Digital Commons Network^™

Brand And Public Relations In The Taiwanese Not-For-Profit Sector : A Case Study Of The Eden Social Welfare Foundation, I-Hsuan Wu

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In a competitive environment in Taiwan, not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) seek to differentiate themselves from other NPOs. ‘Brand’ improves the internal functions and competitiveness of these NPOs; attracts funding to them by making use of public relations (PR) strategies and techniques and expanding the access to public resources; and also conveys a slick corporate image to the public. This research project has adopted a PR perception of leading marketing concepts to look at charity brand strategy. This approach has been taken instead of the more common marketing-oriented perspective. NPOs exist because of their public service or social welfare missions. The best …

High Performance Magneto-Optic Garnet Materials For Integrated Optics And Photonics, Mohammad Alam

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This work explores the preparation, characteristics and properties of highly bismuth (Bi) substituted, metal doped, iron garnet compounds and investigates their potential for various emerging applications in the visible and near infrared spectral regions.

Bi-substituted iron garnet and garnet-oxide nanocomposite films of generic composition type (Bi, Dy/Lu)3(Fe, Ga/Al)5O12 are prepared by using a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering technique. The physical properties (crystallinity, film morphology, optical absorption spectra across the visible spectral range and the elemental composition of layers), and magneto-optic behaviour (Faraday rotation, hysteresis loops of Faraday rotation, and magnetic switching behaviour) of these sputtered garnet films are investigated …

Diva Voce : Reimagining The Diva In Contemporary Feminist Performance, Dawn Albinger

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This practice-led contemporary performance study investigates and invigorates the diva icon’s usefulness to feminist theatre praxis. It traces the research journey from an unexamined belief in the diva as an icon of empowered, independent and expressive womanhood, to a more nuanced conception of the diva as boundless feminist performer and philosophical subject. Two major questions emerge from and drive the process. The primary research question asks: How can the diva icon (in all her fury and glory and wretchedness and perversity and mastery and mortality) usefully inform a feminist theatre praxis? Early investigations give rise to a subsequent social query: …

The Gendered Body In Virtual Space : Sexuality, Performance And Play In Four Second Life Spaces, Judith Elund

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This work is principally an investigation into visual and screen culture, using four specific regions of the three-dimensional virtual world of ‘Second Life’ as case studies. The analysis follows a thematic application of discourse analysis as a basis for critiquing Western screen culture, most importantly the cultural and social conditions that replicate dominant paradigms of power and agency. Of particular pertinence to this study are the framing, representational and spatial practices of gendered and sexual identities within ‘Second Life’ spaces. As is typical of the internet, sexual freedom is a given, yet representational performance (how one appears through their embodied …

A Comparative Study Of Indigenous People's And Early European Settlers' Usage Of Three Perth Wetlands, Western Australia, 1829-1939, Susan Ujma

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study takes as its focus the contrasting manner in which the Nyoongar indigenous people and the early European settlers utilised three wetland environments in southwest Australia over the century between 1829 and 1939. The thesis offers both an ecological and a landscape perspective to changes in the wetlands of Herdsman Lake, Lake Joondalup and Loch McNess. The chain of interconnecting linear lakes provides some of the largest permanent sources of fresh water masses on the Swan Coastal Plain. This thesis acknowledges the importance of the wetland system to the Nyoongar indigenous people.

The aim of this research is to …

Bullying And The Transition From Primary To Secondary School, Leanne J. Lester

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Peer relationships within the school environment are one of the most important determinants of social and mental wellbeing for adolescents and as such, schools have become increasingly aware of the prevalence, seriousness and negative impacts of bullying behaviour. The transition from primary to secondary school provides both challenges and opportunities as many adolescents undergo transition while experiencing environmental, physiological, cognitive and social changes as part of the adolescent development process. This is also a period during a student’s school life when their risk of being bullied is higher than at other times.

The aim of this study was to use …

Portraits Of Nursing Resilience: Listening For A Story, Vicki Cope

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The nursing workforce in Australia is a workforce under pressure. Within in-patient settings, rapidly increasing turnover of more acutely ill or co-morbid patients, and staff retention issues, place those staff that remain under extra pressure to maintain a quality service. In nurse education settings the increasing imperative to recruit more students into the profession combined with financial cutbacks leading to staff retention issues creates a similar tension. Yet many Registered Nurses (RNs) do remain in their chosen work setting displaying tenacity and resilience despite well documented trials and tribulations.

