Digital Commons Network^™

Numeracy: Open-Access Publishing To Reduce The Cost Of Scholarly Journals, Todd A. Chavez

Numeracy

Each fiscal year, as academic librarians throughout the United States prepare materials budgets, a national “groan” ensues. Regardless of their format (i.e. print or digital), serial subscription costs are escalating, in the process impacting the role of the library in advancing scholarly communication . This paper examines some of the economic issues concerning open-access (OA) journal publishing. The importance of quantitative literacy is suggested for librarians and academics seeking a better understanding of alternatives to traditional journal subscription models and to anyone considering ventures into OA publishing. Quantitative literacy is essential for managing alternatives to the rising cost of scholarly …

Confessions Of A Weak Tie, Joel Best

Numeracy

No abstract provided.

Paradoxical Perceptions Of Problems Associated With Unconventional Natural Gas Development, Gene L. Theodori

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Data collected in a general population survey from a random sample of individuals in two counties located in the Barnett Shale region of Texas were used to empirically explore potentially problematic issues associated with unconventional natural gas development. Moderate support was found for the hypothesis that individuals residing in places with diverse levels of energy development exhibit dissimilar perceptions of potentially problematic issues. The results indicate residents of the county where the natural gas industry was more mature (Wise County) were significantly more likely than residents of the county where the natural gas industry was less established (Johnson County) to …

Assessing Introductory Rural Sociology, Joseph F. Donnermeyer, Benjamin Gray

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This article reports on the results of an assessment of an introductory rural sociology course offered at two land-grant universities, which are very different in size. These institutions are North Carolina A&T State University and The Ohio State University. The authors use similar assessment tools, including an embedded pre and post test of knowledge gained, students’ written comments to open-ended questions administered at the end of term about the quality of the class and the instructors, and the traditional, standardized Student Evaluation of Instruction, an instrument used across many universities. In addition, at OSU, a small group diagnostic of students …

The Mobile Bay Watershed Project: An Experiment In Collaborative Learning About The Social Construction Of Environmental And Natural Resource Problems, Michelle Worosz

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

A collaborative research project was developed for a multidisciplinary class of advanced undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Sociology of Natural Resources and the Environment. The goals of the project were to determine the feasibility of offering an experiential learning opportunity and to explore its usefulness in enhancing students’ thinking about the social constructedness of natural resource and environmental (NRE) problems. The context was the Mobile Bay watershed, which is the site of a variety of concerns such as land use, pollution, and habitat destruction. To explore these types of problems, students completed a series of assignments including a media …

Reference Database Usage Statistics 2008-2009

Technical Services Reports and Statistics

Statistics on the use of online reference databases at the University of Rhode Island during the period from July 2008 through June 2009. Includes COUNTER-compliant data on sessions, searches, turnaways, full text articles downloaded, cost per search, and other metrics.

Modelling The Impact Of Urbanization On Groundwater Using System Dynamic Technique. A Case Study Of Arusha Municipal Well Field In Northeastern Tanzania, Nimzihirwa Kashimbiri

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This paper is concerned with the impact of urbanization in aquifer well-system located in the Municipal area of Arusha city, Tanzania. A system dynamic (SD) model was built under VENSIM PLE workbench from twenty-five years (1978-2003) physical and non-physical data to simulate their interactions and relations. This involved use of mathematics ideas and concepts in studying the physical and non – physical components separately, and finally putting them together in new form (model) and study their relations. After model was found to be structurally complete and simulate properly by using the model and unit check tool of VENSIMPLE, parametric calibration …

Great Northwest Athletic Conference Track And Field Academic Award Winners, Great Northwest Athletic Conference

Track and Field

No abstract provided.

Old Jokes And New Multiculturalisms: Continuity And Change In Vernacular Discourse On The Yucatec Maya Language, Fernando Armstrong-Fumero

Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Much recent literature on indigenous identity politics in Latin America has emphasized the emergence of new discourses on ethnic citizenship. However, the ways in which state-sponsored efforts to validate and revitalize the Yucatec Maya language become relevant to rural Yucatecans reflect far more continuity with older local narratives about the relationship between language use and modernity. Situating contemporary engagements with multicultural language policies within a broader history of locally meaningful language practices complicates the general model of indigenous language communities that has informed many recent studies of Latin American identity politics and reframes scholarly debates that have emphasized contrasts between …

Southern Nevada Agency Partnership Cultural Site Stewardship Program – Program Expansion And Steward Retention: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending December 31, 2009, Margaret N. Rees

Cultural Site Stewardship Program

• A total of 25 stewards initiate Abandoned Mines survey for NP
• CSSP stewards record Grapevine Canyon near Laughlin
• CSSP recognition event draws 103 participants

The Relationship Of Some Anthropometric Measurements To Muscular Strength And Accuracy Of Shooting In The Forehand Strike In Young Players Aged ( 17-19 Years ) With Squash, Fakhriuddin Qasim Saleh

