Digital Commons Network^™

Developing And Teaching The Crisis Communication Course, Mitchell Friedman

Communication Studies

Comer (2010) noted the absence of literature offering guidance to instructors charged with developing standalone courses on crisis management. This article aims to fill this void, relating the author’s experience in developing two crisis communication classes (one offered online, one in a traditional classroom setting). Drawing on 15 years of teaching experience (including single sessions devoted to crisis communication, reputation management, and related issues in public relations and business courses) plus the investigation of scholarly contributions related to the development of such courses, syllabi, and feedback from practitioners who develop and deliver related training, the article delivers the essential components …

Kolsky Bar Experiment For High-Rate Large Deformations Of Polycarbonate, Jason G. Vogeler

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

Polycarbonate (PC) is a tough, transparent engineering thermoplastic. Its impact strength and ability undergo large plastic deformations without shatter make PC an ideal protective material for impact-resilient eyewear, aircraft windows and transparent armor. A good understanding of the response of this material to large deformations at high strain rates is critical for its utilization in these applications. To this end, a striker-less Kolsky bar device is employed in this work for the needed material characterization. The apparatus allow impulsive torsion and/or compression loadings with pulse durations sufficiently long for the plastic flow behavior to develop fully. Three new testing techniques …

A Study On Countermeasures Against Steganography: An Active Warden Approach, Qilin Qi

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Digital steganography is a method used for hiding information in digital images. It can be used for secure communication. There have been many robust digital steganography methods invented in recent decades. The steganographic message can be inserted in multimedia cover signal such as audio, image and video. However, this technique also may be used by malicious users to transmit dangerous information through the Internet beyond the control of security agencies. How to detect and/or block potentially dangerous information transmission on the Internet through billions of multimedia files while not affecting innocent multimedia communications becomes a challenging problem. Existing steganalysis methods …

The Economic Situation, 2013 December, Bruce Yandle

Publications

Quarterly report on the economic situation of the United States and South Carolina.

Injury And Illness Benchmarking And Prevention For Children And Staff Attending U.S. Camps: Promising Practices And Policy Implications, Barry A. Garst, Linda E. Erceg, Edward Walton

Publications

The camp experience has been an important American tradition for 150 years. In 2012, more than 11 million youth and adults attended an estimated 12,000 day and resident camps.1 Day and resident camp experiences differ; a typical day camp lasts roughly six to eight hours on any given day, while resident (overnight) camps operate 24/7 during a camp session. Youth and adults live at resident camp and are therefore in personal contact with one another for a longer timeframe than is typical of the day camp experience. Day or resident camp sessions can last from one week to up to …

Application Of Image Processing And Finite Element Analysis In Modeling Chloride Diffusion In Concrete, Arash Razmjoo

All Dissertations

Utilizing numerical simulation models to predict the long-term mechanical and transport behavior of concrete structures is becoming increasingly popular. The majority of these models have been developed using laboratory test data that consider concrete as a homogeneous material with spherical aggregates. These models could not be a represented of real concrete because it has no primitive shaped aggregate besides that the porosity size and distribution varies from point to point. In this study a novel method for more accurate prediction of the chloride diffusion in concrete was developed. A general framework of the quantitative computed tomography (QCT) and finite element …

Clemson Commencement Program, December 2013, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

"I'M Not Allowed To Write About That In School But At Home I Can": Examining Elementary School Students' Attitudes Toward Writing Instruction, Anna H. Hall, Ysaaca Axelrod

Publications

Research on writing indicates that children’s attitudes about writing have an impact on their writing achievement (Knudson, 1995; Graham, Berninger & Fan, 2007). At the same time, we see the narrowing of curricular practices, especially in literacy, giving children less input into their educational experience and fewer choices about how and what they are learning (Genishi & Dyson, 2012). The purpose of this study was to examine children’s attitudes towards writing and the experiences that have shaped these attitudes and their identities as writers. We conducted grade level focus group interviews with children in an elementary school to learn more …

Myocarditis After Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole Treatment For Ehrlichiosis, Seema U. Nayak, Gary L. Simon

Medicine Faculty Publications

The manifestations of human monocytic ehrlichiosis range from a mild febrile syndrome to a severe multisystem illness. Myocardial involvement is uncommon. We report a woman, 78 years of age, who was treated with trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole after a tick bite, in whom myocarditis was subsequently diagnosed. She recovered completely after doxycycline therapy.

Clinical And Laboratory Features Distinguishing Juvenile Polymyositis And Muscular Dystrophy, Gulnara Mamyrova, James D. Katz, Robert V. Jones, Ira N. Targoff, Peter A. Lachenbruch, Olcay Y. Jones, Frederick W. Miller, Lisa G. Rider

Pathology Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE:

To differentiate juvenile polymyositis (PM) and muscular dystrophy, both of which may present with chronic muscle weakness and inflammation.

