Digital Commons Network^™

New Governance In The Teeth Of Human Frailty: Lessons From Financial Regulation, Cristie Ford

All Faculty Publications

New Governance scholarship has made important theoretical and practical contributions to a broad range of regulatory arenas, including securities and financial markets regulation. In the wake of the global financial crisis, question about the scope of possibilities for this scholarship are more pressing than ever. Is new governance a full-blown alternative to existing legal structures, or is it a useful complement? Are there essential preconditions to making it work, or can a new governance strategy improve any decision making structure? If there are essential preconditions, what are they? Is new governance “modular” – that is, does it still confer benefits …

It Takes Two: The Interplay Of Individual And Group Theology On Social Embeddedness, Christopher P. Scheitle, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

Prior research argues that religious homophily in social networks is a product of overlapping interests and activities unintentionally leading to relationships or the intentional seeking of relationships with people of similar religious beliefs. This article advances research on religious homophily by including the role that exclusive theological beliefs play in explaining religious homophily among friends. We lay out three propositions for individual-, congregational-, and cross-level effects on the relationship between exclusive theology and embeddedness within one's congregation. Using multilevel models and data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (USCLS), we find support for our three propositions. We discuss our findings …

Shaping Attitudes About Homosexuality: The Role Of Religion And Cultural Context, Amy Adamczyk, Pitt Cassidy

Publications and Research

Across the globe, the debate over homosexuality continues, with great variation in public opinion about the acceptability of homosexuality, laws regulating same-sex unions and penalties for homosexual sex behaviors. Religion is often seen as an important predictor of attitudes about homosexuality. However, cross-national differences in cultural orientations suggest that the role religion has in explaining homosexual attitudes may depend on a nation’s cultural context. In this study, we merge ideas from cultural sociology and religious contextual effects to explain cross-national variation in public opinion about homosexuality. Using data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey and Hierarchical Modeling …

Trespass-Copyright Parallels And The Harm-Benefit Distinction, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Currently, the elements of a plaintiff’s cause of action for copyright largely follow the tort of trespass to land in that volitional entry (for land) or volitional copying (for copyright) gives rise to liability regardless of proof of harm and without any need for the plaintiff to prove the defendant acted unreasonably. Many scholars have criticized copyright law for following the strict liability model of real property trespass, and have suggested alternatives that would more resemble conditional causes of action such as unfair competition, nuisance, or negligence. In Foreseeability and Copyright Incentives, Professor Shyamkrishna Balganesh argues that copyright plaintiffs …

The "Accidental Procreation" Argument For Withholding Legal Recognition For Same-Sex Relationships, Edward D. Stein

Articles

This article examines “the accidental procreation argument,” an argument against same-sex marriage that still has some traction in United States appellate courts. The accidental procreation argument is meant to take the place of one of the central arguments made by states — and almost universally accepted by courts — in the first batch of cases in the United States about same-sex marriage. That original procreation-based argument — now widely acknowledged to be inadequate — posited that marriage is crucially related to procreation; therefore, since same-sex couples cannot procreate, same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry. The accidental procreation argument …

Exploration Of African American Women’S Infant Feeding Choices, Karen Marie Robinson, Leona Vandevusse

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

It is well documented in the literature that breastfeeding is more beneficial for infants and mothers than is formula feeding. Yet, African-American women are least likely to initiate and continue breastfeeding compared to other ethnic groups. Few studies have examined African-American women's infant feeding choices from the women's perspectives. Therefore, the purpose of this

exploratory study was to examine African-American women's infant feeding choices with individual narrative interviews at 3 weeks postpartum. Five African-American women participated. After coding and analyzing the narrative interviews, three major themes with sub-themes emerged that identified influencing factors on participants' choices and their opinions about …

When The Lawyer Knows The Client Is Guilty: Client Confessions In Legal Ethics, Popular Culture, And Literature, Michael Asimow, Richard H. Weisberg

Articles

The article explores the ethical dilemma faced by criminal defense lawyers when they know their client is factually guilty but the client insists on a vigorous defense. It examines the tension between the lawyer’s duty of zealous representation and the duty of candor toward the court, proposing a compromise that allows lawyers discretion to choose between strong or weak adversarial approaches based on the context. The analysis draws on historical cases, such as the Courvoisier case of 1840 and the modern case of Steven Feldman, as well as insights from popular culture and literary sources, to argue that the discretionary …

Giving In To Group Pressure: The Impact Of Socialization And Risk On Perceived Outcomes, Katharine A. Mcintyre, Judith Platania

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

The current study applies the perspective of decision theory to understanding how choices are made in an in-group setting involving social pressure and risk. Two hundred sixty-one undergraduate students provided assessments of consequences associated with illegally consuming alcohol in different environments with differing degrees of risk. In addition, size of the social group was varied as three, four, or nine. In order to determine the moderating effects, if any, of susceptibility to social influence, a measure of socialization was included. Results provide strong support for socialization as an explanation for how individuals interpret risk-related social situations.

