Digital Commons Network^™

A Grounded Theory Analysis Of Seclusion Of Students With Disabilities In Schools, Jennifer F. Connolly

Open Access Dissertations

In the last several years there has been growing concern about the use of restraint and seclusion in school. Little is known about the use of seclusion in schools, particularly with students with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to discover: under what conditions are students with disabilities subject to seclusion in schools?

A grounded theory analysis was done of 26 due process hearings containing a complaint about the use of seclusion. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provided the framework and the relation between IDEA and seclusion was included in the analysis. For the purpose of this study, …

Opting-In Online: Participants’ Perceptions Of Knowledge Construction In Public Forum Communities, Jennifer C. Lee

Open Access Dissertations

This project examines knowledge making and sharing amid special interest forums, specifically, online forums for herp (reptile and amphibian) hobbyists. In doing so, it addresses a gap in rhetoricians’ understanding of publicness: its effect on writing and people’s perceptions thereof. Few studies measure public writing unless its telos is change or activism. Additionally, despite increased rhetorical scholarship focusing on new media, much current research on forums situates them in classroom-based learning and collaboration, neglecting online forums that are open to public access. This project is a naturalistic inquiry using qualitative methods to explore collaborative public writing that occurs in discourse …

The Effect Of Lake Water Quality And Wind Turbines On Rhode Island Property Sales Price, Susan Shim Gorelick

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation uses the hedonic pricing model to study the impact of lake water quality and wind turbines on Rhode Island house sales prices. The first two manuscripts are on lake water quality and use RI house sales transactions from 1988-2012. The third studies wind turbines using RI house sales transactions from 2000-2013. The first study shows that good lake water quality increases lakefront property price premium. It also shows that environmental amenities, such as forests, substitute for lake amenity as the property’s distance from the lake increases. The second lake water quality study incorporates time variables to examine how …

Historically Marginalized Groups In Psychological Science, Celeste Caviness

Open Access Dissertations

Over the past thirty years there has been a concerted effort to evaluate the inclusion of historically marginalized groups (HMG) – women, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, and low-income individuals – in research. This has been done through content analyses of research literature published in top-tier psychological journals. The purpose of this study was to examine the research literature to assess the degree to which the current literature includes ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities, women, and those of varying socioeconomic status and whether research questions focusing on historically marginalized groups are being examined within mainstream journals. Six issues from 2012 …

Validation Of A Social Skills Construct Using Multitrait Multimethod And Generalizability Approaches, Monica Mabe

Open Access Dissertations

Social skills are important components of social‐emotional functioning that allow children to be successful in school, both socially and academically. A single, agreed‐upon definition of social skills has not been identified in the literature, however, which has led to variations in the measurement and assessment of social skills. Issues of measurement may be linked to the ineffectiveness of school‐based social‐skills interventions. Commonly used conceptualizations and operationalizations of social skills are presented, as well as a review of issues surrounding social‐skills interventions. The use of a multitrait‐multimethod approach is presented for the use of establishing a unified set of social skills …

Firefighters’ Multimodal Literacy Practices, Timothy R. Amidon

Open Access Dissertations

This study explores the ways that firefighters’ utilize multimodal literacy practices to construct and communicate knowledge in environments where risk is present. Specifically, this dissertation sketches the interrelationships between alphabetic, aural, cognitive, gestural, kinesthetic, oral, tactile, spatial, and visual genres which evolve and circulate within embodied, analog, and digital media on firegrounds. A heuristic research methodology was constructed by borrowing and adapting components from extant multimodal and digital ethnography, community-based research, and writing activity and genre research. Using a range of emergent digital research methods, data was captured during six observational periods wherein 75 participants engaged in live-fire training activities; …

Intrapartum Nurses’ Beliefs About Childbirth: A Descriptive Qualitative Study In Nurses That Provide Care To Women In Labor And Birth, Sylvia P. Ross

Open Access Dissertations

In the United States, a large gap exists between what is known as best evidence in maternal-newborn health and the routine practices at the frontline of maternity care. Intrapartum nurses are uniquely positioned to promote practices that are evidencebased and support the normal physiologic process of birth. This qualitative study explored intrapartum nurses’ beliefs about childbirth and the influence of their beliefs on their clinical practice, particularly practices that promoted normal physiologic birth. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 intrapartum registered nurses using Rubin and Rubin’s (2012) responsive interview model. All participants practiced on a labor and delivery unit …

The Anti-Epilepsy Potential And Antagonism Of The N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor By Diaminodiphenyls, Kyle Robert Scully