METHODS:

We studied 39 patients with probable or definite juvenile PM and 9 patients with muscular dystrophies who were initially misdiagnosed as having juvenile PM. Differences in demographic, clinical, and laboratory results; outcomes; and treatment responses were evaluated by Fisher's exact and rank sum tests. Random forests classification analysis and logistic regression were performed to examine significant differences in multivariable models.

RESULTS:

Clinical features and serum muscle enzyme levels were similar between juvenile PM and dystrophy patients, except 89% of …

Targeting Inflammation Using Salsalate In Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: Effects On Flow-Mediated Dilation (Tinsal-Fmd)., Allison B Goldfine, J Stewart Buck, Cyrus Desouza, Vivian Fonseca, Yii-Der Ida Chen, Steven E Shoelson, Kathleen A. Jablonski, Mark A Creager, The Tinsal-Fmd Team

GW Biostatistics Center

OBJECTIVE: To test whether inhibiting inflammation with salsalate improves endothelial function in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We conducted an ancillary study to the National Institutes of Health-sponsored, multicenter, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of salsalate in targeting inflammation to improve glycemia in patients with T2D. Flow-mediated, endothelium-dependent dilation (FMD) and endothelium-independent, nitroglycerin-mediated dilation (NMD) of the brachial artery were assessed at baseline and 3 and 6 months following randomization to either salsalate 3.5 g/day or placebo. The primary end point was change in FMD at 6 months.

RESULTS: A total …

State Entrepreneurship Index, Eric Thompson, William Walstad

Business in Nebraska

STATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP INDEX

Unemployment rates and job growth are popular measures for state economies. However, these trends may differ from the state’s performance in core measures of underlying economic strength such as entrepreneurship, net migration and capital formation. Given this, the University of Nebraska - Lincoln Bureau of Business Research seeks to track these core economic measures in Nebraska and in all U.S. states.

The State Entrepreneurship Index is one effort to track these core trends. Specifically, the index is used to track entrepreneurship in all 50 states. The index was initially developed by Eric C. Thompson and William B. …

Weak Covering Properties And Selection Principles, L. Babinkostova, B. A. Pansera, Marion Scheepers

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

No convenient internal characterization of spaces that are productively Lindelöf is known. Perhaps the best general result known is Alsterʼs internal characterization, under the Continuum Hypothesis, of productively Lindelöf spaces which have a basis of cardinality at most ℵ₁. It turns out that topological spaces having Alsterʼs property are also productively weakly Lindelöf. The weakly Lindelöf spaces form a much larger class of spaces than the Lindelöf spaces. In many instances spaces having Alsterʼs property satisfy a seemingly stronger version of Alsterʼs property and consequently are productively X, where X is a covering property stronger than the …

Sensory Integration: Helping Students With Autism Incorporate Sensory Integration Techniques, Mackenzie Lee

Education Masters

The present study focused on which sensory integration techniques are effective for students with autism and sensory processing disorder (SPD). Data from this study was gathered from observing four students who have autism and SPD, as well as interviewing the students’ special education teacher and occupational therapist. The findings of this study demonstrate that sensory integration can support students with autism and SPD; however, professionals need to determine which strategies best support each students’ needs. Hence, the findings impact special education teachers, occupational therapists, and parents/guardians of students with autism and SPD. Limitations of this study consist of time (lack …

Students With Learning Disabilities: The Effectiveness Of Using Assistive Technology, Andrea Messmer

Education Masters

The study focuses on the effectiveness of assistive technology devices and software in helping students with learning disabilities. Students with reading and writing disabilities experience difficulties with literacy tasks throughout the school day. This study consisted of interviewing an assistive technology specialist and analyzing student work samples. The outcome of this study is that the use of assistive technology supports help to level the playing field for these students. The findings of the study impact general education teachers, special educators, and parents/ guardians.

Bioinformatics: Will Sequencing Your Genes Change The Way You Live — And Die? Dec. 3, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

Finding The Best Function: A Way To Explain Calculus Of Variations To Engineering And Science Students, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical problems, we need to find the most appropriate function: e.g., we need to find a control strategy u(t) that leads to the best performance of a system, we need to find the shape of the car which leads to the smallest energy losses, etc. Optimization over an unknown function can be described by the known Euler-Lagrange equations. The traditional way of deriving Euler-Lagrange equations when explaining them to the engineering and science students is, however, somewhat over-complicated. We provide a new, simpler way to deriving these equations, a way in which we directly use the fact that …

Dialect Or A New Language: A Possible Explanation Of The 70% Mutual Intelligibility Threshold, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In most cases, linguists have a consensus on when people from different regions speak two different dialects of the same language (and can, thus, understand each other reasonably well) or two different languages (in this case, their mutual intelligibility is limited). In most cases, this intuitive consensus corresponds to a 70% mutual intelligibility threshold: if at least 70% of the words from one region are understandable to people from another region, then these are two dialects, otherwise these are two different languages. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this 70% threshold.