A qualitative approach, Portraiture, was used to construct a collection of …

Coevolutionary Algorithms For The Optimization Of Strategies For Red Teaming Applications, Tirtha Ranjeet

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Red teaming (RT) is a process that assists an organization in finding vulnerabilities in a system whereby the organization itself takes on the role of an “attacker” to test the system. It is used in various domains including military operations. Traditionally, it is a manual process with some obvious weaknesses: it is expensive, time-consuming, and limited from the perspective of humans “thinking inside the box”. Automated RT is an approach that has the potential to overcome these weaknesses. In this approach both the red team (enemy forces) and blue team (friendly forces) are modelled as intelligent agents in a multi-agent …

Deconstructing Sex: An In-Depth, Qualitative Exploration Of Women’S Sexual Experiences And Difficulties, Madalena Grobbelaar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Epidemiological research on sexual difficulties in women has reported high rates of sexual problems and dissatisfaction across the lifespan. Nevertheless, feminist scholars and social science researchers argue that an absence of research exploring women’s subjective interpretations of their sexuality and sexual difficulties exists, since prevalence studies do not address how the range of diverse socio-cultural, relational, biological and psychological processes interact to influence women’s sexuality across the lifespan. The current study aimed to narrow this research dearth by presenting an in-depth, qualitative exploration of heterosexual women’s accounts of their sexual experiences and their perceived sexuality. A phenomenological approach was utilised …

Self-Reported Stress And Posttraumatic Growth Following The Transition To Motherhood : Investigating The Role Of Social Support And Self-Efficacy, Jillian M. Millar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The onset of parenthood signifies a transition point in a person’s life, which requires adaptation to a variety of changes and is often considered a time of great stress and great joy. Posttraumatic growth (PTG) or positive psychological outcomes can be experienced as a result of an individual’s struggles with highly stressful or challenging life events, such as the birth of a child. The current research explores the relationship between PTG and the transition to motherhood. Two studies investigated women’s retrospective perceptions of PTG regarding their first experience of parenthood. Study One employed a quantitative methodology to examine the extent …

Swamp : Walking The Wetlands Of The Swan Coastal Plain ; And With The Exegesis, A Walk In The Anthropocene: Homesickness And The Walker-Writer, Anandashila Saraswati

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This project is comprised of a creative work and accompanying exegesis. The creative work is a collection of poetry which examines the history and ecology of the wetlands and river systems of the Swan Coastal Plain, and which utilises the practice of walking as a research methodology. For the creative practitioner walking reintroduces the body as a fundamental definer of experience, placing the investigation centrally in the corporeal self, using the physical senses as investigative tools of enquiry. As Rebecca Solnit comments in her history of walking, ‘exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind, …

Equity Swaps And Implications In Company Law: An Examination Of Singapore Law, Chao-Hung Christopher Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article explores issues from the use of equity swaps by corporate stakeholders under Singapore law. The article accepts that non-disclosure of economic interests might have an impact on market efficiency and corporate governance. To address potential problems, Singapore should consider revising the Takeover Code, while it requires further regulatory impact analysis to decide whether amendments to the Securities and Futures Act and the Companies Act are needed. As an alternative, companies can use their articles of association to impose a duty of disclosure before statutory intervention. In addition, the trading of equity swaps by directors raises issues about fiduciary …

Contegra Valved Conduit In The Paediatric Population: An Exciting Prospect For Right Ventricle To Pulmonary Artery Reconstruction; Experience And Outcomes At Aga Khan University, Maria Tariq Siddiqui, Asif Hasan, Shazia Mohsin, Mohammad Hamid, Muneer Amanullah

Department of Anaesthesia

Objective: The focus of this study is to share the experience and outcomes of Contegra graft implantation in the paediatric and adult population in Pakistan. Methods: Between May 2007 and July 2011, 16 patients, underwent implantation of a Contegra valved conduit. All operations were performed through a median sternotomy with cardiopulmonary bypass. Indications included: Pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect (n=11), Tetralogy of Fallot with absent Pulmonary Valve (PV) syndrome (n=2), double outlet right ventricle, transposition of great arteries and pulmonary stenosis (n=1), isolated aortic valve disease (n=1) and a pseudo-aneurysm with infective endocarditis (n=1).Conduit sizes varied between 16-22 mm. …

Enterprise Risk Management: Understanding And Communicating Risk Appetite, Larry Rittenberg, Frank Martens, Committee Of Sponsoring Organizations Of The Treadway Commission

Association Sections, Divisions, Boards, Teams

No abstract provided.

Strengthening Of Reinforced Concrete Beams Pre-Damaged In Shear, Yousef Mohammed Bachar Chekfeh

Theses

Repair and strengthening of existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures has increased drastically in recent years. Shear reinforcement in RC beams is typically of a small bar diameter, and hence any shear-damage would result in a severe safety hazard and a catastrophic mode of failure especially under extreme loading events. The present work was initiated to the effectiveness of different composite strengthening systems; namely externally bonded carbon fiber reinforced polymer (EB-CFRP), and near surface mounted glass fiber reinforced polymer (NSM-GFRP) to prolong the functional service life of RC beams pre-damaged in shear. It comprised experimental testing and analytical investigation.