Modern Sport

The current research aimed to achieve two main objectives: identifying certain anthropometric measurements of young squash players and examining the relationship between these measurements, muscular strength, and the accuracy of forehand shots. The researcher used the descriptive method due to its suitability for the nature of the study. The sample consisted of 20 young squash players, with homogeneity ensured among them. The research included skill tests for the forehand shot, muscular strength tests, and measurements of players' lengths and circumferences. To ensure the validity and reliability of the tests, the researcher applied statistical analyses by calculating means, standard deviations, and …

Introduction To Ritual Theory Ritual Practice, Catherine M. Bell

Religious Studies

This book undertakes such an analysis in two ways: first, through a critical reading of how the notion of ritual has been used in the study of religion, society, and culture; and second, through an attempt to carve out an approach to ritual activities that is less encumbered by assumptions about thinking and acting and more disclosing of the strategies by which ritualized activities do what they do. I do not provide a comprehensive history of the term, a review of the most famous ethnographic examples, or a revised theory of ritual—useful though these projects might be. The purpose of …

The Complexity Of The Collective Health Field: Multidisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarityy And Transdiciplinarity Of Knowledge And Practice --A Socio-Historical Analysis Of A Paradigmatic Trajectory, L Madel

English

Objectives: To examine the interaction between the paradigms of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in the field of Collective Health, as well as describe their knowledge bases and practices and examine trends in the production of disciplinary knowledge and intervention.

Bringing Freud To Fraud: Understanding The State-Of-Mind Of The C-Level Suite/White Collar Offender Through “A-B-C” Analysis, Sridhar Ramamoorti, Daven Morrison, Joseph W. Koletar

Accounting Faculty Publications

In this paper we use a primarily “behavioral lens” (cf. Ramamoorti, 2008; Ramamoorti & Olsen, 2007) to try to understand the state-of-mind and motivations of the C-level suite/white collar offender before, during, and after the perpetration of management fraud. We offer a useful conceptual approach called “A-B-C Analysis” to understand the incidence of fraud from individual and group perspectives, as well as more macro-oriented, cultural/contextual levels. It is our hypothesis that fraud occurs either because of an individual criminal’s calculated/intentional betrayal of trust, a duo or team of “bad boys” who push ethical envelopes, and/or an organizational/social/national culture of passivity, …

One Size Fits All: The Interplay Of Kanga, Makawa Swahili Poetry, And Taarab In The Communication Of Zanzibari Women, Rose K. Ong'oa-Morara

Student Theses and Dissertations

The strategic location of the Swahili people along the East African coast has placed them in the way of several newcomers, both local and foreign, who have come to the coast for various economic and political purposes. For this reason the Swahili have had to make adjustments to accommodate the newcomers, often having to redefine their Swahili identity. They have used various tools in this redefinition process including music, dance, and clothing. This dissertation explores the use of a clothing item known as kanga in this process. Kanga is a rectangular multicolored cotton cloth with printed messages along its lower …

Considering "Objective" Possibilities In Autoethnography: A Critique Of Heewon Chang’S Autoethnography As Method1, Sue Butler

The Qualitative Report

Autoethnography is a qualitative research methodology that emphasizes a more personal, almost intimate level of study. It renders the researcher-participant opportunities to explore past and present experiences while gaining self-awareness of his or her interactions and their socio-cultural effects. In the book Autoethnography as Method Heewon Chang presents this research methodology in an easy to follow text and illustration, while advocating an objective approach to data collection and analysis. However, Chang’s theoretical positions seem to shift back and forth between this objective point-of-view and a subjective perspective throughout the text causing ambiguity and contradiction of ideas and approaches.

"Let Heaven Kiss Earth!": The Function Of Humanism And Animism In Shakespeare's Richard Ii And Henry Iv, Parts I And Ii, Kathrin Kottemann

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

As Shakespeare composed the three history plays discussed here, English culture faced a shift in its dominant belief system from an animistic perspective that valued nature and superstition to a humanistic perspective based on reason and personal relationships. In Richard II, Shakespeare creates characters that fall on either side of this divide, and he shows humanism triumph over animism when Henry deposes Richard. In 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare shows that this binary is not so easily reconciled, and Hal (the future Henry V) creates a dual nature that subsumes the tenets of both animism and humanism. After the death of …

The Influence Of Conflicting Role Obligations On Nontraditional Student Baccalaureate Degree Attainment, Rosaria Guastella

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the phenomenon of the conflicting roles, such as parent, spouse, employee, caregiver, and community member/volunteer, associated with the lives of nontraditional college students and to reveal how these conflicting role obligations influence these students' persistence toward the attainment of an undergraduate degree. This study provides a brief history of adult education in the United States as well as the study context, a continuing studies division of a privately endowed research institution located in the southern United States. The participants in this study were nontraditional students who were also recent graduates of …

Understanding The Holocaust: Ernest Becker And The "Heroic Nazi", Stephen Martin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the power and limitations of historical analysis in regards to explaining the Holocaust and in particular the widespread consent to the Nazi program. One of the primary limitations that emerges is an inability of historians to fully engage other social sciences to offer a more comprehensive explanation as to why so many Germans engaged in what we would consider an “evil” enterprise. In that regard, I offer the work of Ernest Becker, a social anthropologist, whose work provides a framework for understanding history as a succession of attempts by man to create societies that generate meaning through …