Second-Stage Labor Care: Challenges In Spontaneous Bearing Down, Lisa Hanson

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Substantial scientific evidence supports spontaneous maternal bearing down for its associated maternal and fetal physiologic benefits. Imposing specific directions for Valsalva pushing does not result in optimal outcomes but continues to be widely used, particularly when labor progress is less than optimal. However, there are numerous evidence-based approaches that can be used to avoid reverting to directed, prolonged Valsalva bearing down. Nursing care challenges may be encountered when using physiologic approaches; therefore, strategies are detailed to alleviate a variety of problems including ways to promote physiological descent and effectively support women's spontaneous efforts. For example, maternal postural interventions are suggested …

Community Consultation And Environmental Justice In The Regent Park Revitalization, Jacqueline De Schutter

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The neighbourhood of Regent Park, located in the east end of downtown Toronto, Ontario, is the oldest and largest public housing development in Canada. In 2002, under its new management by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, the development was announced to undergo a total redevelopment to be completed over 12 years. The revitalization of Regent Park has involved, among other things, an extensive and uniquely designed community consultation process, as well as a redesign for its green space. The community consultation process is examined through a case study method, wherein the use of archival documents, interviews with community staff, and …

Made Me Who I Am: An Examination Of Grandparent And Parent Value Teaching And Young Adult Generativity, Identity, And Adjustment, Elise Bisson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Intergenerational value transmission plays an important role in child socialization. Although much research has been done on parent to child value teaching, there is little research on grandparent to grandchild value teaching. The purpose of this study was to explore parent and grandparent value teaching and how it relates to young adult generativity, identity development, and adjustment. This study involved 100 young adults, between the ages of 25 to 29 with a mean age of 26, taken from a longitudinal sample of participants in 2006. Participants were asked to tell parent and grandparent value teaching stories, in which they described …

An Action Research Study Of The Supporting The University-Ready Through Environment (Sure) Program, Natalie Brown

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The current research documented the processes and outcomes of an educational access program for women living in poverty at the individual and organizational level of analysis. The purpose of this study was to understand barriers, strategies to reduce barriers and outcomes achieved by a grassroots program: Supporting the University-Ready through Empowerment (SURE). The 12 participants consisted of three women learners of the SURE program, three SURE co-directors (including myself), three university partners and three community partners. Life narrative interviews were conducted with the learners with structured interviews conducted with all other informants. Additionally, focus groups were run with the SURE …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Short-Duration Reading Intervention On Grade One Phonological Awareness And Word Reading, Carrie Seward

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the influence of a summer intervention for children showing early signs of reading delay. The project evaluated two intervention components: a two week camp for children and two training workshops for parents. Data were collected for five groups of participants. Three groups participated in one or more intervention components: parent workshops only group, child camp only group, and both parent workshops and child camp group. All children who participated in the interventions were identified by teachers as having difficulty in phonological awareness and word reading skills at the end of senior kindergarten. …

Phantoms Of Old Forms: The Gothic Mode In The Dramatic Verse Of Tennyson And Browning, Michael E. Ackerman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

My dissertation, “Phantoms of Old Forms: The Gothic Mode in the Dramatic Verse of Tennyson and Browning” situates Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning within a lineage of writers who experimented with the Gothic mode in dramatic and verse forms. This study is, in the first instance, an experiment in applying a specific strain of Gothic critical theory, one that addresses issues of gender, to canonical literary materials not ordinarily approached in that light. Definitions of the Gothic are notoriously elusive, and this project is not an assertion that the Gothic is always, in all of its manifestations, about gender. …

Acknowledging The Skeletons In Our Closet: Collective Guilt And Ingroup-Affirmation, Gregory Roy Gunn

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Just as people defend against threats to personal identity, they also defend against threats to social identity. In the context of intergroup transgression, the defensiveness against social identity threat has the effect of undermining collective guilt and its prosocial consequences. However, there may be ways for perpetrator groups to alleviate threat without undermining guilt. Five studies examined whether perpetrator groups are more willing to acknowledge collective guilt once social identity threat has been buffered by ingroup-affirmation. As predicted, Study 1 revealed that men accepted greater collective guilt for the mistreatment of women after affirming their ingroup. Replicating this effect, Study …

The Role Of Geospatial Thinking And Geographic Skills In Effective Problem Solving With Gis: K-16 Education, Niem Tu Huynh

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Effective use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) is hampered by the limited geospatial reasoning abilities of students. The ability to reason with spatial relations, more specifically apply geospatial concepts, including the identification of spatial patterns and spatial associations, is important to geographic problem solving in a GIS context. This dissertation examines the broad influence of three factors on GIS problem solving: 1) affection towards computers, geography, and mathematics, 2) geospatial thinking, as well as 3) geographic skills.

