Digital Commons Network^™

Distrust And Clarify: Appreciating Congressional Overrides, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Deborah Widiss continues to make important contributions in an area of statutory interpretation that has been largely neglected: the consequences of congressional overrides. Professor Widiss previously demonstrated how the Supreme Court and lower courts often confine the reach of statutes that purposefully override prior court decisions, thereby reviving aspects of the overridden judicial interpretations as ―shadow precedents.‖ In Undermining Congressional Overrides: The Hydra Problem in Statutory Interpretation, Professor Widiss addresses the Supreme Court‘s further expansion of judicial power in the aftermath of congressional disapproval. Faced with the override of its textual interpretation in one employment discrimination statute, the Court inferred …

What The Religions Named In The Qur'an Can Tell Us About The Earliest Understanding Of "Islam", Micah B.D.C. Naziri

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Both Western studies of Islam as well as Muslim beliefs assert that the Islamic holy text, the Qur'an, endeavored to inaugurate a new religion, separate and distinct from the Jewish and Christian religions. This study, however, demonstrates that the Qur'an affirms a continuity of beliefs with the earlier revealed texts that suggest that the revelations collected in the Qur'an did not intend to define a distinct and separate religion. By studying the various historical groups named in the Qur'ān-such as the Yahud, Sabi'un, and Nasara-we argue that the use of the term "islam" in the Qur'an relates more to the …

Psychologically Realistic Cognitive Agents: Taking Human Cognition Seriously, Ron Sun, Sebastien Helie

Department of Psychological Sciences Faculty Publications

Cognitive architectures may serve as a good basis for building mind/brain-inspired, psychologically realistic cognitive agents for various applications that require or prefer human-like behavior and performance. This article explores a well-established cognitive architecture CLARION and shows how its behavior and performance capture human psychology at a detailed level. The model captures many psychological quasi-laws concerning categorization, induction, uncertain reasoning, decision-making, and so on, which indicates human-like characteristics beyond what other models have been shown capable of. Thus, CLARION constitutes an advance in developing more psychologically realistic cognitive agents.

An Analysis Of Down Syndrome Children And The Importance Of Their Cognitive And Communicative Development, Maria Elisa Campana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper will look at the issues of cognitive and communication development in children with Down Syndrome. With recent advances in neuroscience, educators need to understand brain development in order to utilize methods in dealing with education problems that occur with this population. Therefore this paper will look at the Down Syndrome child in both a physiological and educational context, to better understand appropriate methods of intervention. Moreover, brain development and learning involves not only genetic content specific to each individual, but also the many paths laid out by the family, environment, social and educational needs. As they move through …

Placing Birds On A Dynamic Evolutionary Map: Using Digital Tools To Update The Evolutionary Metaphor Of The "Tree Of Life", Sonia Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes and presents a new type of interactive visualization for communicating about evolutionary biology, the dynamic evolutionary map. This web-based tool utilizes a novel map-based metaphor to visualize evolution, rather than the traditional "tree of life." The dissertation begins with an analysis of the conceptual affordances of the traditional tree of life as the dominant metaphor for evolution. Next, theories from digital media, visualization, and cognitive science research are synthesized to support the assertion that digital media tools can extend the types of visual metaphors we use in science communication in order to overcome conceptual limitations of traditional …

The Effects Of Two Group Counseling Interventions On Arab-American High School Students' Perceptions Of Their Primary Relationships (Parent, Teacher, Peer), Nuzmeya Bader Elder

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study specifically investigated the effects of two group counseling interventions on Arab-American high school students' perceptions of the strength of their primary relationships (parent, teachers, and peers). It was designed to help high school students increase their acceptance of the culture of their host society and develop a sense of comfort so they can retain some of their own culture and Arab identity without feeling they will totally lose them. One approach was Choice group theory grounded in the reality of making choices concerning thoughts and behaviors. Choice Theory is described as the idea that people have mental images …

Exploring The Relationship Between Pre Service School Counselor's Academic Training And Reported Levels Of Multicultural Competence As Predictors Of Attitudes Toward Inclusion, Rachael Annette Evans

