Digital Commons Network^™

Dynamic Analysis Of Less-Than-Truckload Shipments And Test Method To Simulate This Environment, Sher Paul Singh, E. Joneson, Jay Singh, G. Grewal

Industrial Technology and Packaging

This paper provides results from a comprehensive data measurement study that analyzed the vibration dynamics produced inside the trailers used for less-than truckload (LTL) shipments. The trailers used for this segment of the package transportation environment are very different in size and suspension than those used for full truckload shipments. This study measured the vertical, lateral and longitudinal vibration inside a trailer as a function of road surface. In addition, the study developed a video showing freight movement inside the trailer to determine physical displacement and shifting of the loads. A set of recommendations was developed to safely load and …

Book Review: Stephen Hopgood, 'Keepers Of The Flame: Understanding Amnesty International', Kenneth Anderson

Book Reviews

This brief review (1100 words) examines Stephen Hopgood's half journalism-half anthropological journey inside the world of Amnesty International. The book is an outstanding piece of both reportage and analysis, and the review discusses the various pressures, political and ideological and social, on AI and those that work in its International Secretariat. As the review notes, AI is more like a religious order than anything else, and that observation has ramifications for the NGO world beyond AI.

A Comparative Analysis Of Factors Contributing To The Biblical Worldview Among High School Students In The American Association Of Christian Schools Of Georgia, North Carolina, And South Carolina, Michael Hugh Bryant

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This non-experimental quantitative study is a comparative analysis of factors contributing to the biblical worldview of students attending select Christian schools in the states of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The research design uses non-randomized control groups, an instrument which includes original questions in addition to items from three other instruments, and a Likert-type scale. Results imply that the subjects appear to consistently reflect orthodox doctrine in their responses, if not always in their behavior. The subjects were homogenous in many of their answers even though there were particular questions that evoked a wide disparity of answers. The particular …

The Effect Of School Size On The Utilization Of Educational Technologies, Daniel Nelson Patton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of school size, as defined by student enrollment and by total school budget, on the utilization of educational technologies. The focus group for this investigation was Christian schools that were further delineated by three criteria: (a) membership, (b) scope of program, and (c) geographic location. Membership was schools that were members of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). Scope of program was schools with comprehensive programs. Geographic location was schools in two ACSI regions. The survey instrument covered 23 categorical questions, several of which contained sub-questions. Survey data including …

Pathological Sub-Types, Risk Factors And Outcome Of Stroke At The Nairobi Hospital, Kenya, James Jowi, Peter Mativo

Internal Medicine, East Africa

Background: Stroke is one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality the world over. Established risk factors such as arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cigarette smoking, hyper-lipidaemia, micro-vascular rupture, male gender, age and observed co-morbities such as sickle cell disease, HIV/AIDS infection and cerebral malaria are increasingly being encountered in the tropics.

Objectives: To determine pathological sub-types, risk factors, in-hospital period prevalence and in-hospital outcome of stroke.

Design: Hospital-based retrospective study.

Setting: The Nairobi Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya.

Subjects: Patients with recorded diagnosis of stroke/cerebral vascular accident; as per WHO criteria for diagnosis of stroke, …

Motivation, Language Learning Strategies, And Course Performance Among English Speaking College Students Learning A Romance Language, Kathia Flemens

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

Only 8% of American college students study a foreign language (Christian, Johnson, Malone & Rifkin, 2003). Part of the reason stems from a decrease in foreign language requirements from four to two years at many secondary schools, thus reducing the number of students exposed to foreign language learning (Brecht & Rivers, 2000; Congressional Hearing Document, 2001). This creates a shortage of qualified human resources proficient in a second language at a time when an influx of immigration and globalization have created an increasing need to learn a foreign language (General Accounting Office, 2002). Meeting the human capital foreign language deficit …

Modeling The Economic Impacts Of Large Deployments On Local Communities, Aaron L. Gregory

Theses and Dissertations

The Global War on Terrorism has required the large scale deployment of active-duty troops to support operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This thesis presents an economic analysis of the impacts these deployments have had on local communities as measured by changes in local retail sales. County level data from Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee were combined with open source deployment information to construct panel models. Panel model analysis is a form of regression that combines cross-sectional and time-series dimensions. Seasonality and general economic conditions were also incorporated into the model. The goal of this research is to provide an …

Optimal Re-Entry Trajectory Terminal State Due To Variations In Waypoint Locations, William J. Karasz

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force's Prompt Global Reach concept describes the desire to have a capability to reach any target within a 9000 nautical mile radius within two hours of launch. To meet this objective, much effort is being devoted to hypersonics and re-entry vehicles. Given the limited maneuverability of hypersonic vehicles, computational modeling is used to generate trajectories before launch to strike intended targets. In addition to endpoint (target) constraints, additional waypoints may constrain the trajectory. This research finds the optimal trajectory which satisfies the endpoint and waypoint constraints, and then investigates where else the vehicle can go while still meeting …

The Changing Book: Transitions In Design, Production, And Preservation, Peter D. Verheyen