The research was conducted with 104 students in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Students were drawn from four educational levels: grade 9 students, 13 …

The Tactile Motion Aftereffect, Peggy Joanne Planetta

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The tactile motion aftereffect (tMAE) is a perceptual phenomenon in which illusory motion is reported following adaptation to a unidirectionally moving tactile stimulus. Unlike its visual counterpart, relatively little is known about the tMAE. For that reason, the purpose of this dissertation was to gain a better understanding of the tMAE using both psychophysical and neuroimaging techniques. In a series of five experiments the skin was adapted using a plastic cylinder with a square-wave patterned surface. Chapter 2 consists of two experiments, both of which adapted the glabrous surface of the right hand. Experiment 1 showed that the prevalence, duration, …

Intuition, Rational Analysis And The Relation Between Implicit And Explicit Attitudes, Mervyn Lee Whitfield

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Across four experiments, reliance on rational analysis reduced the correspondence between implicit and explicit attitudes relative to reliance on intuition. In each experiment, implicit attitudes were measured, and then participants were induced to rely on either rational analysis or intuition. Following this manipulation, explicit attitudes were measured. We found that participants reported explicit attitudes that were more or less consistent with implicit attitudes depending on whether they relied more on intuitions or rational analysis. Notably, rational analysis only reduced the correspondence between implicit and explicit attitudes when it led participants to consider reasons for their attitudes that were inconsistent with …

Constructed Identity, Subjective Identity And Inter-Subjective Transformation: An Exploration By Way Of Motherhood And Canadian Maternity Benefits, Patricia Van Katwyk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

When identity is conceptualized as a fluid and ongoing process that is mutually influenced by subjective and constructed experience, an interplay can occur that engenders and signifies collective life. With an acknowledgement of motherhood as a politically and emotionally charged identity experience, and asserting the capacity of social policy to sustain a constructed ideology, this paper explores a conversation that occurred between 28 mothers in Canada. The site of this conversation was an on-line journal (blog). Using a participatory narrative action method of research, the mothers participated as co-researchers, conducting a narrative analysis of one another’s narratives and a policy …

Institutional Analysis Of Integrated Treatment For Co-Occurring Mental Health, Substance Use And Gambling Problems In Ontario: A Case Study, Gabriela Novotná

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation explores the institutionalized response of the mental health and addiction sectors in Ontario to the pervasive demand for integrated services for people with concurrent disorders. Building on neo-institutional theory, I argue that despite the fact that different stakeholders on multiple levels—provincial governments, service providers, and clients—have called for the integration of treatment for concurrent disorders, this integrated treatment is implemented as a rationalized myth and adopted only ceremonially.

This is demonstrated through a case study of two treatment programs that provide services to populations with concurrent mental health and substance use problems and gambling problems. Both programs are …

The Role Of Optimism And Working Alliance And Its Utility In Predicting Therapeutic Outcomes In Counseling Relationships, Michael A. Hauser

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Achieving positive therapeutic outcomes is the goal of all involved in the mental health field. The last 10 years have seen ever increasing demands for recognition of the elements that constitute empirically supported treatments (EST) and research on those elements, not only by professionals in the mental health field but also by third party providers (health insurance companies) and clients. Yet over the course of this increasing demand, research has repeatedly, and authoritatively, demonstrated that the most significant and consistent contributor to therapeutic outcome is the working relationship between client and counselor, not specific theoretically-bound techniques.

In spite of the …

Wisc-Iv And Iva+Plus Pattern Analysis: Assessment Of Attention-Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder, Kevin K. Tsang

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a challenging practice with no definitive diagnostic test. This study sought to evaluate the use of a pattern of performance method of inference in ADHD assessment that examines an individual's general intellectual ability in comparison to his or her own attention skills. WISC-IV scores, IVA+Plus quotients, and basic demographic information were collected from patient files of children previously evaluated by the Eastern Virginia Medical School Neuropsychology Clinic. Children with and without ADHD were compared by analyzing the following difference or delta score discrepancies: (a) WISC-IV General Ability Index (GAI) minus WISC-IV Working Memory Index, …

The Role Of Resilience And Purpose In Life In Habituation To Heat And Cold Pain, Bruce W. Smith, Erin M. Tooley

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

This study examined the role of resilience in habituation to heat and cold pain in healthy women (n = 47). Heat and cold pain thresholds were each assessed across 5 equally spaced trials. Re- silience, purpose in life, optimism, social support, and neuroticism were assessed using self-report measures. The hypothesis was that the resilience and the associated resilience factors would be pos- itively related to habituation to heat and cold pain while controlling for neuroticism. Multilevel mod- eling was used to test the hypothesis. When considering each characteristic separately, resilience and purpose in life predicted greater habituation to heat pain …

Harding University Graduate School Of Religion 2009-2010 Catalog, Harding University

Harding Academic Catalogs

Academic catalog for the graduate program in Bible and religion.

