Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of Electronic Word-Of-Mouth: An Exploratory Study., Bodi Li

Communication ETDs

Although marketing and advertising professionals tend to believe the effectiveness of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), few studies have confirmed the eWOM effects. Therefore, this study conducted a test of eWOM effects in a laboratory experiment. Subjects were randomly assigned into three groups: advertising only, advertising and positive eWOM, and advertising and negative eWOM. Results showed that eWOM possesses influences on consumers attitudes and purchase intentions, however the effects of positive eWOM are very limited. Results also showed that the effects of negative eWOM carry more weight than positive eWOM. This study also uncovered the complexity of eWOM effects. It is likely …

Review Of The Evidence Used In The Description Of Currently Recognized Cetacean Subspecies, William F. Perrin, James G. Mead, Robert L. Brownell Jr.

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

We reviewed the subspecies listed by Rice (1998) and those described since (a total of 49, in 19 species), assessing them against the criteria recommended by the recent Workshop on Shortcomings of Cetacean Taxonomy in Relation to Needs of Conservation and Management (Reeves et al., 2004). The workshop suggested that the subspecies concept can be construed to cover two types of entities: a) lineages diverging but not quite far along the continuum of divergence (still having significant gene flow with another lineage or lineages) to be judged as species, and b) lineages that may well be species but for which …

Reference On The Web: Common Health Concerns, Terese Desimio

University Libraries' Staff Publications

The article discusses the use of health science related reference sites on the internet and the most commonly searched health concerns.

Editor’S Statement, David Polizzi

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology

No abstract provided.

Arguing The 8th Amendment For The Mentally Ill: Can Aristotle Help?, Annalise Acorn

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology

No abstract provided.

Dignity, Virtue, And Punishment: The Ethical Justification Of Disciplinary Segregation In Prisoners, Tony Ward

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology

No abstract provided.

Modified Stage-Gate: A Conceptual Model Of Virtual Product Development Process, N. Ale Ebrahim, S. Ahmed, Z. Taha

Research Publications (2006 to 2010)

In today’s dynamic marketplace, manufacturing companies are under strong pressure to introduce new products for long-term survival with their competitors. Nevertheless, every company cannot cope up progressively or immediately with the market requirements due to knowledge dynamics being experienced in the competitive milieu. Increased competition and reduced product life cycles put force upon companies to develop new products faster. In response to these pressing needs, there should be some new approach compatible in flexible circumstances. This paper presents a solution based on the popular Stage-Gate system, which is closely linked with virtual team approach. Virtual teams can provide a platform …

Protein Secondary Structure Prediction Using Parallelized Rule Induction From Coverings, Leong Lee, Cyriac Kandoth, Jennifer Leopold, Ronald L. Frank

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Protein 3D structure prediction has always been an important research area in bioinformatics. In particular, the prediction of secondary structure has been a well-studied research topic. Despite the recent breakthrough of combining multiple sequence alignment information and artificial intelligence algorithms to predict protein secondary structure, the Q3 accuracy of various computational prediction algorithms rarely has exceeded 75%. In a previous paper [1], this research team presented a rule-based method called RT-RICO (Relaxed Threshold Rule Induction from Coverings) to predict protein secondary structure. The average Q3 accuracy on the sample datasets using RT-RICO was 80.3%, an improvement over comparable computational methods. …

Field Crops Newsletter - December 2008, Ernest "Ernie" Flint Jr.

Ernie Flint - Mississippi State Extension Reports

Flint's field crops newsletter about the results of a variety of demonstrations and testing trials, on cotton, corn, and soybeans, that he has done this year. This document contains many graphs.

Bipolar Affective Disorder With Co-Morbid Substance Abuse In Relation To Criminal Offending, E.A. Sorketti

Research Publications (2006 to 2010)

High rates of co-morbid alcohol and drug disorders have previously been found among individuals with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorders. Clinical and social outcomes have been reported to be worse in this group and service costs greater than in individuals with severe mental illness only. Men with schizophrenia who also had a record of substance misuse were over eight times more likely to appear among the violent offenders, and four times more likely to be convicted of homicide, than those without co morbid substance misuse. A similar pattern was found in affective disorders. The prevalence …

Letter From The Editor, Allan Young

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Guest Editor, Jinliang Li

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

No abstract provided.

