Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Changes In The Federal Funds Rate On Stock Markets: A Sector-Wise Analysis, Kunaey Garg '08

Honors Projects

The federal funds rate is an indicator of monetary policy that investors in the stock market scrutinize very closely. This paper determines the relationship between changes in the federal funds rate and sector stock indexes. The paper goes on to determine why particular sectors are more sensitive to interest rate changes than others. Weekly returns of the Dow Jones ICB classified financial, energy, utilities, materials, industrials, consumer goods, consumer services, information technology, health care and telecommunications sectors are analyzed using separate OLS regression models for each sector. The results show that the utilities, financials, telecom and basic materials sectors are …

The Effect Of Gender Inequality On Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study, Quentin Brummet '08

Honors Projects

Recently, a large amount of economic literature has focused on the empirical determinants of economic growth, especially the impact of human capital. These studies have established that human capital is a very significant determinant of growth. However, relatively few studies have examined the effect of misallocation of human capital on the basis of gender. Furthermore, those that study gender inequality consider different measures of inequality, different control variables, and different data sets. This study attempts to investigate the robustness of these previous findings. Using OLS regressions and more recent data than past studies, the results highlight the fact that cross …

Utah’S Constitution: Distinctively Undistinctive, Daniel J.H. Greenwood, Christine M. Durham, Kathy Wyer

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Stream-Coordinate Structure And Variability Of The Kuroshio Extension, Penelope Jane Howe

Open Access Master's Theses

Fine horizontal-scale surveys performed during the Kuroshio Extension System Study deployment cruise in May 2004 provide near-synoptic ADCP and CTD data along cross-jet transects just up-stream of the first meander trough of the Kuroshio Extension. An array of Current and Pressure-recording Inverted Echo Sounders (CPIES) deployed during this cruise over a ∼600x600 km region centered on the first meander trough also provide time series of bottom pressure and currents as well as acoustic travel time measurements (τ ), which are converted via the Gravest Empirical Mode method to profiles of temperature, salinity, and specific volume anomaly. This combination allows calculation …

Acoustic Conditioning To Reduce The Impact Of Escapement In Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar) Net Pen Aquaculture, Jennifer Andrew

Open Access Master's Theses

Net pen culture is the most common method used to raise salmon, however these farms are typically located in areas through which wild salmon inhabit or migrate and escapes may influence wild stocks. Commercial salmon farms can potentially reduce both economic losses to the producer and impacts on wild stocks by recapturing escapees. Acoustic signaling has been used to concentrate fish species for feeding or harvest and to deter fish from specific areas. The present study investigated the approach of conditioning salmon to associate a tone with feeding to entice return to a specific location allowing recapture. The ability of …

Comparison Of Reweaving And Reknitting Techniques With Textile Conservation Repair Methods, Sandra C. Aho

Open Access Master's Theses

Reweaving and reknitting techniques rebuild losses in textiles by replacing damaged yams to duplicate original structures and patterns. Traditionally viewed as restorative methods used mainly for consumer clothing and household furnishings, reweaving and reknitting have much potential for adaptation to the repair and stabilization of historic and collectible textiles.

Standard textile conservation repair and stabilization techniques utilize handsewn underlay and overlay patches and adhesive-coated underlay supports. Although these techniques can provide practical and time-saving approaches for a wide variety of situations, problems with these techniques can sometimes develop over the long term when issues of structural integrity and appearance are …

Development Of A Multiple Truck Presence Model, Cornelius Albrecht

Open Access Master's Theses

In bridge design and evaluation, the characteristics of truck traffic is particularly important. Truck weights and axle configurations are directly used in calculations of maximum load effects including positive bending moments and shear forces in simply-supported bridges as well as negative bending moments of continuous spans. The loading event that is likely to govern a bridge design is t he simultaneous occurrence of two or more heavily loaded trucks- called Multiple Presence. Consequently, the statistics of different loading patterns as well as the weight correlation among coincident trucks are equally important to live load analysis. However, studies of Multiple Presence …

