Digital Commons Network^™

Application Of Reference Point Theory To Merger Activity And Characteristics, Inga. Chira

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

In Essay I, I analyze the impact of the target and bidder reference points on the probability of acquisition under general economic conditions as well as in strong/weak economic periods. I find that the target and the bidder reference points have a significant impact on the probability of a firm becoming a bidder or a target. While the target reference point also has a significant impact on the successful completion of the merger, the bidder reference point does not. In addition, I find that the target reference point is a significant determinant of management-led buyout mergers, while the bidder reference …

Attitudes And Perspectives About Backyard Food Gardening, John G. Zahina-Ramos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

As cities grew throughout the past century, the availability of locally grown food declined, mostly because urban expansion occurred at the expense of adjacent agricultural land. As a result, city dwellers turned to commercial food market systems that import food from distant production areas. Private greenspace, which is one of the largest land cover types in cities, offers the potential for substantial agricultural production. Because urban food production on private land, such as backyards, requires the willing participation of landowners, resident's feelings about and experience with food growing are important to understand. The demographic groups that were most likely to …

Attack Of The Compilator, Franklin. Babrove

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Geoffrey Chaucer's narrator persona in The Legend of Good Women (LGW) goes through a transformation, starting off in the Prologue to the LGW as a naèive compilator who is subordinate to his literary sources, or auctores, and eventually becoming an auctor himself by the end of the Legends. To gain an authoritative voice, Chaucer's narrator criticizes auctoritee as it pertains to the antifeminist tradition and its misrepresentation of women as inherently wicked, in the process using certain rhetorical devices and other literary strategies to assert control over his sources for the Legends, as well as over the text as a …

Attitudes Towards Multilanguage Use Among Latino And Asian Immigrants In The United States, Cuong T. Le

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This study was designed to measure the relation of education and ethnic identity to attitudes towards bilingualism in two different ethnic groups, Asian and Latinos in the United States. In order to do this, an instrument was developed to measure attitudes towards bilingualism. No significant relations were found among education or ethnic identity and attitudes towards bilingualism in either group, but analyses revealed several other significant relationships. The two subscales of ethnic identity, MEIM-R Commitment and Exploration, were related to each other both within Asian and Latino groups and in all participants combined. In the combined sample, education levels of …

Assessing Goal Intent And Achievement Of University Learning Community Students, Carole F. Pfeffer-Lachs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this study was to assess the goal intent and achievement of university students, during the Fall 2011 semester, at Blue Wave University, a high research activity public institution in the southeast United States. This study merged theories of motivation to measure goal setting and goal attainment to examine if students who chose to participate in a learning community program set goals at different levels than the students who chose not to join a learning community program. This study investigated if there was a difference in motivation, by studying goal intent and goal achievement of Freshman Learning Community …

Automatic Parking Lot Occupancy Computation Using Motion Tracking, Torres Francisco Alberto Justo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Nowadays it is very hard to find available spots in public parking lots and even harder at facilities such as universities and sports venues. A system that provides drivers with parking availability and parking lot occupancy will allow users find a parking space much easier and faster. This thesis presents a system for automatic parking lot occupancy computation using motion tracking. The use of computer vision techniques and low cost video sensors makes it possible to have an accurate system that allows drivers to find a parking spot. Video bitrate and quality reduction and its impact on performance were studied. …

Development And Testing Of A Measure Of Alzheimer’S Disease Knowledge In A Rural Appalachian Community, Lisa K. Weise

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Rural West Virginia has a very high percentage of older adults. The age-related disease of Alzheimer’s threatens the health of older Appalachians, yet research on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in this population is scarce. In order to improve screening rates for cognitive impairment, Appalachians need to understand their vulnerability. The first step would be to assess their knowledge about AD but a suitable AD knowledge test has not been developed. The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a new measure of knowledge about AD that is culturally congruent, and to examine factors that may predict …

Dropout Prevention, Christopher L. Simmons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This mixed methods study focused on the relationship between dropout prevention programs and graduation rates in one school district in Florida during the 2010-2011 school year. The dropout prevention program data analyzed included high school principals' perceptions in regard to perceived effectiveness, fidelity of implementation, cost efficacy, structure, and student-staff relationships within dropout prevention programs and their relationship to graduation rate. The data analysis investigated the relationship between the principals' perceptions of each dropout prevention program and graduation rate. Findings from this study showed principals' perceived that the level of fidelity for on-the-job training has a relationship to increased graduation …