Librarian Publications

This book review was originally published in the Guild of Book Workers' Newsletter, Vol 181, December, 2008. "The Changing Book: Transitions in Design Production, and Preservation publishes the proceedings of the conference of the same name organized by and held at the University of Iowa July 22-25,2005. This conference tied together many threads, from an exhibition honoring the life's work of William (Bill) Anthony, the first conservator at the University of Iowa and teacher to some of today's best, to a "tent show" which gave the public the opportunity to learn about the book arts hands-on, to 19 formal presentations …

Rocking The Vote: An Analysis Of What Makes The Millennial Generation Vote And The Correlation Of Civic Engagement To Empathy, Gabrielle Michelle Martinez

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Chinese Scramble In East Africa: The Growing Interest Of China In Uganda, Kenya, And Tanzania, Ara Jannie Jo

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Synthesis Of A Dirhodium Tetraphosphine Catalyst And The Effect Of Various H2/Co Ratios On The Catalyst, Christina Joanne Sweeney

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

An Efficiency Wage Approach To Reconciling The Wage Curve And The Phillips Curve, Carl M. Campbell Iii

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This study develops an efficiency wage model that generates a wage curve at the regional level and a Phillips curve at the national level, under the assumption that workers' efficiency depends on both regional and aggregate labor market conditions. An equation relating wages to unemployment and lagged wages is derived from the profit-maximizing behavior of firms, and it is demonstrated that the coefficient on lagged wages is less than 1 with regional data but equals 1 with aggregate data. In addition, there is an equilibrium relationship between unemployment and wages at the regional level, but not at the aggregate level.

John C. H. Wu At The University Of Michigan School Of Law, Xiuqing Li

Articles

The following is an English language translation of a 2008 Chinese language article on John C.H. Wu, Soochow Law School LL.B. 1920 and Michigan Law School, J.D. 1921, by Professor Li Xiuqing of Shanghai's East China University of Political Science and Law. Li is a specialist in Chinese and foreign legal history, with a focus on the transplant of Western and Japanese law into China during the late imperial and modern era. She also serves as the Secretary-General of the China Foreign Legal History Association. In 2006-07, Li was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School, where …

Lsuhsc Facilities Biweekly Update: December 2008, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates: 2008

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates from December 5 and 19, 2008.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Lsuhsc Facilities Daily Update: December 2008, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Daily Updates: 2008

LSUHSC Dailly Facilities Updates from December 2008. These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Biogeography-Based Optimization, Daniel J. Simon

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Biogeography is the study of the geographical distribution of biological organisms. Mathematical equations that govern the distribution of organisms were first discovered and developed during the 1960s. The mindset of the engineer is that we can learn from nature. This motivates the application of biogeography to optimization problems. Just as the mathematics of biological genetics inspired the development of genetic algorithms (GAs), and the mathematics of biological neurons inspired the development of artificial neural networks, this paper considers the mathematics of biogeography as the basis for the development of a new field: biogeography-based optimization (BBO). We discuss natural biogeography and …

From Suffragettes To Grandmothers: A Qualitative Textual Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of Five Female Politicians In Utah's Deseret News And Salt Lake Tribune, Holly M. Cox

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines press coverage in the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune of five female politicians in Utah history: Martha Hughes Cannon (1896), Reva Beck Bosone (1948), Karen Shepherd (1992), Enid Greene Waldholtz (1994), and Olene S. Walker (2003). A total of 438 articles were reviewed using qualitative textual analysis. Coverage by candidate varied, though it was not in general overtly biased concerning candidate gender. However, the press did call attention to the gender of candidate and gendered commentary was present. The press also called attention to the rarity of women running for high political office and addressed the …

Anomalies In Electrostatic Calibrations For The Measurement Of The Casimir Force In A Sphere-Plane Geometry, W. J. Kim, M. Brown-Hayes, D. A.R. Dalvit, J. H. Brownell, R. Onofrio

Dartmouth Scholarship

We have performed precision electrostatic calibrations in the sphere-plane geometry, and observed anomalous behavior. Namely, the scaling exponent of the electrostatic signal with distance was found to be smaller than expected on the basis of the pure Coulombian contribution, and the residual potential found to be distance dependent. We argue that these findings affect the accuracy of the electrostatic calibrations and invite reanalysis of previous determinations of the Casimir force.

Climate Change And Consumption, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Douglas A. Kysar

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

To achieve the level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions called for by climate change experts, officials and policy analysts may need to develop an unfamiliar category of regulated entity: the consumer. Although industrial, manufacturing, retail, and service sector firms undoubtedly will remain the focus of climate change policy in the near term, individuals and households exert a greenhouse footprint that seems simply too large for policymakers to ignore in the long term. This paper, written as a foreword for the Environmental Law Reporter's symposium issue, "Climate Change and Consumption," emerges from an interdisciplinary conference of the same title held at …

Consumption, Happiness, And Climate Change, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A large body of literature has developed over the past Jeveral years on the economics of happiness. One of the key insights of this literature is that beyond a subsistence level of income, relative income is often more important than absolute income to individual well-being. This is true for both comparisons against a reference group, e.g., across a community or country, as well as comparisons for the same individual over time. Another key insight is that changes in income have only transitory effects on well-being.