Approximate Nature Of Traditional Fuzzy Methodology Naturally Leads To Complex-Valued Fuzzy Degrees, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In the traditional fuzzy logic, the experts' degrees of confidence in their statements is described by numbers from the interval [0,1]. These degree have a clear intuitive meaning. Somewhat surprisingly, in some applications, it turns out to be useful to also consider different numerical degrees -- e.g., complex-valued degrees. While these complex-valued degrees are helpful in solving practical problems, their intuitive meaning is not clear. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for the success of complex-valued degrees which makes their use more intuitively understandable -- namely, we show that these degrees naturally appear due to the approximate nature …

Knowledge Geometry Is Similar To General Relativity: Both Mass And Knowledge Curve The Corresponding Spaces, Francisco Zapata, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we explain and explore the idea that knowledge is similar to mass in physics: similarly to how mass curves space-time, knowledge curves the corresponding knowledge space.

Himmelfarb Library Liaison Letter - December 2013, George Washington University, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Himmelfarb Library Liaison Letters

No abstract provided.

Appropriating The Mormon Past: Faith, Intellect, And The Reformation Of Mormon Identity, Scott Marianno

Arrington Student Writing Award Winners

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Doubt: The Impact Of Lester E. Bush, Jr.‟S “Mormonism‟S Negro Doctrine: A Historical Overview” On Mormon Thought, Chad L. Nielsen

Arrington Student Writing Award Winners

No abstract provided.

How Doubt Built The Foundation Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Joshua Hortin

Arrington Student Writing Award Winners

Dr. Gregory A. Prince at this year’s annual Arrington Lecture gave an intriguing biography of Leonard J. Arrington, focusing particularly on Arrington’s own interplay between faith and doubt. Arrington’s intellectual journey was sparked as he entered the world of academia and had his beliefs on evolution directly challenged. Having been raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­‐ day Saints (LDS or Mormon), he struggled with reconciling a Creationist viewpoint to that taught by the secular world. Eventually, he came to a harmony where both Mormonism and the theory of evolution could coexist in his worldview. …

Restorative Agriculture: Reclamation Of Marginal Agricultural Land For A Volunteer-Run Community Farm, Darin P. Laity

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This project explores the variety of community benefits that can be achieved through a small-scale, non-profit, volunteer-run farm that was established to produce and donate fresh, high quality, organically grown produce for the Food Bank. In addition to the restorative social, health, economic, and environmental effects of the farm effort, the project explores the idea of agriculture beyond sustainability. The report details the processes undertaken to organize volunteers, gather resources, revitalize the farm land, and sustain operations. A discussion of the results from the first year of production, as well as some of the future goals for the farm project, …

Quality Criteria Narrative- Gonzales High School, Lauren N. Fontes

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

The teacher internship report includes reflections and supporting documents related to the twelve quality criteria for Agriculture Education Programs in the State of California. The quality criteria address the quality of an agriculture program in twelve areas and determine program eligibility for Agriculture Incentive Grant funds. This report was created for the Agriculture Program at Gonzales High School, which is located in California's Salinas Valley.

Teacher Internship Report - Kern High School District Roc, Jenna Eileen Eyraud

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship/project report includes validation documents required in meeting the quality criteria for secondary-level programs of instruction in agriculture. The internship project was done for the Regional Occupational Center (ROC) for the Kern High School District. The ROC enrolls approximately 850 high school juniors, seniors, and adults from 17 of KHSD’s 18 comprehensive campuses. Students attending the district’s 6 alternative education campuses and 4 special education centers and Bakersfield Adult School (BAS) also are enrolled in ROC programs. The ROC provides capstone courses for Kern High School District’s Career Technical Education (CTE) efforts. The plan includes information about the goals …

New Mexico Musician Vol 61 No 2 (Winter 2013)

New Mexico Musician

No abstract provided.

Contract Texts, Contract Teaching, Contract Law: Comment On Lawrence Cunningham, Contracts In The Real World, Brian H. Bix

Washington Law Review

Lawrence Cunningham’s Contracts in the Real World offers a good starting place for necessary conversations about how contract law should be taught, and, more generally, for when and how cases—in summary form or in longer excerpts—are useful in teaching the law. This Article tries to offer some reasons for thinking that their prevalence may reflect important truths about contract law in particular and law and legal education in general.

Unilateral Reordering In The Reel World, Jake Linford

Washington Law Review

Professor Larry Cunningham’s new book, Contracts in the Real World, demonstrates that there is much to learn about contract law from a few well-chosen stories. The goal of this Essay is to provide a similar service, relying on stories gleaned from movies and television—contracts in the “reel world,” so to speak—to illustrate and then undermine the traditional stories told about contract formation and modification. We can learn much from the scenes discussed herein about how consumers might be led to think contracts are formed, and perhaps misled about the certainty contracts provide.