Open Access Dissertations

Epilepsy is a disorder characterized by the occurrence of seizures, which are periods of abnormally excessive synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Affecting over 70 million people worldwide, many of whom do not respond to pharmacotherapy, there is a need for novel anticonvulsant compound discovery. Diaminodiphenyl compounds, a class of compounds shown to present anticonvulsive effects in vivo have been purported to exert their effects on the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAr); an excitatory, ionotropic receptor that is a key player in the functions of the glutamatergic system. The glutamatergic system is vital in the promotion of synaptic plasticity and has …

Using Activated Carbon To Enhance The Vocs And Heavy Metals Removal Of A Porous Asphalt Pavement System, Hui Chen

Open Access Dissertations

Two different porous asphalt pavement systems (PAPS) were designed to enhance the removal of VOCs (dichloromethane and toluene) and heavy metals (cadmium, copper and lead) from roadway runoff. These two PAPS utilized granular activated carbon (GAC) additions to the conventional PAPS. One PAPS, the CPP system (carbon in porous pavement), had GAC added directly to the top porous asphalt mix, and the other PAPS, the CCA system (carbon in coarse aggregates), had GAC added to the sub-base filter course below the porous asphalt layer. The removal of selected VOCs and heavy metals through the CPP and the CCA systems was …

Values And Services Of A Protected Riverine Estuary In East Africa: The Wami River And Saadani National Park, Catherine Grace Mcnally

Open Access Dissertations

The dialogue pertaining to the management of riverine and coastal ecosystems has evolved over the past decade to consider ecosystem goods and services due to their ability to link ecosystem structure and function to human well-being. Ecosystem services are “a wide range of conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that are part of them, help sustain and fulfill human life” (Daily et al. 1997 p.2). Ecosystem goods emerge from ecosystem services and are defined as “organisms and their parts and products that grow in the wild and … are used directly for human benefits” (Daily et …

The Effects Of Alcohol And Attention On Eye Movements, And Choice Reaction Time, Rouba A. Youssef

Open Access Dissertations

This study examined the time course of alcohol's effect on two tasks performed concurrently, and on the tradeoff between them. It was hypothesized that alcohol impairs attentional focus, as well as the accuracy and reaction time to make directional choices, and so would induce a more severe tradeoff between tasks performed concurrently.

Equipment used in the study consisted of a device used to monitor eye movements, left and right light stimuli and a breathalyzer to measure blood alcohol levels. The sample for this project consisted of 46 men and women, between the ages of 21 and 30 years old. All …

Fate And Removal Of Contaminants In Urban Environment, Varun K. Kasaraneni

Open Access Dissertations

Stormwater runoff from impermeable surfaces, such as roads, roof tops, and parking lots, is a cause of non-point source pollution problem. Sources such as fossil fuel combustion, automobiles, and other human and animal activities introduce high concentration of organic, inorganic and pathogenic contaminants in to environment. Stormwater runoff carrying these contaminants when untreated has the potential to impair water quality in the receiving water bodies such as surface and ground waters. The existing treatment systems are not reliable and needed improvements in order to meet water quality standards. Determining the levels and sources of contamination in an environment can help …

In The News, Robert J. Lewis, Joe N. Caudell

Human–Wildlife Interactions

No abstract provided.

Nuisance American Alligators: An Investigation Into Trends And Public Opinion, Cord B. Eversol, Scott E. Henke, Jacob L. Ogdee, David B. Wester, Amos Cooper

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The population rebound of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis; hereafter, alligator), with the rapid growth of populations throughout its range, has caused an influx of human–alligator conflicts. We quantified 5,838 nuisance alligator reports from 2000 to 2011 to develop more site-specific strategies of management and to determine where management should be focused to minimize the conflict. We also surveyed the general public’s attitude toward and knowledge of alligators (n = 98) as a technique to better understand human dimensions of nuisance alligator management in Texas. Counties that received the largest numbers of nuisance alligator reports were Jefferson (16%), Fort Bend …

Identifying People’S Most Preferred Management Technique For Feral Cats In Hawaii, Cheryl A. Lohr, Christopher A. Lepczyk, Linda J. Cox

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Feral cats (Felis catus) are abundant in many parts of the world and pose a threat to native wildlife. Human–wildlife conflicts regarding how feral cats should be managed have increased recently. In Hawaii, previous research has revealed that most residents would like to see the feral cat abundance reduced, but opinions differ regarding which techniques are acceptable for achieving this. This paper describes an analytical hierarchy process that combines rankings of decision criteria by Hawaii’s residents with expert knowledge of the costs and benefits associated with 7 techniques (live-capture and adoption, live-capture and lethal injection, live-capture and lethal gunshot, trap-neuter-release …