The Design And Success Of Stock Options Plans For New Economy Firms In Germany, Wolfgang Bessler, Christoph Becker, Daniil Wagner

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

In recent years, the use of stock options as an incentive compensation scheme has evolved to be one of the most debated topics in the finance literature as well as in the corporate world. The investigations into the option granting practices at a number of U.S. firms, which were accused of fraudulent backdating options, as well as the compensation schemes of top bankers and other top executives during the current financial crisis, heated up this debate even more. Our study contributes to the empirical research on stock option plans (SOPs) by focusing on start-up or 'new economy' firms in Germany. …

Business Environment And Labor Market Outcomes In European And Central Asian Countries, Paloma Lopez-Garcia

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

Firm entry has been proven to be fundamental for job creation in transition economies. The creation of new ventures as well as their survival and expansion depends on the business environment of the country. It is therefore important to adopt policies aimed at improving the framework conditions in which firms are created and operate. The aim of this paper is to assess which of those conditions are most important for private sector employment creation in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. For that purpose we run a multivariate regression where employment creation is explained by means of the interaction …

Financing Channels And The Performance Of Chinese Small And Medium High-Tech Enterprises, Yanwei Chen, Liang Lei

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

China's astonishing economic growth in recent years has attracted many research interests. It is well documented that small and medium-sized enterprises have become a major driving force making China's economic miracle. Financing is critical to small business; however, there are limited studies on financing sources for Chinese small business and how different financing sources affect the performance of small business. This paper investigates the influence of different financing channels on the performance of Chinese small and medium sized high-tech enterprises. We find that small firms in China rely heavily on individual financing due to the difficulty in obtaining external financing. …

Decision Making In Entrepreneurial Finance: A Behavioral Perspective, Rassoul Yazdipour

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

Central questions in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance are briefly discussed and case is made for the need for applying the behavioral finance theories and models to better understand the decision making dynamics that is involved at each stage of the entrepreneurial process. By dissecting a venture's total risk into a "Resident Risk" component and a "Behavioral Risk" component, attempt is made in this writing to introduce a preliminary risk model for evaluating key retrepreneurial decisions like the decision to launch and fund a new venture. Although the focus here is on individual decision making under highly uncertain entrepreneurial environments, but …

Qualitative Factors As Determinants Of Continued Success:An Examination Of Ebusiness Entrepreneurial Firms Using The Newventure Template, Ervin L. Black, F. Greg Burton, Peter M. Johnson

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

In this study, we analyze eBusiness entrepreneurs nominated by the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award program to ascertain whether qualitative factors are correlated with success. We find qualitative factors are incrementally informative above and beyond the information provided by quantitative factors. More specifically, firms that are able to maintain their innovative strategies by improving upon the product (or service) they offer and are able to meet the long-term needs of the customer are more likely to experience increased sales growth and have greater access to capital which results in a successful harvest strategy.

Hawaii Macadamia Nut Company- A Case Study, George H. (Jody) Tompson, Dan Verreault, Holly B. Tompson

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

Owners of the Hawaii Macadamia Nut Company (HMNC) are facing an expansion opportunity. A land owner has preperty available that would enable the HMNC to expand its acreage and revenue by about 20%. To fully consider this opportunity the owners must decide 1)whether the expansion is strategically and financially viable, 2)how to raise capital to finance the expansion, and 3)whether they have the skills to manage the company's growth during expansion. This is a case study describing a real company facing a real opportunity in Hawaii. The names of the company and its principals have been disguised.

Winona Currents Magazine, University Advancement - Winona State University

Winona Currents

This magazine published by Winona State University’s University Advancement was intended to inform WSU Alumni, students, faculty, staff and the greater community about Alumni and the university.SOLD! For benefit auctioneer Kurt Johnson '88 philanthropy is the highest bidder.

Press The Cancel Button! A Performance Evaluation Of Scalable In-Network Data Aggregation, Jamie Macbeth, Majid Sarrafzadeh

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We perform real-world tests of the performance of medium access control protocol schemes for scalable data aggregation in sensor networks. Specifically, we evaluate the performance of a Listen-and-Suppress Carrier Sense Multiple Access (LAS-CSMA) scheme on the duplicate-insensitive exemplary monotonic aggregates MAX and MIN. These schemes reduce power consumption, network bandwidth usage and delays by suppressing node packet transmissions that are proven to be unnecessary in the query response. This is possible when nodes listen to the transmissions of other nodes as they respond.

