Digital Commons Network^™

Prevalence Of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease In Saudi Arabia, Siraj O. Wali, Majdy M. Idrees, Omer S. Alamoudi, Ahmed M. Aboulfarag, Abdelrahman D. Salem, Ahmed A. Aljohaney, Mohamed H. Soliman, Muntasir M. Abdelaziz

Saudi Medical Journal

OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence of epidemiologically defined chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This cross-sectional, observational, population-based survey of COPD was conducted between June 2010 and December 2011 across the country of Saudi Arabia. A total of 56,000 randomly selected telephone numbers were called, which identified 10,001 eligible subjects; of whom 9,779 agreed to participate. A screening questionnaire included 6 questions related to cigarette consumption and water-pipe use was administered to each participant. Subjects with positive screening results were invited to provide input for a detailed COPD questionnaire. RESULTS: The adjusted proportion of subjects who reported …

Perceptual Compensation In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Elizabeth Anne Langston

Open Access Theses

Compensation for coarticulation is the extent in which an individual perceives the contextual variations of speech. When presented with an ambiguous consonant-vowel segment (e.g., a consonant halfway between /sa/ and /∫a/) research illustrates that a listener is likely to compensate for coarticulation with the following vowel. Therefore, a listener will be more likely to report an ambiguous speech sound as /s/ when it occurs before [u] than before [a]. Previous results have suggested that, within neurotypical individuals, the degree to which individuals compensate for coarticulation may be related to their Autism Quotient (AQ; Yu, 2010). However, this research did not …

Optimal Control Of Unknown Nonlinear System From Inputoutput Data, Xin Jin

Open Access Theses

Optimal control designers usually require a plant model to design a controller. The problem is the controller's performance heavily depends on the accuracy of the plant model. However, in many situations, it is very time-consuming to implement the system identification procedure and an accurate structure of a plant model is very difficult to obtain. On the other hand, neuro-fuzzy models with product inference engine, singleton fuzzifier, center average defuzzifier, and Gaussian membership functions can be easily trained by many well-established learning algorithms based on given input-output data pairs. Therefore, this kind of model is used in the current optimal controller …

Is Maternal Touch Used Referentially?, Rana Abu-Zhaya

Open Access Theses

Early social interactions are highly multimodal and include a wealth of cues (e.g., speech, facial expressions, motion, gestures and touch). Infant-directed speech (IDS) by itself may aid in language development. Touch by itself has been also shown to play an important role in dyadic interactions affecting both the infant and the caregiver. However, little is known about the impact of the combination of these two modes of communication on infant language development. In this thesis, I hypothesize that caregiver touch is provided in synchrony with speech, providing the language-learning infant with cues that may not only help her to find …

Tesol Employment Ads In China And South Korea: Personal Characteristics, Knowledge, And Skills Identified In Full-Time Ads Posted For International Instructors, Jae-Song Lee

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this master's project was to investigate the types of personal characteristics, knowledge, and skills TESOL employers are seeking in foreign job candidates in today's biggest EFL job markets, specifically in China and South Korea. First, the literature review introduces the enormous development of the EFL job market in these two countries and some challenges these two countries faced in their attempt to hire foreign EFL teachers. A total of 303 job advertisements were gathered from two Internet sources (Dave's ESL Café and TESOL.org) that met all the established criteria for choosing a reliable data source during a …

Using Beginning-Of-Year Diagnostic Reading Measures To Predict Third Grade Comprehension Scores In Virginia, Todd Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this correlational investigation is to examine the magnitude of the relationships between three diagnostic reading measures and scores obtained on the third grade Virginia SOL reading test. Specifically, this study investigated the relative utility of predictor variables against one another while also evaluating the strength of the model utilizing all three variables simultaneously. Grounded in the Simple View of Reading as outlined by Gough and Tunmer (1986), this study incorporated the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (or PALS), the STAR Reading Test, and the QRI-5 as independent variables. While each instrument has been the subject of previous investigations, …

Single Gender Language Arts Classes And The Impact On Achievement Of Males, Brock English

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this causal comparative research design was to analyze the relationship between Language Arts scale scores of elementary male students on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, Version 2 (MCT2) and the type of classroom, mixed-gender or single-gender. The study also analyzed the percentage of questions answered correctly on the MCT2 in the English Language Arts sub-categories of vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and grammar. Archival data of 222 students was used, 100 male students in single-gender classes and 122 students in mixed-gender classes. The study was conducted in an urban elementary public school with a diverse population in northeast Mississippi. …