In this Article, we explore the implications of this literature for understanding the relationship between …

Using Economics To Fuel Responsible Energy Consumption Decisions, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article considers the determinants of individual consumption decisions and how these decisions might better account for environmental impacts. In addition to exploiting the quite direct forms of regulatory incentives to alter behavior, such as taxes and regulatory standards, policymakers should take advantage of the potential of informational remedies that can assist people in making more efficient choices for themselves and more responsible decisions for the environment. This Article considers as a case study ways in which current information provisions for household energy utilization might be improved. In exploring the potential role of more environmentally responsible consumption decisions, I do …

How The Courts Opened The Door To Impeaching Criminal Defendants With Prior Convictions, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article spotlights the flawed analytical framework at the heart of the federal courts' approach to one of the most controversial trial practices in American criminal jurisprudence - the admission of prior convictions to impeach the credibility of defendants who testify. As the Article explains, the flawed approach is a byproduct of the courts' reliance on a five-factor analytical framework to implement the governing legal standard enacted by Congress in Federal Rule of Evidence 609. Tracing the evolution of the five-factor framework from its roots in pre-Rule 609 case law, the Article demonstrates that the courts' reinterpretation of the framework …

Discounting Dilemmas: Editors' Introduction, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Two developments pose dilemmas for well established discounting techniques: (1) The extremely long time horizons associated with recently prominent environmental policy problems, such as climate change and nuclear waste storage, have made it important to take seriously both benefits to future generations and extreme uncertainties in projecting the returns to policies and future well being. (2) Findings in the burgeoning field of behavioral economics have made it clear that individuals routinely depart significantly from rational prescriptions when making choices over time, thus undermining a bulwark of the discounting approach. These two sets of dilemmas are addressed in a series of …

The Myth Of The Generalist Judge, Edward K. Cheng

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Conventional judicial wisdom assumes and indeed celebrates the ideal of the generalist judge, but do judges really believe in it? This Article empirically tests this question by examining opinion assignments in the federal courts of appeals from 1995-2005. It reveals that opinion specialization is a regular part of circuit court practice, and that a significant number of judges specialize in specific subject areas. The Article then assesses the desirability of opinion specialization. Far from being a mere loophole, opinion specialization turns out to be an important development in judicial practice that promises to increase judicial expertise without incurring many of …

Does Heller Protect A Right To Carry Guns Outside The Home?, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Retinoid X Receptor And Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-Gamma Agonists Cooperate To Inhibit Matrix Metalloproteinase Gene Expression, Peter S. Burrage, Adam C. Schmucker, Yanqing Ren, Michael B. Sporn, Constance E. Brinckerhoff

Dartmouth Scholarship

We recently described the ability of retinoid X receptor (RXR) ligand LG100268 (LG268) to inhibit interleukin-1-beta (IL-1-β)-driven matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and MMP-13 gene expression in SW-1353 chondrosarcoma cells. Other investigators have demonstrated similar effects in chondrocytes treated with rosiglitazone, a ligand for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ), for which RXR is an obligate dimerization partner. The goals of this study were to evaluate the inhibition of IL-1--induced expression of MMP-1andMMP-13 by combinatorial treatment with RXR and PPAR  ligands and to investigate the molecular mechanisms of this inhibition.

A Study Of The Rita Geier Case: Efforts To Desegregate Three State Universities In Tennessee From 1990-2006., Sonja Renee Jackson-Mccoy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on a 2-phase assessment of the desegregation of selected public postsecondary institutions under the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) [Tennessee State University and University of Memphis] and the University of Tennessee systems [University of Tennessee-Knoxville]. The 1st phase involved obtaining and analyzing the annual reports, court cases, legal journals, articles, and books concerning the 1968 Sanders v. Ellington case (better known as Geier v. Alexander); the 1984 Geier Stipulation of Settlement that mandated a desegregation plan; and the implementation of the 2001 Geier Consent Decree. The study also examines enrollment of black students in selected historically white …

Circuit Modules For Six-Port Reflectometer On Chip, Chaojiang Li

All Theses

Broadband signal generator is an indispensable module for broadband Six-Port Reflectometer (SPR). To integrate a whole SPR system on a chip, the source must be compact. In this thesis, a three-stage voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), using two parallel weak invertor-chain oscillators and sense amplifiers, is proposed and designed in a 0.13 µm CMOS process. These two parallel weak inverter-chain oscillators extend the low frequency operating range and the sense amplifiers expand the high frequency operation. The measurement results show that the oscillator can be tuned from 430 MHz to 12 GHz, which satisfies the targeted SPR operating frequency range.
In order …

Optimal And Heuristic Resource Allocation Policies In Serial Production Systems, Ramesh Arumugam

All Theses

We have studied the optimal server allocation policies for a tandem queueing system under different system settings. Motivated by an industry project, we have studied a two stage tandem queueing system with arrival to the system and having two flexible servers capable of working at either of the stations. In our research, we studied the system under two different circumstances: modeling the system to maximize throughput without cost considerations, modeling the system to include switching and holding costs along with revenue for finished goods. In the maximizing throughput scenario, we considered two different types of server allocations: collaborative and non-collaborative. …