Shanthi Sena: Unarmed Peacekeeping, Dennis August Almeida

Open Access Master's Theses

Where questions of violence and nonviolence cannot be raised inside a polity, it becomes obligatory that social scientists undertake them from the outside (Paige 2002:92). And if we are to "transform our society from a psychology of killing and threats to kill to one that is life-enhancing and spiritually fulfilling," (Ariyaratne 1999:73) then social science research on nonviolence and unarmed peacekeeping is an imperative. With this in mind I investigated the Shanthi Sena (Peace Brigade), an independent unit of the Sarvodaya Sharamadana Movement in Sri Lanka, through a six week in-depth case study; a full description, understanding and appreciation of …

I'M Not Dead Yet: An Analysis Of The Recent Supreme Court Of Mississippi's Wrongful Death Jurisprudence, Patrick J. Schepens

MC Law Review

Symposium on Religion, Religious Pluralism, and the Rule of Law: Comment

Thurgood Marshall's Forlorn Battle Against Racial Discrimination In The Administration Of The Death Penalty: The Mccleskey Cases, 1987, 1991, Howard Ball

MC Law Review

Justice Thurgood Marshall: Exploring the Life and Legacy of One of America's Most Celebrated Jurists

Zealous Lawyering Succeeds Against All Odds: Major Mori And The Legal Team For David Hicks At Guantanamo Bay, Ellen Yaroshefsky

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Beginning in 2002, when the first detainees were sent to Guantanamo Bay, civilian and military lawyers worked diligently to secure access to those detainees and to provide them with meaningful and zealous representation. It was several years before the first detainee obtained a hearing. That detainee, David Hicks, was an Australian represented by military lawyer, Major Michael (Dan) Mori, other military lawyers, and civilian lawyers. This essay describes the legal, political and media strategy of the Hicks legal team in a highly publicized case that raised profound ethical challenges to the lawyers’ ability to be zealous advocates. In a system …

Journal Package Plans: An Update On Complex Considerations, David Stern

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

We are still in the early and dynamic stages of applying new price models to both paper and online journals, and the package plan approach offers new conditions for which we need to develop better understandings, appropriate review and decision trees, and adequate support models. This article will attempt to highlight a few of the recent modifications and situations science libraries are experiencing when considering and maintaining journal package plans.

Talking Governance: Board-Shareowner Communications On Executive Compensation, Stephen Davis, Stephen Alogna

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

Advantages stemming from board-shareowner communications on governance and executive pay outweigh the potential risks and costs of such dialogue. Regulation FD in the US should be seen as a caution rather than a barrier to such communication. Prompted by universal adoption of advisory ‘say on pay’ resolutions, UK companies have moved to integrate regular engagement with domestic investors into the annual process of framing corporate remuneration policies. Most US companies have not fully endeavored to engage their shareowners in the same manner, but some—motivated sometimes by crises—are experimenting with various models of dialogue. Companies can best manage effective engagement when …

Allergies In University Of Northern Iowa College Students, Lisa Krausman

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Allergies diseases, comprising of asthma and allergies, in some direct or indirect way affect most American families as more than 40 to 60 million or one in four Americans suffer from allergic diseases. Allergic diseases are a widespread problem that has a great monetary cost to society and a negative impact on the quality of life for those afflicted. This research was based on an analytical cross-sectional study design with a convenience sample of young adults in a college population. The paper based survey consisted of 55 questions asking various questions throughout various periods of life including the topics of …

Late Charges, Regular Billing, And Reasonable Consumers: A Rationale For A Late Payment Act, Norman I. Silber

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This essay considers the reasonable behavior of consumers in relation to law and the policies that tolerate the assessment of late payment penalties, fees, and surcharges. Attention is trained principally on the inadequately-regulated cycle of creditor billing and debtor repayment practices, rather than on excessively high fees. The focus here is on the credit card issuers and, to a lesser degree, the wireless telecommunication vendors. Problems associated with late fee billing cycles cut a wide swath of billing for recurring debt repayment, however. A variety of different demands on consumers imposed sector-by-sector interact to magnify the consumers' difficulties.