How Did Rggi Do It? Political Economy And Emissions Auctions, Bruce R. Huber

Journal Articles

Among the major emissions trading schemes in operation around the world, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) stands alone: this CO₂ cap-and-trade program among nine northeastern states is the only such scheme to rely primarily on auctions to distribute emissions allowances. The standard practice - distributing allowances for free on the basis of historical emissions - elicits begrudging but politically crucial support from some regulated emitters. Like carbon taxation, allowance auctioning has long been considered economically superior to its alternatives but politically infeasible.

How did the RGGI states manage to defy conventional wisdom and institute a program so reliant …

The Pornographics Of Japanese Negrophilia, Jd Mackintosh

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

In 1974, a bizarre story, ‘Jigoku ni ochita wakamonotachi’ (‘Young Men Fallen into Hell’), appeared in the Japanese homo magazine Adon. It described in pornographic detail the sado-masochistic torture of Japanese men captured and forced to perform in a black circus troupe in American-occupied Japan. ‘Jigoku’ was unremarkable except that, in its stylised ‘pornographics’, it uniquely – for the homo imagination – configured sexual desire as a Japanese–black inter-racial intercourse. This article explores this imagination through a close reading of ‘Jigoku’. It traces a post-war ‘genealogy’ of blackness (Russell 2006), which finds affinity of meaning and value cutting across sub-cultural …

Patients’ Experience Of A Regional Allergy Service, Rb Jones, A O'Connor, E Kaminski

School of Nursing and Midwifery

No abstract provided.

Employability And Transferable Skills: Investigating Work Placements For Humanities Students, Sandra Barkhof, C Rockey

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

This project aims to enhance the employability of our graduates through an evaluative case study investigating subject-specific work placement and work experience opportunities in the local and regional community. The project will use a new work-facing module on ‘History and Heritage’ as a case study, although the aim of the project is to provide a sustainable model for a work-facing approach to teaching that can also be applied to other subjects.In the past, History as a course has offered no work placements or work experience either as part of the curriculum or as extra-curricular activities. Preliminary research has shown that …

Developing Student Nurse Retention Using Action Research, Graham Williamson, Val Heath, Tracey Proctor-Childs

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Aims of project: to understand students’ and staff concerns about this pre-registration nurse education programme and placements as part of developing our retention strategies.There is international concern about retention of student nurses on undergraduate programmes. United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions are monitored on their attrition statistics and can be penalised financially, so they have an incentive to help students remain on their programmes. Moreover, it is incumbent on healthcare education providers to ensure that students receive the best possible educational experience whilst they are studying for their professional qualifications. It is in this context that we designed our study to …

A Role For Two‐Pore Potassium (K2p) Channels In Endometrial Epithelial Function, Sk Patel, L Jackson, Ay Warren, Et Al

School of Nursing and Midwifery

The human endometrial epithelium is pivotal to menstrual cycle progression, implantation and early pregnancy. Endometrial function is directly regulated by local factors that include pH, oxygen tension and ion concentrations to generate an environment conducive to fertilization. A superfamily of potassium channels characterized by two-pore domains (K2P) and encoded by KCNK genes is implicated in the control of the cell resting membrane potential through the generation of leak currents and modulation by various physicochemical stimuli. The aims of the study were to determine the expression and function of K2P channel subtypes in proliferative and secretory phase endometrium obtained from normo-ovulatory …

Evidence-Based Programs In Children's Services: A Critical Appraisal, Nick Axford, Louise Morpeth

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Sequential Proteolytic Processing Of The Triggering Receptor Expressed On Myeloid Cells-2 (Trem2) Protein By Ectodomain Shedding And Γ-Secretase-Dependent Intramembranous Cleavage, P Wunderlich, K Glebov, N Kemmerling, Nt Tien, H Neumann, J Walter

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Pain Solutions In The Emergency Setting (Pasties); A Protocol For Two Open-Label Randomised Trials Of Patient-Controlled Analgesia (Pca) Versus Routine Care In The Emergency Department, Je Smith, M Rockett, R Squire, Cj Hayward, Et Al

