Digital Commons Network^™

Democracy In Practice: Lessons From New England, Madhawa Palihapitiya, Kevin Dye

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

Political decision-making by elites require some form of civilian participation to regain legitimacy. Increasingly groups of Citizens do not trust in political elites and are increasingly frustrated by their behavior. When faced with the problem of diversity, even established democracies face problems of managing diversity. In the global context differences of opinion, culture, religion etc has defined many of the New Wars (Kaldor 1999). In the United States many non-state and semi-governmental organizations have developed programs to increase public knowledge of the legislature and its decision-making processes. The ultimate purpose of this is to exercise some control over state power. …

The Resurrection Of Jesus And The Talpiot Tomb, Gary R. Habermas

Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (1973-2015)

The authors in this volume argue that severe problems beset the Talpiot tomb hypothesis. Rarely is this more apparent than when this proposal purports to address the known data regarding the early church's claims that Jesus' burial tomb was empty and that He later appeared to His disciples in a resurrected body. In this chapter, we will compare the Talpiot hypothesis to the accredited information that contemporary research has confirmed on these topics.

Light's Fellowship With Twilight: The Religious Thought Of John Henry Barrows And The 1893 World's Parliament Of Religions, Allison Takahashi

Alison Scott Ricker Research Award

No abstract provided.

Consumer Ubiquity Or Anytime Anywhere Consumption: Scale Development And Validation, Syagnik Banerjee

Open Access Dissertations

The research objective of this dissertation is to develop and validate a scale measure of consumer ubiquity that indicates the individuals' propensity to shop online "anytime, anywhere" given a wireless, internet-based ubiquitous marketplace. Through a focus group, two surveys and a set of experiments we generate items, construct and validate a ten-item three-dimension scale and apply it for segmentation and targeting with different mobile advertising strategies. The scale demonstrates sufficient validity as a predictor of proactive mobile shopping behavior, but its applications in terms of segmentation and targeting for mobile advertising are more complex. Though the more ubiquitous consumers show …

Involuntary Switching Behavior In Restricted Decision Environments: Consumer Responses To Stockouts, Timucin Ozcan

Open Access Dissertations

Studies indicate that at least 8% of supermarket items in the US are out-of-stock at any point in time, resulting in annual lost sales of over seven billion dollars. Given the salience of stock-outs, this dissertation examines how consumers make choices when their most preferred alternative is unavailable. This dissertation proposes that when consumers experience a stock-out and make a substitution decision, they would tend to choose the alternatives that are superior on hedonic dimensions. The theoretical arguments for this proposition derive from the literatures on affective-cognitive model of consumer decision making, mood as a repair mechanism, and justification effects. …

The Effect Of Teacher Attitudes On Response To Professional Development In Literacy, Tara J. Smith

Open Access Dissertations

The study examined the association of attitudes with gains in knowledge for teachers who participated in a professional development project on literacy. First-grade teachers from 38 schools participated. The schools were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, with all teachers within a school assigned to the same condition. Each group received a two-day summer workshop prior to participating, followed by monthly workshops throughout the school year. The first cohort, the In-Class Mentor group, received additional weekly in-class support from mentors and participated for two years. The second cohort, the Regular Mentor group, did not receive extra support and only …

The Illusion Of Transformative Conflict Resolution: Mediating Domestic Violence In Nicaragua, Raquel Aldana, Leticia Saucedo

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Problem Of Religious Learning, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

The problem of religious learning is that religion—including the teaching about religion—must be separated from liberal public education, but that the two cannot be entirely separated if the aims of liberal public education are to be realized. It is a problem that has gone largely unexamined by courts, constitutional scholars, and other legal theorists. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has offered a few terse statements about the permissibility of teaching about religion in its Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and scholars frequently urge policies for or against such controversial subjects as Intelligent Design or graduation prayers, insufficient attention has been paid to …

Legal Consciousness And Contractual Obligations, Kojo Yelpaala

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Vico's "Ingenious Method" And Legal Education, Francis J. Mootz Iii