Meta-Learning Computational Intelligence Architectures, Ryan J. Meuth

Doctoral Dissertations

"In computational intelligence, the term 'memetic algorithm' has come to be associated with the algorithmic pairing of a global search method with a local search method. In a sociological context, a 'meme' has been loosely defined as a unit of cultural information, the social analog of genes for individuals. Both of these definitions are inadequate, as 'memetic algorithm' is too specific, and ultimately a misnomer, as much as a 'meme' is defined too generally to be of scientific use. In this dissertation the notion of memes and meta-learning is extended from a computational viewpoint and the purpose, definitions, design guidelines …

The Tracking Of Dietary Intakes Of Children And Adolescents In Sweden Over Six Years: The European Youth Heart Study, Emma Patterson, Julia Wärnberg Julia Wärnberg, John Kearney, Michael Sjostrom

Articles

The stability of dietary habits through various life-stages is not well understood. A better understanding of the tracking of diet over time could have implications for health promotion as well as for the planning of nutritional epidemiology studies. We examined the stability of dietary intakes of children and adolescents over six years. As part of the European Youth Heart Study, in 1998-9, a 24-h dietary recall was performed on over one thousand 9- and 15-year-olds in Sweden. In 2004-5, 40% returned to the follow-up study. These 452 subjects (273 15- and 179 21-year-olds) were assigned to age- and gender-specific tertiles …

Hmgb1 Mediates Endogenous Tlr2 Activation And Brain Tumor Regression, James Curtin, Naiyou Liu, Marianela Candolfi, Weidong Xiong, Hikmat Assi, Kader Yagiz, Matthew Edwards, Kathrin Michelsen, Kurt Kroeger, Chunyan Liu, Akm Ghulam Muhammad, Mary Clark, Moshe Arditi, Begonya Comin-Anduix, Antoni Ribas, Pedro Lowenstein, Maria Castro

Articles

BACKGROUND: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive primary brain tumor that carries a 5-y survival rate of 5%. Attempts at eliciting a clinically relevant anti-GBM immune response in brain tumor patients have met with limited success, which is due to brain immune privilege, tumor immune evasion, and a paucity of dendritic cells (DCs) within the central nervous system. Herein we uncovered a novel pathway for the activation of an effective anti-GBM immune response mediated by high-mobility-group box 1 (HMGB1), an alarmin protein released from dying tumor cells, which acts as an endogenous ligand for Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) signaling …

Comparison Of Dashboard-Based And Balanced Scorecard-Based Corporate Performance Management System, Lin Zhu

Masters Theses

"Under current hypercompetitive and technology driven economic environment, more companies are using a corporate performance management (CPM) system to gain more accurate understandings of the company goals and strategies and to craft methods of achieving those goals and strategies. While CPM systems are generally implemented in two approaches: dashboard approach and scorecard approach, very few studies examine the effectiveness of each type of CPM systems implementation. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a dashboard based and a balanced scorecard based corporate performance management system. The effectiveness is examined through management effectiveness, degree of …

Identity, Gender, And Language In Synchronous Cybercultures: A Cross-Cultural Study, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Ahmed Idrissi Alami, Gayathri Jayatilleke, Fawda Bouacharine

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The integration of the Internet into contemporary society worldwide has had a profound impact on the way we communicate, relate to ourselves, and to each other. Different users, depending on various characteristics such as age, gender, education, and sociocultural background, access the Internet for various communication needs such as exchanging emails, making new friends, or engaging in a serious discussion. Whatever the goal, users need to adjust to this new computer-mediated interactive environment, and they do so either in ways that reveal native cultural values, or reflect the creation of new cultural norms and conventions.

Teaching Information Literacy Skills To Prepare Teachers Who Can Bridge The Research-To-Practice Gap, Mark Emmons, Elizabeth B. Keefe, Veronica M. Moore, Rebecca M. Sanchez, Michele M. Mals, Teresa Y. Neely

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper explores ways in which academic libraries can partner with colleges of education to prepare teachers who can apply research to their practice. Federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind (2001) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) require teachers to implement evidence-based practices in their classrooms, which presents a challenge to teacher preparation programs and raises important questions about the nature of evidence in education. We believe that information literacy (IL) skills are critical in preparing teachers who can thoughtfully, critically, and ethically implement evidence-based practices. We report the results of a study into the effectiveness …