Peninsula Medical School

Introduction Pain is the commonest reason that patients present to an emergency department (ED), but it is often not treated effectively. Patient controlled analgesia (PCA) is used in other hospital settings but there is little evidence to support its use in emergency patients. We describe two randomised trials aiming to compare PCA to nurse titrated analgesia (routine care) in adult patients who present to the ED requiring intravenous opioid analgesia for the treatment of moderate to severe pain and are subsequently admitted to hospital. Methods and analysis Two prospective multi-centre open-label randomised trials of PCA versus routine care in emergency …

Alcohol Consumption And Its Correlates Among Residents Of Mining Town, Kitwe, Zambia: 2011 Population Based Survey, Cosmas Zyaambo, Olesegun Babaniyi, Peter Songolo, Adamson S. Muula, Emmanuel Rudatsikira, Seter Siziya

Faculty Publications

Alcohol consumption is a risk factor for non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, liver cirrhosis and cancers. It has also been associated with risky sexual behaviors, hence, attributed as a factor in the increase of HIV incidence and prevalence. A cross sectional study was conducted using a modified World Health Organizations Global Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) Surveillance Initiative NCD-STEPs 1and 2. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the determinants of alcohol consumption. A total of 1627 individuals participated in the survey, of which 42.3% were males. Some 22.3% (36.2% of male and 12.1% of female; p<0.001) participants reported to have consumed alcohol during the 30 days preceding the survey. The factors considered to be associated with alcohol consumption were age, sex and smoking. Compared to respondents age 25-34 years, respondents of age 35-44 years were 38% (AOR = 1.38, 95%CI [1.11, 1.70]) more likely to report having consumed alcohol and those aged 45 years or older were 26% (AOR = 0.74, 95%CI [0.60, 0.93]) less likely to report having consumed alcohol. Female respondents were 47% (AOR = 0.53, 95%CI [0.46, 0.60]) less likely to report consuming alcohol compared to male respondents. Compared to respondents who reported smoking cigarettes, those who did not smoke cigarettes were 51% (AOR = 0.49, 95%CI [0.40, 0.59]) less likely to consume alcohol. The rate of alcohol consumption is high in this mining town. Factors identified in this study as associated with alcohol consumption, i.e., male sex, age, cigarette smoking, should be considered in designing interventions to curtail the level of alcohol consumption.

The Armendárizes: A Transnational Family In New Mexico And Mexico, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Although the Armendáriz surname is uncommon in New Mexico today, the Armendáriz family was important in New Mexico during the early to mid-1800s, with key political, diplomatic, and social links to Texas; California; Washington, D.C.; and Mexico. The lives of the Armendárizes attest to the long and constant movement of people, trade, and politics along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road of the Interior) and to theformation of a binational region. From Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez border and Chihuahua City to Mexico City, the Armendáriz family legacy demonstrates that New Mexico has …

Culture And Online Distance Learning, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Online distance learning (ODL) has become a global phenomenon transcending national, political, and geographical boundaries challenging distance educators to re-examine notions of teaching and learning and issues of culture inherent in cross-border delivery of online courses and programs. Rogers, Graham and Mayes (2007) note that the sheer amount of learning content being developed in the West (defined for this chapter as Eurocentric, North American, Australasian) and exported via the Internet to other countries, highlights the crucial need to explore questions of culture more thoroughly in our online course designs to provide a more equitable learning experience for all. Global universities …

Ar Trebui Femeile Să Fie Hirotonite Ca Pastori? Considerații Asupra Vechiului Testament - Partea A I, Richard M. Davidson

Faculty Publications

In the modern discussion over whether women should be ordained as pastors, the foundational passage for both those who affirm and those who oppose women’s ordination is Gen 1–3. Those who affirm women’s ordination find in the Genesis creation accounts a statement of full equality without hierarchy of man and woman, set forth as the divinely ordained creation order. They see the rest of Scripture calling us back toward that creation ideal, and allowing for women to fill any position of authority to which God calls and gifts them. Those who oppose the ordination of women also go to Gen …

Exploring The Third Culture Building Approach For Effective Cross-Cultural Interaction For Black American Professionals In Predominantly White Institutions, Tessa R. Sutton