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Social Economics: An Introduction And A View Of The Field, John B. Davis, Wilfred Dolfsma

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Urban Watershed/Water Body Restoration - The Driving Forces, Vladimir Novotny, David E. Clark, Robert J. Griffin

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Urban streams are used for several purposes. Some uses are conflicting and some are complementary. The use of urban water bodies and the resolution of conflicts is driven by anthropogenic and biocentric/ecocentric interests that must be optimized and the conflicts resolved. This article examines and analyzes land ethics (biocentric) and socio-economic (anthropocentric) drives for stream restoration of urban watersheds located in the Milwaukee (WI) metropolitan area. The basins experienced increased flooding, significant degradation of sediment and water quality, and loss of aquatic species, all due to urbanization. It was found that the primary drivers for restoration of urban streams are …

Autonomy And Acute Psychosis: When Choices Collide, Dora W. Klein

Faculty Articles

Professor Elyn Saks is a well-recognized expert in mental health law, and is training to become a psychoanalyst. Her latest book reflects her continued interest in mental health issues, but this book differs from her previous works because it is written in the voice of someone who has a personal stake in the topic.

In The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, Saks recounts her own experience of schizophrenia, the most serious of all mental illnesses. Beginning with some “little quirks” in childhood and progressing to full-fledged psychosis by her first year at Yale Law School, Sak’s illness caused …

Integrating Actor Training Into Movement Design: An Analysis Of The Fight Direction In Tamburlaine And Edward Ii, Christopher Drew Vidal

Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis draws from a recent production assignment at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., in which I acted as Associate Fight Director under Broadway Fight Director Rick Sordelet. We worked on three shows in all: William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, and Christopher Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine, and his last, Edward II. By analyzing and assessing the working methods utilized during this production process, I hope to elucidate the most effective elements, and finally synthesize the tenets of my own working method. Structurally, I will recount the experience chronologically, from preproduction to performance, treating the pros and …

Measuring Configural Spatial Knowledge With Alternative Pointing Judgments, Lisa J. Douglas

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Configural spatial knowledge has been tested by having people point from one object to another or by having them sketch maps from memory. Several different pointing judgments have been used, but these judgments appear to differ both in superficial characteristics and in their implied theoretical mental model of spatial representation. This experiment compares two different pointing judgments: judgments of relative direction, based on a quasi-Euclidean model of spatial representation; and object-based judgments, based on an object reference model of spatial representation. Results supported the object reference model. Object-based judgments were more accurate, were made with more confidence and had shorter …

Personal Characteristics And The Impact Of Transformational Leadership Behaviors On Follower Outcomes, Charles N. Thompson

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Transformational leadership has emerged as the dominant model for understanding how leaders impact affective and behavioral responses of their followers. The current study investigated the extent to which follower core self-evaluation (Judge et al., 1997) and affect-based trust in leadership impact the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and work outcomes, such as follower job satisfaction, satisfaction with the leader, perceptions of job core characteristics, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Follower core self-evaluation was found to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and follower job satisfaction and satisfaction with the leader. Affect-based trust in the leader was found to fully mediate …

In-Car Navigation Systems: The Effects Of Landmark Specificity And Map Rotation On Spatial Knowledge And Route Acquisition, Tiffany N. Saffell

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Current in-car navigation systems do not refer to environmental landmarks when providing directions to drivers. Instead, they provide guidance by presenting drivers with distance-to-turn information. Default displays use track-up map orientations. These display conditions do not facilitate the acquisition of spatial knowledge. As a consequence, drivers using these systems are unlikely to acquire spatial knowledge needed to judge the reasonableness of the directions they are receiving, leaving them susceptible to accepting directions that are grossly incorrect and dangerous (Forbes and Burnett, 2007). Landmarks have been shown to be critical sources of information when people acquire both route and configural spatial …

College Success Among Students Who Reside In Different Living Environments, Daniel Scott Dakin

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The influence of a college students living environment has been under investigation for many years. The purpose of this study was to analyze college student living environment factors that influenced college success at a mid-west metropolitan university. To narrow the definition of college success, this researcher specifically focused on retention, academic study habits, and student satisfaction.