Population Trends Of Resident And Migratory Canada Geese In Relation To Strikes With Civil Aircraft, Richard A. Dolbeer, John L. Seubert, Michael J. Begier

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Canada geese (Branta canadensis) are of particular concern to aviation in the USA because of their large size, flocking behavior, attraction to airports for grazing, and, for the resident population, year-round presence in urban environments. We documented trends in resident and migrant Canada goose populations in North America from 1970 to 2012, and for 1990 to 2012 examined these trends in relation to trends in reported civil aircraft collisions (strikes) with Canada geese. The overall Canada goose population increased 4.5 fold from 1.26 million in 1970 to 5.69 million in 2012. Most of this overall increase was due …

Determination Of Residue Levels Of Alpha-Chloralose In Duck Tissues, David A. Goldade, Randal S. Stahl, John. J. Johnston

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Alpha-chloralose (AC) is used to capture nuisance waterfowl so that they can be relocated. Concerns for food safety limit its use prior to or during the waterfowl hunting season. To determine its half-life in tissue, we administered AC to adult male (n = 7) and female (n = 5) mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) via oral gavage. A gel capsule containing 100 μCi of radioactive AC (14C-AC) and sufficient nonlabeled AC to produce a dose of approximately 30 mg/kg was given to each duck.The ducks were euthanized at 2, 6, 10, and 18 hours postdosing …

Forecasting The Spread Of Raccoon Rabies Using A Purpose-Specific Group Decisionmaking Process, Aaron M. Anderson, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Richard B. Chipman, Todd Atwood, Tyler Cozzens, Frank Fillo, Robert Hale, Brody Hatch, Joanne Maki, Olin E. Rhodes, Erin E. Rees, Charles E. Rupprecht, Rowland Tinline, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Dennis Slate

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and USDA Wildlife Services (WS) have been involved in an oral rabies vaccination (ORV) program for raccoons (Procyon lotor) that has slowed the westward spread of raccoon rabies. The objective of this study was to forecast the spread of the disease if an ORV zone was not maintained. A group decision-making process was designed to address the forecasting problem and was implemented using a group of 15 experts and 4 support personnel at a meeting at the USDA National Wildlife Research Center. Ten expansion regions were constructed that described the spread of …

Efficacy Of Ropel® As A Coyote Repellent, Elizabeth A. Miller, Julie K. Young, Scott Stelting, Bruce A. Kimball

Human–Wildlife Interactions

We examined the repellency of a commercially available animal repellent to determine the efficacy of its application to objects that are attractive to coyotes (Canis latrans). Specifically, we aimed to both prevent chewing behavior by coyotes on a nylon-like strapping material, which is used to construct barrier-arresting systems on military airstrips, and determine the ability of the solution to prevent the animals from repeating the undesired behavior. We mixed Ropel® Animal and Rodent Repellent with a liquid latex sticker to form a 2% latex and 98% Ropel solution. We used a 2% latex and 98% water solution as …

In Defense Of Field Experiments: Response To Askham And Godfrey (2014), Charles D. Dieter, Cody S. Warner, Curiong Ren

Human–Wildlife Interactions

No abstract provided.

Agency As Principal, Brigham Daniels

Georgia Law Review

A presumption of a principal-agentrelationship between the elected branches and the bureaucracy permeates administrative law and scholarship. This typical framework consistently casts agencies as agents, never principals. This Article challenges that assumption and explores the ways in which agencies can act as principals to the elected branches. Agencies, in fact, commonly manipulate the elected branches. The challenge posed by the Article to the typical understandingof the relationship between agencies and the elected branches not only provides a more nuanced understanding of the modern administrative state but also raises serious questions about administrative law, which regularly employs this same faulty assumption.

Soft Whistleblowing, Amanda C. Leiter

Georgia Law Review

This Article explores the underappreciated role that agency insiders play in directing outside oversight of their employer agencies and, in turn, manipulating agency policy development. Specifically, the Article defines, documents, and evaluates the phenomenon of "soft whistleblowing"-an agency employee's deliberate, unsanctioned,substantive, and instrumental disclosure of nonpublic information about issues of policy. This phenomenon is ubiquitous but has received no systematic attention in the academic literature. As the Article demonstrates, agency employees regularly engage in soft whistleblowing to congressional staff, journalists, and agency watchdog groups, in an effort to bring outside pressure to bear on their employer agencies to shift policymaking …

Valuing Foreign Lives, Arden Rowell, Lesley Wexler

Georgia Law Review

Should government actors allocate scarce domestic resources to protect the lives of foreign persons? This Article argues that foreign life valuation poses distinctive psychological, philosophical, social, political, and economic challenges, and analyzes current U.S. practices of foreign life valuation in light of these challenges. After identifying multiple possible methods of foreign life valuation, we suggest that the best default valuation method would allocate domestic resources according to domestic willingness to pay to protect foreign lives.