Spirituality As A Validating Factor And Intrinsic Motivator To Persistence: A Study Of Nontraditional Female Students In Community/Technical Colleges, Camille Laperouse Jarrell

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

While traditional theories are useful in the study of persistence in some nontraditional students, many nontraditional female students are at high risk of not successfully persisting towards their educational goals. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of spirituality, as a validating factor and an intrinsic motivator to persist, in nontraditional female students in community and technical colleges. A hermeneutic phenomenology research design was used with the "lived experiences" of these women articulated through their own voices. Although the study did not have a rigid set of fixed procedures, van Manens (1990) suggested activities for …

Experiences Of Black Women Who Persist To Graduation At Predominantly White Schools Of Nursing, Francine Simms Thomas

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to explore the experiences of Black women who attended predominantly White nursing schools. A phenomenological design was used to investigate eight nurses who persisted through to graduation from their nursing programs in the 21st century. The study examined persistence through the lens of academic involvement, alienation, loneliness and isolation, culture, identity and fit, self-concept, and institutional climate and racism. In-depth interviews were conducted to answer the following questions: (1) What does it mean to be Black in a PWI? What are Black nurses' perceptions of the nursing school experience, (2) How did the Black culture fit …

Hope Vi: A Racial Project For A Colorblind Society, Erin Patton

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Being a low-income person of color trying to survive in a society that subscribes to a colorblind ideology can be more than difficult, it can be impossible. This thesis seeks to examine the racial implications of the racial project of HOPE VI. To demonstrate that impact, I perform a Critical Discourse Analysis on the "The Final Report of the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing: A Report to the Congress and the Secretary of housing and Urban Development" and the United States Housing Act of 1937 as it was amended by the "Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of …

Fall Commencement [Program], December 19, 2009, University Of Northern Iowa

UNI Commencement Programs

The program of the commencement ceremonies, including a list of institutional leadership, a list of the departments by college, awards given at the ceremonies, and a list of undergraduate and graduate degree candidates.

160th Commencement, Winter

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Relatives’ Advice And Health Care-Seeking Behaviour In Oman, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, Samir Al-Adawi, Ibrahim Al-Shafaee, Mohammed, Liyam Eloul

Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal

Objectives: It has been well established that pathways to care are considerably modified by local, social and psychological characteristics as well as the doctor-patient relationship. Scant attention has been paid to the role of family advice in care-seeking. In Omani society, traditional family values and a collective mindset are the norm rather than the exception. This paper examines how family advice affects the trajectory of care seeking. Methodology: During 2006-2007, data was collected through face-to-face interviews among a randomised sample of patients seeking medical consultation in various primary health care centres in the northern region of Oman. This study enrolled …

Psychosocial Concerns And Childhood Overweight In Pediatric Primary Care Clinics Serving Rural Appalachia., Suzanne Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To examine the prevalence of psychosocial concerns presenting in 3 pediatric primary care clinics serving rural Appalachia. The association between pediatric weight status and psychosocial concerns was examined. Methods: Caregivers of children presenting in one of 3 pediatric primary care facilities completed a demographic questionnaire and the Pediatric Symptom Checklist. Results: Approximately 21.4% of children were identified as having a clinically significant behavioral health concern. Among children with available weight status data, ~53% of the children were identified as overweight. Children identified having significant behavioral concerns were more likely to have a lower weight status than those with nonsignificant …

Equipping Children And Pre–Teens To Read And Study Their Bibles, David R. Seal

Christian Perspectives in Education

There is a shortage of material which teaches children and pre–teens how to read and study the Bible. It is important for educators to help them become good Bible readers and interpreters. This paper presents five crucial steps that are important to instruct children and pre–teens in the skills necessary to work out the appropriate meaning and application of the Biblical text. Because children and adolescents learn by “doing,” this article suggests core activities to help them understand and develop Bible interpretation skills.

Understanding The Role Of Faith In Decisions To Persist In College For First-Generation Black Male Students, Larry K. Asplund

Christian Perspectives in Education

While the admissions rate for Black students is now equivalent to that of White students, there is still a large gap in persistence and graduation rates. Among Black students there is a significant graduation rate gap between Black male and female students. The writer used a qualitative research design to make preliminary observations of the decisions to persist in college of a small sample of first-generation African American male students. As students in a Christian university, the dominant role of faith in decisions to persist emerged as an important theme.

Volume 15, Number 4: November/December 2009, Suzanne Zack

UConn Libraries Newsletter

Page 2 The Vice Provost for University Libraries looks at how undergraduates are being supported by the library.

Faculty learn the nuances of making map mash-ups for their classes.

Page 3 Scholars come from throughout the U.S. and abroad to research at Archives & Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center.

Page 5 A trip to Kenya by a journalism professor opens a door to the world for his students.

2009 Winter Boise State University Commencement Program

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.