The experimental …

Robust Transmission Of Images Based On Jpeg2000 Using Edge Information, Amjad Nazih Bou Matar

Theses

In multimedia communication and data storage, compression of data is essential to speed up the transmission rate, minimize the use of channel bandwidth, and minimize storage space. JPEG2000 is the new standard for image compression for transmission and storage. The drawback of Compression is that compressed data are more vulnerable to channel noise during transmission. Previous techniques for error concealment are classified into three groups depending on the Approach employed by the encoder and decoder: Forward Error Concealment, Error Concealment by Post Processing and Interactive Error Concealment. The objective of this thesis is to develop a Concealment methodology that has …

The Effect Of The Utilization Of Webquest On Grade 11 Students’ Reading Comprehension Performance., Aysha Saeed Al Shamisi

Theses

Government leaders, educators and the general public in most countries in the world believe that combining English Language proficiency with skills in information technology will facilitate success in life (Tuan, 2011). The WebQuest is considered as a framework for structuring learner-centered instruction in teaching English as a Foreign Language using resources from the Internet.

This study looks closely at how WebQuest can enhance Grade 11 students’ reading comprehension performance at one of Al Ain’s Secondary Schools. This study reported the perception of students towards utilizing this tool within their English Language curriculum.

A quasi-experimental research design was employed for this …

Site Fidelity, Associations And Long-Term Bonds Of Short-Finned Pilot Whales Off The Island Of Hawai`I, Sabre D. Mahaffy

Dissertations and Theses

Short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) are the most frequently sighted odontocete in a long-term study in Hawaiʹi (representing 23.8% of all odontocete sightings from directed research efforts), yet little has been published on this species in Hawaiian waters. Studies elsewhere have suggested that short-finned pilot whales travel in stable mixed-sex groups composed of strongly associated individuals; however temporal analyses of social structure are lacking. To examine site fidelity, association patterns and temporal relationships, I analyzed data from 267 directed research and opportunistic encounters of short-finned pilot whales off the island of Hawai`i from 2003 through 2007. Sightings occurred year-round. Analysis …

William Marshal, 2nd Earl Of Pembroke, And The Commissioning Of The History Of William Marshal, Chloe Faith Massarello

Dissertations and Theses

In the mid-1220s, William Marshal, second earl of Pembroke, commissioned the History of William Marshal, a verse history which recounts the life of his father, the first earl of Pembroke. The History has been utilized as a source of information about its titular subject by modern historians, but none have examined the causes behind its commissioning and the significance of the document within the context of the second earl's political career in depth. This thesis seeks to increase understanding of the History by placing it within this context and examining the second earl's influence on its contents. Primary sources, including …

Public Participation In Emergency Management, Jason Alexander Rood

Dissertations and Theses

With disasters increasing in frequency and costs each year, this study seeks to explore ways greater public participation can assist emergency managers in their mission to keep communities safe. Specifically this study examines the policy process and administrative functions of emergency management to illuminated the benefits and hindrances involved in greater participation. This study conducted a qualitative analysis of governmental documents, disaster case studies, international research, as well as political science and administrative doctrines, to arrive at its conclusions. The results of this study reveal that the public is a largely untapped resource in the emergency management field. Engaging the …

On The Effect Of Heterogeneity On The Dynamics And Performance Of Dynamical Networks, Alireza Goudarzi

Dissertations and Theses

The high cost of processor fabrication plants and approaching physical limits have started a new wave research in alternative computing paradigms. As an alternative to the top-down manufactured silicon-based computers, research in computing using natural and physical system directly has recently gained a great deal of interest. A branch of this research promotes the idea that any physical system with sufficiently complex dynamics is able to perform computation. The power of networks in representing complex interactions between many parts make them a suitable choice for modeling physical systems. Many studies used networks with a homogeneous structure to describe the computational …

A Study Of The Value Added By Transformational Leadership Practices To Teachers' Job Satisfaction And Organizational Commitment, Katherine H. Kieres

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Based on Bass and Riggio's (2006) Augmentation Model of Transactional and Transformational Leadership, this quantitative study sought to identify the amount of variance in teacher job satisfaction and organizational commitment that can be explained by principals' transformational leadership behaviors, above and beyond the influence of transactional behaviors. 156 teachers in five Pennsylvania high schoo Is were surveyed about their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and about the leadership behaviors in which their principals engaged. The researcher then used hierarchical linear modeling to test Bass and Riggio's (2006) Model within this sample group. The results of this study provide researchers with …

Charter School Principals' And Teachers' Leadership Perception Scores On The Five Dimensions Of The Leadership Practices Inventory Instrument, Tamara B. Kirshtein

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose of this study was to determine differences between the self-perceptions of principals in relation to the five leadership practices delineated by Kouzes and Posner's (2003) Leadership Practices Inventory in relation to the perceptions of their teachers on their (principal) leadership across the same five dimensions. The Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test was used to compare the median differences for statistical significance to address the four hypotheses of this study.

