suggestive, contradictory, and incomplete."' It is a style that suggests there is more afoot than any science or philosophy is likely to conceive and that much of what is most important has to be shown, not stated. Surely, the notion of a system, as in "the legal system," reflects many of the qualities that, as we will see, he is most at pains to criticize. However, there are definitely themes in his work …

Meeting Of The Minds, Part Ii: A Dark And Angry God Arises, Paul J. Heald

Georgia Law Review

In 1988, Professor Heald found a lost manuscript of Steve Allen's groundbreaking television show, "A Meeting of the Minds."' In that episode, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Kelman, Blaise Pascal, and Richard Posner discussed the nature of law.2 While completing renovation of a house, possibly visited by Allen, Heald recently found another manuscript jammed on top of an old water tank...

The "Prudent Retiree Rule": What To Do When Retirement Security Is Impossible, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The starting question for public policy analysis in the retirement security area ought to be this: “Is retirement security possible?” My text is drawn from the classic trust case Harvard College v. Amory, decided in 1830, in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced the prudent investor rule by stating, “Do what you will, the capital is at hazard.” The modern understanding of that text is not that there are no “risk free” assets. After all, the United States government assures the timely payment of principal and interest on Treasury securities backstopped in turn by Treasury’s unlimited call on …

Encyclopedia Of Industrial And Organizational Psychology, Leticia Camacho

Faculty Publications

In today’s global, competitive marketplace, firms are concerned with developing, retaining, and rewarding their workforce. With the proliferation of self-service human resource management applications, workplace issues are no longer the sole purview of the human resources department. Line managers need to be aware of legal and ethical issues as well as of the latest techniques to evaluate and motivate their employees. The Encyclopedia covers more than four hundred key topics that affect the workplace environment daily.

If You Prompt Them, They Will Rule: The Warranty Of Habitability Meets New Court Information Systems, Mary Zulack

Faculty Scholarship

A recent conference on housing rights invited participants to think about the impacts, actual and potential, of the judge-made doctrine of the implied warranty of habitability in residential tenancies. This essay focuses on the warranty, and suggests establishing technology systems for judges to help them give new
life to the doctrine and thereby to accelerate actual repair of rental housing through court mandates.

The conference attendees seemed to agree that when trial judges are presented with claimed breaches of the warranty of habitability, they have not, on the whole, used the doctrine to order that repairs actually be effectuated. They …

The Politics Of Preclearance, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines recent charges of political motivation against the Department of Justice and its enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. These accusations appear well-deserved, on the strength of the Department's recent handling of the Texas redistricting submission and Georgia's voting identification requirement. This Essay reaches two conclusions. First, it is clear that Congress wished to secure its understanding of the Act into the future through its preclearance requirement. Many critics of the voting rights bill worried about the degree of discretion that the legislation accorded the Attorney General. Supporters worried as well, for this degree of discretion might lead …

Race, Redistricting, And Representation, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay, which was written for the Ohio State Law Journal's symposium on Election Law and the Roberts Court, examines the Court's decision in League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v. Perry. The Essay explores two ways of reading LULAC: first as a racial representation case and second as a case concerned with representation itself. The essay argues that politics not race is the majority's worry in LULAC and that the case is the first application of Justice Kennedy's representation rights concept first introduced in Vieth.

Cultural Competence And Instructional Design: Exploration Research Into The Delivery Of Online Instruction Cross, P. Clint Rogers, Charles R. Graham, Clifford T. Mayes

Faculty Publications

The amount of resources being poured by Western universities, companies, and governments into creating educational content to be exported (via the Internet) to other cultures is astounding. Those assigned to accomplish this task are left with the great challenge of meeting the needs of learners who come from cultures that are foreign to them, and who often have very different abilities and expectations than originally assumed. This study explores the cultural competence in the lived experience of 12 professionals who have been involved with such efforts. Often they have had to question their assumptions, recognizing flaws in their own thinking …

Benefits And Challenges Of Using Live Modeling To Help Preservice Teachers Transfer Technology Integration Principles, Richard E. West, Charles R. Graham

Faculty Publications

One method underutilized in training teachers to use technology is to use live modeling sessions. This study qualitatively investigates how the use of modeling sessions impacted students. In this study we found that modeling was perceived by most students to be effective at teaching technology skills and ideas for integrating technology as teachers. However, we identified several breakdowns in the ability of students to transfer their understanding of technology integration to their own situations. We explain this difficulty of transfer of learning and describe five situations when these breakdowns were likely to occur. Implications include the benefits of using live …

Empowering Or Compelling Reluctant Participators Using Audience Response Systems, Charles R. Graham, Tonya R. Tripp, Larry Seawright, George L. Joeckel Iii

Faculty Publications

This article investigates the impact of an audience response system (ARS) on student engagement in undergraduate university courses. A survey was administered to students in a dozen courses piloting the ARS system. On 13 out of 14 measures the majority of students thought the system was helpful. Overall, students were more positive about the use of the ARS in courses that used the tool for formative feedback (empowering) rather than for grading or attendance purposes (compelling). The authors discuss the positive impact of the ARS on the engagement of ‘reluctant participators’ or students who reported that they are least likely …

Vendor-Owned Inventory Management Arrangements In Retail: An Agency Theory Perspective, Manus Rungtusanatham, Elliot Rabinovich, Bryan Ashenbaum, Cynthia Wallin Blair

Faculty Publications

This paper undertakes two related tasks to augment current understanding regarding vendor-owned inventory management (VOIM) arrangements implemented in the retail industry. The first task formally juxtaposes three prevalent forms of VOIM arrangements (i.e., Consignment, Pay-On-Scan, and Scan-Based Trading) to one another and identifies three dimensions (i.e., Relevant Data Visibility, Timeliness of Information Release, and Shrink Responsibility) that serve to discriminate among them. The second task applies an Agency Theory lens to uncover differing profiles of characteristics underlying the retailer-vendor relationship across the Consignment, Pay-On-Scan, and Scan-Based Trading arrangements. These conceptual results contribute to and have implications for the science and …

The U.S. Health Care System And Labor Markets, Brigitte C. Madrian

Faculty Publications

There is no universal provider of health insurance or health care in the United States. Rather, a patchwork system of institutions exists, each covering different subgroups of the population. Certain types of health insurance are provided as a condition of employment, while other types of health insurance are more readily available when individuals are not employed or not fully employed, and still others are available regardless of employment status. The two most significant sources of health insurance coverage in the United States are employers, who collectively insure 63 percent of the non-elderly (below age 65) population, and governments, who collectively …

The U.S. Treasury Buyback Auctions: The Cost Of Retiring Illiquid Bonds, Bing Han, Francis A. Longstaff, Craig B. Merrill

Faculty Publications

We study an important recent series of buyback auctions conducted by the U.S. Treasury in retiring $67.5 billion of its illiquid off-the-run debt. The Treasury was successful in buying back large amounts of illiquid debt while suffering only a small market-impact cost. The Treasury included the most-illiquid bonds more frequently in the auctions, but tended to buy back the least-illiquid of these bonds. Although the Treasury had the option to cherry pick from among the bonds offered, we find that the Treasury was actually penalized for being spread too thinly in the buybacks.