Innovative Applications And Security Of Internet Of Things, Yingjiu Li, Yingjiu Li, Nai-Wei Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the advances and falling cost of intelligent things like RFID/USN, sensor networks, NFC, ZigBee, smart phones, and other relevant technologies, the potential applications and implementations of Internet of things have been intensively studied by both the academia and the industry. One potential application is integrating social networks with IoT, which results in the social Internet of things (SIoT). This vision not only provides potential opportunities but also new challenges. Innovative application and security are two main issues toward this paradigm

Coupling Graphs, Efficient Algorithms And B-Cell Epitope Prediction, Liang Zhao, Steven C. H. Hoi, Zhenhua Li, Limsoon Wong, Hung Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Coupling graphs are newly introduced in this paper to meet many application needs particularly in the field of bioinformatics. A coupling graph is a two-layer graph complex, in which each node from one layer of the graph complex has at least one connection with the nodes in the other layer, and vice versa. The coupling graph model is sufficiently powerful to capture strong and inherent associations between subgraph pairs in complicated applications. The focus of this paper is on mining algorithms of frequent coupling subgraphs and bioinformatics application. Although existing frequent subgraph mining algorithms are competent to identify frequent subgraphs …

Caregiver Impact Of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Assessing Stress, Sense Of Competence, And Relationship Satisfaction, Nicole M. Kline

Theses and Dissertations

While the impact of psycho-social variables has been evaluated for children with chronic illness and related disabilities, questions remain unanswered for families affected by ASD. Participants included 68 primary caregivers seeking services for a child aged fifteen months to 12 years suspected of or diagnosed with an ASD. Assessment tools included: 1. Parenting Stress Index-Fourth Edition-Short-Form (PSI-4-SF; Abidin, 2012), 2. Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC; Johnston and Mash, 1989), and 3. Relationship Assessment Scale (Hendrick, 1988). Independent samples t-tests were conducted to determine differences with a nonclinical control population (60 participants with a typically-developed child) regarding perceptions of stress, …

Loki: A Privacy-Conscious Platform For Crowdsourced Surveys, Thivya Kandappu, Vijay Sivaraman, Arik Friedman, Roksana Boreli

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Emerging platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and Google Consumer Surveys are increasingly being used by researchers and market analysts to crowdsource large-scale survey data from on-line populations at extremely low-cost. However, by participating in successive surveys, users risk being profiled and targeted, both by surveyors and by the platform itself. In this paper we propose, develop, and evaluate the design of a crowdsourcing platform, called Loki, that is privacy conscious. Our contributions are three-fold: (a) We propose Loki, a system that allows users to obfuscate their (ratings-based or multiple-choice) responses at-source based on their chosen privacy level, and gives …

Keys To Understanding And Addressing Consumer Perceptions And Concerns About Processed Foods, Y. Meneses, K. J. Cannon, R. A. Flores

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Some processed food products have been targeted lately as “evils” that are preventing us from maintaining healthy lives. From the perspective of the food industry community, it seems as if this is one of those issues that should fade away with time, since the benefits of food processing are very obvious to us. We have never been so wrong! The challenges in front of us are big, and we need to do a better job of communicating with consumers about the benefits food processing offers, including increasing the availability of high-quality foods year round. We also need to promote the …

Janet K. Poley Biography & Curriculum Vita, Janet K. Poley

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Janet Poley just retired as CEO and President of the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) an ancillary of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a 501(c)3 incorporated in Nebraska. She has developed collaborative distance education initiatives and conducts research and education programs related to technology access and applications with state and land-grant university members and international affiliates. She was a pioneer in the use of video, satellite and digital technologies to create access to higher education of all types. She has worked in more than 40 countries to develop agricultural education and communication programs and maintains a large network of associations …

Profiling The Youth Leader: Personality And Emotional Intelligence Trends And Their Relationship To Leadership Skills, L. J. Mcelravy, Lindsay J. Hastings

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The transfer of leadership to younger generations is an important factor in agricultural communities and is likely one reason developing leaders is a central mission of many youth organizations, including 4-H and FFA. In adults, researchers have extensively explored the relationship between personality traits and leadership (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002), but a clear profile of youth leaders has not been developed. This profile could help in planning for and developing the next generation of community leaders. In this study, we explored the relationship between traits, including the Big-Five model of personality and emotional intelligence, and self-perceived leadership skills …