A Case Study Investigating The Impact Of A Blended International Partnership On Perceptions Of Learning And Global Mindedness In A North Carolina High School, Jennifer Ricks

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite the ever-increasing popularity of international partnerships that blend study abroad and virtual learning, very little data exists to understand their impact on student attitudes and achievement. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the impact of a blended international school partnership on perceptions of learning and global mindedness in a North Carolina high school. Data was collected, in two phases, from stakeholder interviews, observations, an online Global Mindedness Scale survey, the NC School Report Card, and teacher lesson plans. Global mindedness was found to have increased as participants gained a multifaceted understanding of, and appreciation for, …

Lifetime Lexical Variation In Social Media, Lizi Liao, Jing Jiang, Ying Ding, Heyan Huang, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As the rapid growth of online social media attracts a large number of Internet users, the large volume of content generated by these users also provides us with an opportunity to study the lexical variation of people of different ages. In this paper, we present a latent variable model that jointly models the lexical content of tweets and Twitter users' ages. Our model inherently assumes that a topic has not only a word distribution but also an age distribution. We propose a Gibbs-EM algorithm to perform inference on our model. Empirical evaluation shows that our model can learn meaningful age-specific …

On Predicting Religion Labels In Microblogging Networks, Minh Thap Nguyen, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Religious belief plays an important role in how people behave, influencing how they form preferences, interpret events around them, and develop relationships with others. Traditionally, the religion labels of user population are obtained by conducting a large scale census study. Such an approach is both high cost and time consuming. In this paper, we study the problem of predicting users' religion labels using their microblogging data. We formulate religion label prediction as a classification task, and identify content, structure and aggregate features considering their self and social variants for representing a user. We introduce the notion of representative user to …

Lifetime Lexical Variation In Social Media, Lizi Liao, Jing Jiang, Ying Ding, Heyan Huang, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As the rapid growth of online social media attracts a large number of Internet users, the large volume of content generated by these users also provides us with an opportunity to study the lexical variation of people of different ages. In this paper, we present a latent variable model that jointly models the lexical content of tweets and Twitter users’ ages. Our model inherently assumes that a topic has not only a word distribution but also an age distribution. We propose a Gibbs-EM algorithm to perform inference on our model. Empirical evaluation shows that our model can learn meaningful age-specific …

The Process Of Diagnosis Delivery Of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Natasha A. Barnett

Communication ETDs

The process of diagnosis delivery of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a topic area that has not been given ample attention by academic researchers. Some researchers have focused on delivering bad news (i.e.Buckman, 1992; Gordon, 2008; & Myers, 1983). Yet, no communication researcher has utilized communication theory and/or method to focus on diagnosis delivery of ASD. This study expands this area of focus in academic research using a communication perspective that provides an understanding of the process of diagnosis delivery of ASD at the Center for Developmental Disabilities'(CDD) Early Childhood Evaluation Program (ECEP)--New Mexico's number one center for providing a …

Marx, Law, Ideology, Legal Positivism, Brian Leiter

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

This essay -- for the UVA conference on "Jurisprudence and History" -- offers an account of Marx’s theory of history and his claim that law (and morality) are "ideological," and then asks what theory of law is adequate to explain the way the Marxist theory understands law in both its ideological and non-ideological senses. In Marx's theory we need to be able to say what law is in three contexts: (1) there are the laws that constitute the relations of production, i.e., the scheme of property rights in the existing forces of production; (2) there are the laws (and associated …

Of Gangs And Gaggles: Can A Corporation Be Part Of An Association-In-Fact Rico Enterprise? Linguistic, Historical, And Rhetorical Perspectives, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Over 30 years ago, courts of appeals began to hold that the RICO statute’s definition of association-in-fact enterprise is broad enough to include corporations as constituent members, even though that definition states that such an association is limited to a “group of individuals.” This Article demonstrates why these cases were wrongly decided from a variety of perspectives: linguistic, systemic and consequentialist. It also suggests a strategy for correcting this widespread interpretive error and provides evidence that the Supreme Court may be disposed to agree that the lower courts have uniformly erred.