Wayne State University Dissertations

The principal aim of this study was to explore the relationships between preservice school counselors' academic training and their self-reported levels of multicultural competence as predictors of attitudes toward inclusion. Variances in demographic data also were examined as predictors of attitudes regarding inclusion. A nonexperimental, correlational research design was used. Pearson product moment correlations were used to test the relationships between preservice school counselors' level of academic training and their attitudes toward inclusions. No statistically significant correlations were obtained on these analyses, indicating that academic training does not predict attitudes toward inclusion. . Pearson product moment correlations were used to …

Immigrant Integration Into Host Societies: The Case Of Yemeni Immigrant Communities In Metro Detroit, Samra Abdulla Nasser

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study is intended to extend our understanding of immigrant political integration by analyzing Yemeni immigrants' attitudes toward integration into North American society, exploring the case of Yemeni-Americans, a group reputedly resistant to integration, in both Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, and comparatively assessing those data with already published data on Lebanese-Americans, retrieved from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Detroit Arab American Study (DAAS). Relying on an existing theoretical framework on immigrant integration based on sociological and cognitive approaches and my own theoretical model on transnational dimensions related to political, economic, and cultural integration, I will examine a series of …

Faith And (Un)Certainty In The Writing Of Stowe, Hawthorne, And Dickinson: The Intersecting Language Of Theology And Feminism, Denise Yezbick

Wayne State University Dissertations

This research considers how Hawthorne's, Dickinson's, and Stowe's writing express the prevailing culture's attitudes toward the operation of meaning in religion. It poses the question: Is a crisis of meaning threatening to the religious sensibility? Looking at Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and specific poems of Dickinson, I show how their writing gestures to a kind of religious sensibility that is not threatened by such a crisis, but suggests, rather, that it is essential to a genuine openness to otherness, and ultimately to the Divine. The fiction and poetry of these two authors express this both negatively, as an attack on …

Prudence And Decorum And The Invention Of American Democracy: An Examination Of The Ratification Debates For The Federal Constitution In 1787-88, Robert Bryan Brito

Wayne State University Dissertations

Abstract

This dissertation examines the ratification debates for the federal constitution in 1787-88. The goal of this project has been to examine the use of the rhetorical strategies of prudence and decorum as they are employed within the debates in Massachusetts, Virginia and New York.

In Massachusetts, classical notions of representation are challenged by the use of binding instructions given to delegates sent to the ratification debates. In addition, Massachusetts federalists had to overcome objections to the proposed constitution based on the system of representation, as well as the absence of a Bill of Rights. Federalists Challenged these views, and …

Flickering Cities: Multimedia City Fabrics And The Changing Nature Of Citizenship, Andrew Geddes Engel

Wayne State University Dissertations

How do the multiple media in cities today cause us to rethink the constructions and locations of our artifacts and their effects on us? In this dissertation, I argue that city artifacts, and by extension cities themselves, exist as multiple iterations scattered across the whole range of the media spectrum. The new persuasive potential of these iterations in their different media necessitate a turn to “post-urban” city fabrics, and these new fabrics are expansion and re-expression of the urban in unexpected media. Therefore, we must work to acknowledge and take advantage of the ways cities “flicker” as their artifacts are …

The Effect Of Musical Training On Verbal And Tonal Working Memory, Ching-I Lu

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation explored the translation from print to sound of the tonal language Mandarin versus English versus musical notation in healthy volunteers. The performance of musicians and non-musicians was compared across a variety of reading tasks in an attempt to examine whether musical training can facilitate Mandarin tone or phonological processing. The effects of increasing working memory load on reading performance across tasks were also examined. Results showed that increasing demands on working memory in visual recognition tasks significantly decreased performance accuracy for both musicians and non-musicians across tasks. Significant differences in accuracy rates were observed between musicians and non-musicians. …

Corporeal Modification In The Hollywood Musical: New Paradigms For Genre Analysis, Christopher Timothy Gullen