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Professional interactions that are both functional and mutually beneficial are rare. The purpose of this study is to explore an application of a Third Culture Building (TCB) approach, a mutually constructed interpersonal process between two individuals, for Black American professionals (with advanced knowledge acquired from institutions of higher learning), to generate a new space in Predominantly White Institutions (PWis). These institutions include settings where the racial composition is becoming consistently more diverse (through past desegregation efforts). Although the U.S. has moved beyond integration and the monumental Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, racism and intercultural barriers that prevent functional cross-cultural …

The Effectiveness And Cost-Effectiveness Of Shared Care: Protocol For Realist Review, R Hardwick, M Pearson, R Anderson, R Byng

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Stakeholders Perspective On Sustainable Technology Selection To Achieve Zero Carbon Retail Buildings, Syeda Zainab, Wei Pan, Steve Goodhew, Alba Fuertes

School of Art, Design and Architecture

In the design and construction of sustainable retail buildings, there are various stakeholders involved with the overall aim of selecting appropriate sustainable technologies to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Previous studies and literature review indicate there is no comprehensive selection process to assist stakeholders. This can be classified as a complex multi-criteria decision problem due to the high number of alternatives, potential solutions and variety of stakeholders (e.g. clients, professional advisors, end-users) with multiple, often conflicting, objectives leading in turn to the slow take-up of sustainable technologies. There is a demand for a systematic and effective evaluation tool for …

Online And Local Television Networks: A New Pedagogy For A Changing Media., Phil Ellis, John Fitzsimons, David Hilton, Allister Gall

School of Art, Design and Architecture

To investigate campus-based and local TV focused on innovative opportunities for students, employers and community groups to contribute to the design of learning pedagogies and course structures.To utilize the strong element of collaboration within and across creative courses in the UPC Partnership encouraging students to explore the medium of TV and establish new learning cultures that broaden the context of the student experience, encouraging creative work-based/related collaboration with local communities and employers.Research outcomes will enhance understanding of a fluid and dynamic growth area for a new media, new educational and employment possibilities and arts practice, which in turn will inform …

Language And Cultural Meaning: Establishing Dialogical Learning In A Internationalised Teaching And Learning Environment, Robert Brown, Mia Papaefthimiou

School of Art, Design and Architecture

We live in an increasingly interconnected world, in which not only goods but also ideas and people are exchanged ever more extensively and rapidly. That this condition extends into educational settings is no surprise. (As two notable examples, both the student body and the teaching staff in architecture at Plymouth are now approximately 40% international; within Accounting and Finance the Year 3 student cohort is approximately 70% international.) Owing to this enhanced interconnection, we are now able to acquire instantly knowledge and skills locally (including via virtual networks) that were once previously all but unobtainable. There is however a danger …

Situated Learning In Architecture And Planning: The Pedagogic Benefits To Practitioners And The Improvement Of Place., Simon Bradbury, Bob Brown, Nick Pratt, Christopher Balch, Efthimiou Papaefthimiou

School of Art, Design and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Domestic Source Of Phosphorus To Sewage Treatment Works, Sean Comber, Michael Gardner, Karyn Georges, David Blackwood, Daniel Gilmour

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Financing Preferences And Capital Structure Among Successful Malaysian Smes, Shafie Mohamed Zabri

Plymouth Business School Theses

The increasing importance of economic contributions of small and medium-sized sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world, especially in developing countries, motivated a better understanding of financial practices among SMEs. Financial support is among the factors affecting the success of SMEs. However, studies on the financial practices among successful SMEs in Malaysia are still limited. An understanding of the financial practices of this particular group of SMEs is essential in developing a supportive financial framework to achieve national agenda for improving SMEs sustainability and increasing the overall SMEs’ contributions to the Malaysian economy. This research investigates the financial practices among successful …

The Mediating Role Of Entrepreneurial Leadership: An Investigation Of The Competitiveness Of Smes In The Uk South-West Food And Drink Manufacturing, Lise Hunter

Plymouth Business School Theses

ABSTRACT It has long been argued that Social Capital, a concept represented by the value embedded in the social relationships of individuals or collectives constitute strategic resources for individuals and organisations. Social networks are thus perceived by businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, as a means to access those resources, for example gaining privileged access to strategic information that could secure financial resources. In reality, and because of the inherent characteristics of Social Capital, entrepreneurs or business owner/managers who effectively use resources available within social networks are driven by a clear and compelling vision and sustained by a set of …