Independent Evaluation Of Asic’S Implementation Of The Helping Our Kids Understand Finances Initiative, Robert Simons

Program monitoring and evaluation

In May 2013, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commissioned the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to conduct an independent evaluation of its implementation of the Helping Our Kids Understand Finances (HOKUF) initiative. The purpose was to conduct an independent evidence-based assessment of whether ASIC implemented the HOKUF initiative in a way that met the following key criteria: 1) Appropriate – the extent to which the program developed by ASIC was useful and ‘fit for purpose’ in supporting the delivery of the consumer and financial literacy content aligned to the Australian Curriculum. 2) Effective − the extent to …

The Development Of Czech Aspectual Prefixes Through Grammaticalization And Lexicalization Processes, Pavlina Peskova

Linguistics ETDs

This masters thesis investigates the development of aspectual prefixes in Czech. The analysis in this work incorporates diachronic and synchronic perspectives and presents a theory about the path of development of aspectual prefixes in the framework of construction grammar. It draws from a central notion that grammar emerges from discourse and argues that the development of aspectual prefixes in Czech was fundamentally based in language use and processing. The synchronic layering of prefixed predicates in Czech provides evidence that the development of aspectual prefixes progressed gradually and suggests that grammaticalization and lexicalization processes took place. The analysis in this study …

Kiowa-Tanoan: A Synchronic And Diachronic Study, Logan Sutton

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation provides a comparative-historical analysis and reconstruction of the phonological system and of the pronominal system of Proto-Kiowa-Tanoan, the theoretized ancestor of a family of seven languages located in the Pueblo Southwest and Great Plains. The modern constituent members of the family are Kiowa, Rio Grande Tewa, Arizona Tewa, Picuris Northern Tiwa, Taos Northern Tiwa, Southern Tiwa, and Towa. The dissertation is divided into three parts, plus a concluding discussion. Part I is a thorough overview of the of the background of Kiowa-Tanoan language study. This includes a comprehensive review of the literature, published and unpublished, which describes the …

The Importance Of Community Resilience: Developing The American Red Cross International Services Department In The New Hampshire Region, Sarah Romac

Capstone Collection

Disaster management and humanitarian aid organizations have had to reevaluate how communities and individuals can better adapt and prepare for future disaster events. One concept organizations are incorporating into their overall framework is strengthening community resilience. Increasing a community’s resilience level increases its ability to cope with the changes that affect it. Creating awareness of the vulnerabilities in an area, addressing these vulnerabilities with preparedness training, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and sustainable changes made over the long-term can develop a community’s adaptive capacity to be more resilient.

For my practicum, I was given the opportunity to be the International Services …

Public Policy, Parol Evidence And Contractual Equity Principles In Individualized Education Programs: Marking The Four Corners Of The Iep To Mitigate Unequal Bargaining Power Between Parent-Guardians And School Districts, Matthew Saleh

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

Worshipping Meaningfully: The Complementary Dynamics Of Liturgy And Theology In Worship, Joseph Omolo

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Omolo, Joseph, T. "Worshipping Meaningfully: The Complementary Dynamics of Liturgy and Theology in Worship." Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2014. 242 pp.

This dissertation is a work in systematic theology which explores the relationship between liturgy and theology in the current scholarship of liturgical theology. It examines how the complementary dynamics of liturgy and theology enhance the appropriation of meaning experientially and conceptually in the Christian assembly and thereby making worship meaningful event. Worship is meaningful when the Christian assembly encounters the Triune God in his word and sacraments and the assembly responds in praise, prayer and thanksgiving. In such encounter …

Mallarmé, Poet Of The Earthly World: On Spatiality In L’Après Midi D’Un Faune, Rogério De Melo Franco

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

To observe how a notable self-declared detractor of description and realism descripts nature may sound as a rather arbitrary or irreverent way of reading. Nonetheless, besides being a body of texts, Mallarmé is also the result of his interpreters; as much as any other literary authority, readings of his works have been negotiated by different groups, which must not be seen as untouchable or unmovable entities. Enthroning the author by accepting his considerations about his work without question and reasoning might deserve objections as well. In any case, would it be worthwhile to hold an investigation about a …