Wayne State University Dissertations

This project explores the trend of bodily and identity modification in the contemporary Hollywood musical and calls for a re-reading of the genre away from the standard classification, that of one strictly imbued with wistful nostalgia and heteronormativity. This work argues that several films have abrogated these traditional ideals to create a carnivalesque representation of the societal norms through a genre, and a production code that sought to preserve them. Using the work of Russian semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin, this project reveals that these films feature dark and satirical para-realities of murder, debauchery and cannibalism that act as a catharsis to …

Narratives Of Possibility: Adolescent Girls Constructing And Negotiating Front And Back Stage Identities Through Blogs, Kattie Marie Hogan

Wayne State University Dissertations

For young woman, the issue of self-expression is important to consider because there are many contexts where their voices and experiences are discounted, silenced, and suppressed. Venues for self-expression can provide a way for those voices and experiences that have been ignored in classrooms and other social outlets to be recognized. This research study explored the ways four girls between the ages of 16-19 used blogging to construct meaning of their experiences and negotiate their identities through a wide range of literary practices including nonfiction and fiction writing, photographs, self-created drawings, and other materials. Writing in these blogs girls moved …

E-Discovery Mediation & The Art Of Keyword Search, Daniel B. Garrie, Edwin A. Machuca

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Identifying keywords when combing through large volumes of electronically stored information ("ESI") is a necessary requirement of electronic discovery. Finding ways to streamline this process in order to achieve maximum efficiency is a major priority for any party involved in the process of electronic discovery, to say nothing of the need to maintain the costs associated with such search at an economically feasible level. A workable solution to both needs is the use of a mediator, neutral, or special master (collectively, a "Special Master"). The process of selecting a Special Master can be daunting, however, choosing one with the ability …

Sci-Tech Book News Reviews, Susan Fingerman

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, And Urban Neighborhoods, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

This Article addresses previously unstudied implications of two dramatic shifts in the American educational landscape. The first shift is the rapid disappearance of urban Catholic schools. More than 1,600 Catholic elementary and secondary schools, most of them located in urban neighborhoods, have closed during the last two decades. The Archdiocese of Chicago alone (the subject of our study) has closed 148 schools since 1984. Since the economic and demographic realities underlying urban Catholic school closures persist, this trend likely will continue and even accelerate in coming years. The second shift is the rise of charter schools. In 2010 more than …

Gravity Tender, Darrin Moir

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Metafiction And B. S. Johnson’S Albert Angelo, Olivia Maureen Olson

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Working Toward A Pedagogy Of Awareness: Multimodality And Universal Design For Learning In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Virginia M. Schminke-Yaussy

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Applicability Of Video Self-Modeling For Adults With Developmental And Intellectual Disabilities, Lauren Elizabeth Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video Self-Modeling (VSM) has shown to be an effective intervention in modifying maladaptive behaviors in children, particularly those with Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities (ID/DD). Although the effectiveness of VSM with children with ID/DD has been well established in the extant literature, considerably fewer studies have addressed the applicability of VSM with adults of the same population. Thus, the goal of the current study was to examine the utility of VSM with three adults with ID/DD, specifically targeting table manners as the behavior of interest for the intervention. Two aspects of table manners were measured utilizing a multiple baseline design: food …

Functional Morphology Of The Sphyrnid Shark Cephalofoil: An Assessment Of The Hydrodynamic Lift Hypothesis Using Computational Fluid Dynamics, Matthew K. Gaylord

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The hammerhead sharks (Family: Sphyrnidae) are all characterized by a conspicuous lateral expansion and dorsoventral flattening of the head forming a structure known as a cephalofoil, however, there is substantial morphological variation within the clade. Many theories have been proposed regarding the functional aspects of this structure. One of these is that it may produce beneficial dynamic lift as the shark swims (in similar fashion to the cambered wings found on many modern-day aircraft). As sharks do not possess a swim bladder, part of their energy intake is expended on simply maintaining vertical station in the water column. If indeed …

Selection Criteria For Identifying Gifted And Talented Minority Students In Grades One Through Five In Central Mississippi, Tracey Bell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to (a) evaluate and discuss strengths and weaknesses in the current system of identifying gifted students and (b) investigate the effectiveness of using the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test to identify underrepresented and gifted minority students in grades one through five in Central Mississippi. The study consisted of 12 students who were screened using the traditional method of testing and 53 students who were screened using the alternative method of testing. This study attempted to explore strengths and weaknesses in the current system's minority gifted identification process. The alternate screening process did not demonstrate the …