This researcher identified three groups of students that lived in different living environments including on-campus, a hybrid on-campus/off-campus, and an off-campus arrangement. A sample of each group was asked to participate in a telephone survey. Due to a low participation rate of subjects the …

A Descriptive Study Of Parenting Styles, Parental Feeding Behaviors And Bmi Percentiles In School-Age Children And Adolescents, Stephanie Jane Smith

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The rising rate of obesity in the pediatric population has demanded further investigation from members of the health care community. Numerous exercise and nutrition programs have been developed to help combat the growing rate of obesity within the pediatric population but many lack the family-centered approach needed to achieve increased compliance with the prescribed plan of care. Both parenting styles and parental feeding behaviors have been shown to play a contributing role in the weight of children. According to previous research, the authoritarian parenting style often leads to an increased BMI in children. Research examining parental feeding behaviors indicates that …

A Study Of Students' Perception Of The Freshman Seminar Course Influence On Academic Persistence And Career Planning, Maura J. Dunn

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Freshman seminars have become standard in higher education programming. Although there is evidence that these programs are effective in helping the freshman-to-sophomore year persistence rate, there is little research into the specific components of such programs and how they affect academic persistence and career planning. There is also little research on how different students perceive the effectiveness of such programs. This research examined the perceived influence of a freshman seminar on academic persistence and career planning between two student cohorts, a business-major and an undecided-major, via a post-course questionnaire. The student responses between the two cohorts resulted in a significant …

Influences Of Eating Disorders And Behaviors On College Cross Country And Track Runners, Kimberly L. Ricker

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Outside sources can be a large influence on athlete's perceptions of themselves, including their body image. Men and women face the same issues and influences from outside sources. The SCOFF questionnaire was used to determine if an athlete has the possibility of developing or already has an eating disorder. An eight question survey was also used to see what outside sources influence the eating behaviors of college cross country and track runners.

A System For Collecting Data To Characterize A Pre-Fall Change In Sway: Development And Proof-Of-Concept Analyses, Amy Renae Sipp

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Falls account for almost two million emergency department visits per year in the U.S. and are the leading cause of injury deaths among adults 65 years of age and older. Despite efforts to reduce fall risk factors, about one-third of community-dwelling older adults fall each year in the U.S. New methods and devices are needed to prevent falls and to reduce morbidity and mortality related to falls. Presently, it is unknown if there is a measurable change in sway before a person falls. In order to find out, a wireless data acquisition system was developed as no existing tools were …

Locked Rooms And Interpreting Readers: The Role Of Embedded Texts In The Locked-Room Mysteries Of Poe, Leroux, And Christie, Carolyn E. Stoermer

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As closed narratives, locked-room mysteries risk the sense of interpretive play for which the larger detective genre is known. To mitigate this risk, writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Gaston Leroux, and Agatha Christie incorporate embedded texts into their locked-room stories. These recreated documents encourage readers' involvement by eliciting culturally specific interpretive reactions. Studying how these authors' embedded texts simultaneously innovate and conserve within the locked-room subgenre brings critics closer to understanding exactly how the detective story earned its reputation as one of the most engaging forms of fiction.