Reaching The Nations Through Our Cities, Chris Clayman

Great Commission Research Journal

While the American public perceives New York City to be a post-Christian environment, reality is that the city is moving into a post-secular existence largely influenced by religious immigrants. These immigrants are symbolic of a new era in pioneer missions—one in which migration, transnationalism, globalization, and urbanization pose newer challenges and opportunities than uncharted geographies, isolated societies, and foreign cultures. “Reaching the Nations Through Our Cities” proposes that the next challenge for missionary pioneers is reaching busy, hidden, influential unreached peoples who have migrated to cities. Based on several years of research on the immigrant populations in Metro New York, …

Machado De Assis: Uma Nova Leitura Através Das Lentes Do Corpus Lingu?Stico, Liege Christiane Pradera

Theses and Dissertations

O presente estudo analisa dados obtidos através da pesquisa por meio do corpus linguístico que provam estatisticamente o estilo adotado por Machado de Assis. Através da frequência de palavras-chave, escolhas léxicas mais significativas de cada romance e de alguns contos, esse estudo analisou a forma do romancista em criticar a sociedade oitocentista do Rio de Janeiro. Os resultados mostraram a disposição do autor de censurar o cientificismo do século XIX, os anseios e desejos da burguesia, assim como os conflitos da alma humana e a problemática dos relacionamentos da sociedade carioca. Por meio dos dados obtidos, há uma observação do …

A Model Of Children's Acquisition Of Grammatical Word Categories Using An Adaptation And Selection Algorithm, Teresa Young

Theses and Dissertations

Most children who follow a typical developmental timeline learn the grammatical categories of words in their native language by the time they enter school. Researchers have worked to provide a number of explicit, testable models or algorithms in an attempt to model this language development. These models or algorithms have met with some varying success in terms of determining grammatical word categories from the transcripts of adult input to children. A new model of grammatical category acquisition involving an application of evolutionary computing algorithms may provide further understanding in this area. This model implements aspects of evolutionary biology, such as …

Rethinking The Beginning: Toni Morrison And The Dramatization Of Liminality, Michelle Dreiding

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Beginnings in Toni Morrison's novels enact an uncanny moment of disorientation. They are beginnings in medias res, and, more importantly, beginnings of spatial deictic uncertainties that leave a reader with the absence of a stable system of reference. They enact the predicament of a beginning that precludes the fantasy of an absolute point of origin. Morrison's beginnings self-consciously advocate an imperative to engage in a continual process of re-reading, of revisiting the initial disorientation so as to avoid a "conclusion to living." (Nietzsche) I want to argue that it is in these liminal moments of beginnings of novels that …

Contributors, Robert T. Tally Jr.

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Information about contributors to articles in volume 14, issue 3 of Reconstruction.

Preparing Highly Qualified Technology Education Teachers, Logan Foster

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The problem of this study was to identify best classroom and modeling laboratory practices for preparing highly qualified secondary technology education teachers.

Becoming Nomadic: The Radical 'Demonic' Geographies Of M. Nourbese Philip’S Looking For Livingstone: An Odyssey Of Silence, Kate Siklosi

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

When the protagonist of M. NourbeSe Philip's novella Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence (1991) resolutely declares that she will "open a way to the interior or perish," (7) she is at once reappropriating a colonial expression of geographic domination while enacting a "demonic" respatialization of African cultural representation. The statement, taken originally from Scottish missionary and explorer Dr. David Livingstone's travel diary, (re)presents the colonial metaphor of Africa as the unknown "dark continent" and its embedded representation of the eroticized black female body. This "opening of the interior," a central motif of Philip's text, thus announces …

Assessing Transit Fare Equity In Utah Using A Geographic Information System, Steven Farber, Keith Batholomew, Xiao Li, Antonio Paez, Khandker M. Nurul Habib

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this study is to develop and apply a new method for assessing social equity impacts of distance-based public transit fares. Shifting to a distance-based fare structure can disproportionately favor or penalize different subgroups of a population based on variations in settlement patterns, travel needs, and most importantly, transit use. According to federal law, such disparities must be evaluated by the transit agency, but the area-based techniques identified by the Federal Transit Authority for assessing discrimination fail to account for disparities in distances travelled by transit users. This means that transit agencies currently lack guidelines for assessing the …

Focal Point, Volume 28, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Between one–third and one–half of young adults with mental health challenges have co-occurring substance use issues. This issue of Focal Point examines treatments and supports for this population.