Listening To Revise: What A Study About Text-To-Speech Software Taught Us About Students' Expectations For Technology Use In The Writing Center, Tammy Conard-Salvo, John M. Spartz

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

The Picture Memory Interference Test With Iranian Americans: Does First Language Impact Performance?, Shereen Kianmahd

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of first language on one's performance on the Picture Memory Interference Test (PMIT). This casual-comparative study examined if Iranian American students whose 1st language is Farsi performed differently from 1st language English-speaking Iranian American and monolingual English-speaking Caucasian students, after controlling for age and gender. To conduct this investigation, 103 Iranian American students who endorsed Farsi as their 1st language and English as their 2nd language were compared to a matched group of 103 monolingual English-speaking Caucasian students. Forty-four Iranian American students who endorsed 1st and 2nd language as English …

Perceptions Of Elementary Teachers From An Urban School District In Southern California Regarding Their Inquiry-Based Science Instructional Practices, Assessment Methods, And Professional Development, Romanus Iroabuchi Ugwu

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to describe the perceptions of elementary teachers from an urban school district in Southern California regarding their inquiry-based science instructional practices, assessment methods and professional development. The district's inquiry professional development called the California Mathematics and Science Projected, CaMSP lasted for two years. The CaMSP is a competitive grant awarded by the California Department of Education for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to schools and districts that meet the grant criteria for inquiry-based professional development. This district's professional development model was the five essential features of science inquiry recommended by the National Science …

Steering A Drifting Ship: Improving The Preparation Of First-Year Catholic School Teachers Through Self-Reflection, Franciso Ramos

School of Education Faculty Works

Introduction: Longitudinal investigation on the impact of self-reflection on the practices of novice teachers in California Catholic schools. Materials and Methods: Initial questionnaire at the beginning of their second academic semester; second questionnaire, individual interview and video of participant teaching in class at the end of the aforementioned semester; focus group with participants at the end of their second academic year. Results: Modifications in the classroom resulting in the incorporation of students' interests to the preparation and delivery of lessons, increased use of cooperative groups and more directions prior to and during explanations. Discussion: Self-reflection should become an essential component …

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement (Binding) In Brazilian Portuguese, Kier Chrsitine Hanson-Santos

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Research (Duarte, 1995, Barbosa et al. 2005) indicates that Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is evolving linguistically: it apparently contains two grammars that are partially +NSL and partially –NSL. Within the framework of the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH) advocated by (Carminati, 2002), null and overt subjects retrieve antecedents in different structural positions. Pronoun-antecedent agreement is based exclusively on the syntactic configuration of a clause in which a null pronoun is bound to a sentential subject antecedent; however, an overt pronoun retrieves an antecedent in a lower syntactic position (e.g., the direct object), or outside of the clause (e.g., a discursive …

India, An Asian Giant: A Compass For The Future, Norelene Pushpangadan

Theses

In the 65 years since India formalised its' independence from the British Empire the country has experienced an immense metamorphosis in all aspects of its economy. This current study is an analysis of what the possible future economic prospects are for India. As part of the research process, the researcher delved into the history of the economy, since its independence from British colonial power, to modern day focusing on particular aspects of the economy which were relevant to fulfilling the research question of; where does the economic future lie for India?

The current global economic crisis has in part been …

The Development And Analysis Of The Global Citizen Award As A Component Of Asia University America Program At Eastern Washington University, Matthew Ged Miner

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"The purpose of this thesis report is to document the research, development, and analysis of the Global Citizen Award and its introduction, pilot, assessment, and revision as a cunicular component of Asia University America Program at Eastern Washington University. The Global Citizen Award is a merit-based and optional award for students who meet various criteria while attending the five-month study abroad program from Asia University in Tokyo, Japan. The thesis includes background and context for the award, including history and philosophy of the stake-holding institutions such as Asia University and Asia University America Program. This report includes an extensive review …