Scalability tests were performed for 8 networks of various sizes, the largest having 24 Crossbow IRIS wireless …

Update: Using Casemap In Legal Research And Writing (Lrw) Classes And Clinics, David I. C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Written “research logs” focus on the quality of the research path the student had taken, but not necessarily on the quality of the student’s thinking. CaseMap, a modern alternative to the old written research log, permits LRW teachers to enter into a student’s thinking in the critical pre-writing stage. With CaseMap, the LRW or clinical teacher can help refine the student’s legal analysis well before the student begins to write. Despite CaseMap’s limitations - namely its complexity and current incompatibility with Mac computers - this short article serves as an update of a more extensive article about using CaseMap in …

Venture Philanthropy In 2009: Developments In The Field Since "Virtuous Capital", Annika Many

Master in Public Administration Theses

This study will examine the evolution of the field of venture philanthropy since the late 1990s and will provide an updated guide to the types of organizations utilizing venture philanthropy strategies across the United States and internationally. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the field has changed as it has matured, to identify the key players and learnings of organizations across the field, and to develop a framework for the types of organizations that have been the most successful in implementing the venture philanthropy model.

Differentiating Thinkfinity Lessons, Roberta Wiener

Cornerstone 1 Reports : Expansion and Enhancements of the Thinkfinity Platform

No abstract provided.

Literacy For Life, Sr. St. John Delaney, Caitlin Gordon, Staff

Cornerstone 2 Reports : Community Outreach and Empowerment Through Service Learning and Volunteerism

No abstract provided.

Robots For Weed Control In Eden?, Stephen L. Young

West Central Research and Extension Center, North Platte

In the Biblical account, weeds were the result of the curse for Adam’s sin. In the 21st century, we are still toiling by the sweat of our brow to control weeds. What Adam and the rest of mankind have endured for thousands of years, may soon be controlled by a robot, similar to the ones that vacuum your floor, protect your car and entertain your kids.

Spatio-Temporal Relationship Between Water Depletion And Root Distribution Patterns Of Centaurea Solstitialis And Two Native Perennials, Stephen L. Young, Guy B. Kyser, Jacob N. Barney, Victor P. Claassen, Joseph M. Ditomaso

West Central Research and Extension Center, North Platte

In a 2-year field study, we quantified lateral root growth patterns and soil water depletion dynamics in the invasive annual Centaurea solstitialis and two native perennials, Elymus glaucus and Grindelia camporum. Centaurea solstitialis produced lateral roots most actively from early April to mid-June, during the late rosette to spiny seedhead stage while both root growth and water depletion were completed before flowering. In the wet year, roots were evenly distributed throughout the soil profile to 180 cm deep. Lack of deep soil moisture recharge in the second year restricted root distribution to shallow soil depths (< 60 cm). In contrast to C. solstitialis, …

Thermodynamically Consistent Large Deformation Constitutive Model For Glassy Polymers, Ashwani Kumar Goel

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Polycarbonate(PC), like most glassy polymers when undergoing large deformations exhibits a very complex thermo-mechanical response. We look at PC as a model glassy polymer and examine its response to changes in loading rate, loading direction and temperature. We show that plastic flow in compression is accompanied by a change in the elastic response of PC from isotropic to anisotropic. This provides the necessity to introduce a new modeling method that can capture these changes. A finite deformation plasticity like thermodynamically consistent model is developed to capture this and the observed rate and temperature dependence. For this modeling method, we need …

Service-Learning Model At Lingnan University : Development Strategies And Outcome Assessment, Cheung Ming, Alfred Chan, K. M., William Lee, Hok Ka, Carol Ma

OSL Journal / Paper Series 論文

Background: The Service-Learning and Research Scheme (SLRS) is the showcase of Lingnan’s Service-Learning model, which is the manifestation of Lingnan University’s Liberal Arts education and mission “Education for Service”. The scheme was a pilot project, from 2004 to 2005, which led to the development of a Universitywide protocol for Service-Learning at Lingnan University.
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Aims: This paper highlights the processes and the strategies of incorporating Service-Learning into courses, based on the experiences in Lingnan University. Implementation and evaluation models are suggested to provide a framework for other interested parties to apply Service-Learning in their learning and teaching.
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Point Of Sale Assessment, 2009 December, Holley Hewitt Ulbrich

Publications

No abstract provided.

Final Status Report [Thinkfinity Website Translation], Jing Zhao

Cornerstone 2 Reports : Community Outreach and Empowerment Through Service Learning and Volunteerism

Report and sample pages of the Thinkfinity Website in Chinese translation.