Hypothesis 1: Perception scores of charter school principals on themselves and teacher perception scores of their principals will not differ significantly on the five dimensions of leadership. An analysis of …

The Role Of Compliment Topics In Compliment Response, Hiroko Katsuta

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the role of compliment topic by analyzing compliment responses by Japanese and American college students. Compliment responses can be seen as solutions for maintaining a balance between (1) a preference to avoid self-praise and (2) a preference to accept or agree with the compliment (Pomerantz 1978). Building on studies showing that response strategies can be influenced by compliment content and context, the study analyzed responses to compliments on ability, achievement, belongings, appearance, and personal characteristics by determining the subjects' choice of response strategy--categorized as acceptance, avoidance, or rejection--for each compliment topic. Compliment responses were elicited in a …

Understanding The Role Of Patient Activation In The Association Between Patient Socio-Economic Demographics And Patient Experience, Katsuya Oi

Dissertations and Theses

This study focuses on the association between patient characteristics, which include both demographic and contextual factors, and patients' experiences with health care. The pre-existing literature provides rich information about patients' various demographics related to patient experience. Despite the abundance of empirical evidence showing that patients' demographics do affect how they perceive their health care. However, there is little to no empirical knowledge explaining the significance of such factors. As the existing literature points out the need for taking into contextual factors such as patient's beliefs, attitudes, skills that are pertinent to dealing with health care, my study proposes patient activation …

Preschool Teachers' Perspectives On Caring Relationships, Autonomy, And Intrinsic Motivation In Two Cultural Settings, Xiaoling Tian

Dissertations and Theses

This study explored preschool teachers' perspectives on caring relationships and their perceptions of how such relationships affect children's autonomy and motivation in preschool in two cultural settings: one city in China and another in the U.S. Data was collected from preschool teachers in both locations using a qualitative interviewing research strategy. The study found that consensus exists among preschool teachers from the two cities about the importance of caring relationships, in which trust, acceptance, equality, and mutual respect were viewed as these relationships' primary characteristics. There were also shared values regarding teachers' roles and their effective strategies for establishing social …

Supranationalism In The Fight Against Transnational Threats: A Comparative Study Of Asean And Eu Policy Responses To Human Trafficking, Nicholas M. Klynn

Dissertations and Theses

Transnational security threats are among the most pressing and complicated problems facing both governmental and non-governmental actors in today's world. Human trafficking is one example of contemporary transnational security threat that is relatively less studied compared to other transnational security threats. Because transnational security threats such as human trafficking exist above and outside the boundaries of state control, it may be supposed that a greater degree of supranationalism in the policy responses to them would yield better results in combatting these modern-day ills. Anti-trafficking efforts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union are examined to assess …

Intimate Partner Violence During The Transition From Prison To The Community: An Ecological Analysis, Margaret Joy Freeland Braun

Dissertations and Theses

While extensive research has been conducted on the causes of intimate partner violence in the community, very little is known about rates and predictors of domestic violence perpetrated by offenders who have recently been incarcerated. Some evidence suggests that formerly incarcerated individuals may be at an increased risk to perpetrate intimate partner violence during the transition from prison to the community (e.g., Hairston & Oliver 2006; Hilton, Harris, Popham, & Lang, 2010; Oliver & Hairston, 2008). The primary goal of this dissertation was to examine the extent to which former inmates engage in domestic violence during the transition from prison …

Giving Voice To The Peace And Justice Challenger Intellectuals: Counterpublic Development As Civic Engagement, Tom Harry Hastings

Dissertations and Theses

"Let knowledge serve the city" reads the golden letters on a pedestrian bridge just 200 feet from my faculty office in Neuberger Hall at Portland State University. Public peace scholarship might allow knowledge to help the polis by keeping it out of war via changing the national discourse toward a strong and informed peace analysis. Educators have an uneasy relationship to public scholarship and mainstream media have a nervous attitude toward public peace intellectuals. Institutions of higher learning are also often either unaware or uncomfortable with a public promotion of a positive peace platform. Academic writing and research is hard …

Passive Acoustic Vessel Localization, Pasang Sherpa Suwal

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis investigates the development of a low-cost passive acoustic system for localizing moving vessels to monitor areas where human activities such as fishing, snorkeling and poaching are restricted. The system uses several off-the-shelf sensors with unsynchronized clocks where the Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) or time delay is extracted by cross-correlation of the signal between paired sensors. The cross-correlation function uses phase correlation or Phase Transform (PHAT) which whitens the cross-spectrum in order to de-emphasize dominant frequency components. Using the locations of pairs of sensors as foci, hyperbolic equations can be defined using the time delay between them. With …