Effects Of Subcutaneous Postnatal Choline Supplementation On Hippocampus-Mediated Learning And Memory In Rat Pups, Jeremy Alan Moore

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The effects of postnatal injections of choline on the acquisition of two variants of eyeblink conditioning were examined in developing Long-Evans rat pups. Choline administration on postnatal days (PND) 15-27 was followed by evaluation of trace eyeblink conditioning (Experiment 1) and delay eyeblink conditioning (Experiment 2) on PND 28-29. The results of these experiments show that choline produced greater improvements in learning and memory during the trace condition than in the delay condition, presumably due to its effect on the hippocampus. Trace eyeblink conditioning relies heavily on an intact hippocampus but delay eyeblink conditioning does not, and it is understood …

Social Realism In Central America: The Modern Short Story Translated, James P. Geary

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Contemporary Central America fiction writers offer realistic scenarios that often concentrate on the effects of globalization, the inevitable forces of transnational corporations, the global media, and government policy in the region. These writers show how racism and tensions between the social classes perpetuates division and alienates union between unique ethnic groups of the underprivileged majority. The dominant class in Central America, in collaboration with the United States threatens diverse cultures and causes their autonomous identities to become diluted and their very existence to become endangered. The Central American short story has a tendency to express various inequalities. It shows how …

Stress Reducing Effects Of Oxytocin In A Maternal Separation Paradigm, Keely Jane O'Connell

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This study compared the effects of centrally and peripherally administered oxytocin (OT) on HPA axis activity and the presence of both stress-induced active and passive behaviors in female guinea pig pups (Cavia porcellus) after 180-min of isolation . In Experiment 1, one dose of oxytocin (10μg/.2ml) was injected subcutaneously into the periphery. Plasma cortisol levels were reduced after 180-min of isolation and two passive behaviors, eye-closure and crouch, were reduced as well with the administration of oxytocin. In Experiment 2, two different doses (10μg/.2ml and 20μg/.2ml) were injected into the periphery with no significant results. In Experiment 3 one dose …

How Openness To Experience And Prejudicial Attitudes Shape Diversity Training Outcomes, Suzanne L. Dean

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This study investigated the effectiveness of diversity training on a diversity training outcome measure when considering participant levels of Openness to Experience, sexism, and racism. Because past literature has demonstrated a positive relationship between Openness to Experience and training outcomes and a negative relationship between prejudicial attitudes and diversity training outcomes, these variables were treated as main effects in Multiple Regression equations. This study demonstrated that diversity awareness training increases participant understanding of legal issues related to workplace diversity. However, diversity training outcomes were not greatly affected by implicit or explicit prejudicial attitudes or Openness to Experience.

The Moderating Influence Of Stress Appraisals And Affect On Performance Under Fatigue, Regina M. Schmidt

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This study demonstrated that in a group of seventeen active duty soldiers, performance on an attack combat simulation significantly degraded after approximately 30 h of sleep deprivation. In addition, individual differences were identified, as approximately half of the participants maintained performance throughout the sleep deprivation period, while other participants degraded in performance. The main objective of this study was to test the efficacy of micro-level cognitive performance and subject state factors to account for this dichotomy in performance that was particular to the last testing session. Results showed that performance on a decision making test with rapid reaction time constraints …

The Dynamics Of Workplace Harassment And Revenge: Mediation And Moderation Effects, Qiang Wang

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This study examined the mediating role of rumination, state anger, and blame attribution, and the moderating role of trait forgiveness in the relationship between workplace harassment and revenge behavior. Results based on a sample of 310 employed students suggested that workplace harassment is positively associated with both major revenge and minor revenge. Also, the multiple mediation test showed that rumination, state anger, and blame attribution completely mediate the proposed relationships between workplace harassment and both types of revenge behavior. In addition, as proposed, trait forgiveness moderated the relationship between two internal states (i.e., state anger and blame attribution) and major …

Analytic-Holistic Thinking, Information Use, And Sensemaking During Unfolding Events, Mei-Hua Lin

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In complex domains such as commerce, military operations, transportation, and humanitarian efforts, practitioners are sometimes overwhelmed by uncertain, contradictory, and dynamic information. They must obtain, organize, interpret, and use this information often under time pressure and high stakes during sensemaking. While sensemaking is a gateway to information management, sensemaking also depends on information management; the gathering and use of information provides the raw material for sensemaking. These processes work together to help people understand complex situations but are vulnerable to cultural as well as individual variation in cognition. This study investigated individual cognitive and personality differences that may affect information …