Part I …

The Crucial Role Of The States And Private International Law Treaties: A Model For Accomodating Globalization, Julian G. Ku

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This brief essay highlights the central and important role that state governments play in the development and integration of private international law treaties into the United States legal system. States play this central role even though, as some of the papers in this symposium have concluded, there are few, if any, constitutional constraints on the ability of the federal government to sign, ratify, and implement treaties that would displace state law.

The primacy of states in the integration of private international law, this essay argues, points the way to a model of accommodation of other kinds of treaties affecting traditional …

Signposts And Crossroads: A Model For Live Action Mediator Assessment, Dorothy J. Della Noce, James R. Antes, Robert A. Baruch Bush, Judith A. Saul

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we describe and explain the Signposts and Crossroads model-a performance-based approach that is directed toward the formative assessment of practice competence in mediators who follow the transformative framework. We present the historical background of this project in Part II. In Part III, we articulate the conceptual foundations of the model. In Part V, we provide an overview of the model. We conclude in Part V with a discussion of the implications of this model for the future of performance-based assessment initiatives in the mediation field generally. In particular, we discuss in that section the potential for this …

Postmortem Rights Of Publicity: The Federal Estate Tax Consequences Of New State-Law Property Rights, Mitchell M. Gans, Bridget J. Crawford, Jonathan G. Blattmachr

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

California recently passed legislation that creates retroactive, descendible rights of publicity. The New York State Assembly is poised to enact similar legislation. Legal recognition of postmortem rights of publicity permits a decedent's named beneficiaries or heirs to control (and financially benefit from) use of a deceased personality's image and likeness. Legislators, proponents of these laws, and legal commentators have overlooked two significant federal estate tax consequences of these new state law property rights. First, a descendible right of publicity likely will be included in a decedent's gross estate for federal estate tax purposes. Second, the estate tax value of rights …

One Share, One Vote And The False Promise Of Shareholder Homogeneity, Grant M. Hayden, Matthew T. Bodie

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Shareholder democracy has blossomed. The once moribund shareholder franchise is now critical in takeover contests, merger decisions, and board oversight. However, the mechanisms of this vote remain largely undertheorized. In this Article, we use voting rights and social choice theory to develop a new approach to the corporate franchise. Political democracies typically tie the right to vote to the level of a person's interest in the outcome of the election. Corporate democracies, on the other hand, tend to define the requisite institutional interest quite narrowly, and thus restrict the right to vote to shareholders alone. This restriction has found its …

Reconstructing Journalists’ Privilege, Eric M. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In the years since Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665 (1972), judicial protection of journalists' confidential sources has depended upon the case-by-case application of a three-part balancing test.

This qualified privilege approach is unsound in theory and unworkable in practice. Achieving the ultimate goal of enriching public dialogue requires an absolute privilege. This article (part of a symposium issue whose scheduled contributors include Anthony Lewis, Max Frankel, Victor A. Kovner, Joel M. Gora, and Rodney A. Smolla) supports that position with multiple lines of argument that include consideration of the lawyer-client analogy and build upon developments in law, history, journalism …

Ownership, Limited: Reconciling Traditional And Progressive Corporate Law Via An Aristotelian Understanding Of Ownership, Ronald J. Colombo

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Concern over issues of corporate social responsibility and corporate governance persists, fueled, in large part, by recent (and ongoing) corporate scandals of one sort or another. The debate over the nature of the corporation - and, consequently, the proper role of directors, shareholders, and other stakeholders - plays an important role in the consideration of such concerns. If one conceptualizes the corporation as an entity owned by the shareholders, then one would probably be more likely to view directors as mere agents, tasked with maximizing the wealth of their principals (the shareholders). On the other hand, rejecting such a conceptualization …

Calibrating Feat Instruments Without Gas Cylinders, Allison Peddle, Donald H. Stedman

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

Heritage Awareness In County Wicklow., Anne Dagg

Masters

This research project investigated the community’s current level of heritage awareness in County Wicklow. The study was initiated by Wicklow County Council and the Heritage Council in response to objective 1, action 1.2 of the County Wicklow heritage plan 2004-2008, which pointed to the need to undertake a study to determine public attitudes towards heritage and to gauge the current level of awareness about heritage in the county. The findings of this research are being used on an ongoing basis by the Wicklow County Council and the Wicklow Heritage Forum to inform the decision making process concerning the direction and …

Editor's Introduction, Leah Strege

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Legislative Voting: Influences On Environmental Voting In The House Of Representatives, Krystyna Zwolinski '08

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

The question of what prompts legislators to vote as they do has long been the subject of much empirical political research. This research project contributes to this body of literature by addressing the question of what factors influence how members of Congress vote on environmental issues. More specifically, I examine how a combination of personal and constituency characteristics influence the level of environmental support of members of the House of Representatives in the years 2003 through 2006. The personal characteristics of the representatives examined are gender, party, and seniority; the constituency characteristics are region, urbanicity, occupation, education, and district ideology.

Examining Veterans' Interest Groups: Understanding Success Through Interest Group Ratings, Nicole Schiller '08

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

While many legislative scholars have consistently concerned themselves with the motivations behind congressional votes, very little has been done to examine the specific motivations behind votes on veterans’ legislation. By using the congressional ratings compiled by veterans’ interest groups as well as a variety of variables that may affect those ratings, this paper seeks to gain a deeper understanding of what factors contribute to the successes of individual veterans’ organizations. It is concluded that, while some constituency characteristics did play a small role in explaining legislative successes, the majority of success is explained by both legislator party affiliation and ideology.

Environmentalism: Material Or Post-Material Need?, Amanda Weier '08

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

Environmentalism in Latin America has become of increasing concern throughout the world from the poor conditions in urban areas that affect the health of the population to the vast destruction of precious areas such as the Amazon. This paper seeks to discover what causes Latin American governments to take environmental actions. Are factors such as economic stability, environmental knowledge and education, or poor health conditions important in influencing the government to join environmental intergovernmental organizations?

The Effects Of Social Ostracism On Frontal Lobe Electroencephalogram Activity, Jennifer A. Morozink '08

Honors Projects

This project is part of a larger investigation involving personality traits and their relation to the individual's response to ostracism as well as effects of social ostracism on frontal lobe EEG activity.

The "Evolution" Of Media: The Influence Of A Media Literacy Campaign On Self Esteem And Body Image, Vasiliki D. Dremonas '08

Honors Projects

For decades, society has criticized the media for instigating many of the physical, social, and psychological maladies that affect females of all ages. However, recent advertising approaches, namely the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, endeavor to sell products by responsibly endorsing attainable beauty ideals. The present study seeks to empirically evaluate whether campaign efforts like Dove's are successful at reducing negative female body image, or whether they are instead counterproductive to their goal due to what social psychologists term "sleeper effect" processes. 102 female undergraduates were either exposed to the Dove commercial Evolution in its entirety, Evolution in part, or …

Increasing Condom-Related Behavioral Intentions, Motivation, And Willingness Via Social Ties In Advertisements, Marylee Richardson '08

Honors Projects

Although researchers have identified factors associated with increased condom use, STI prevalence rates are still high, and condom use rates are still low. Various advertising techniques have been implemented to increase condom use, but these techniques are largely self-focused. Based on research in exercise adherence and cognitive interdependence, this study used advertisements targeting social ties to increase condom use. One hundred forty-seven Illinois Wesleyan University students viewed one of six critical advertisements--a self-focused condom advertisement, a relationship-focused condom advertisement, a friendship-focused condom advertisement, a self-focused sunscreen advertisement, a relationship-focused sunscreen advertisement, or a friendship-focused sunscreen advertisement. Participants then completed measures …