Digital Commons Network^™

Soes And State Governance: How State-Owned Enterprises Influence China's Legal System, Zheng Lei, Benjamin L. Liebman, Curtis J. Milhaupt

Faculty Scholarship

Most of the existing literature on Chinese SOEs asks how state ownership affects their governance. This chapter turns the question on its head: How do SOEs affect state governance in China? The chapter begins by distinguishing different modes of interaction between the Party-state and SOEs. Focusing on these modes of interaction, the chapter analyzes how SOEs have influenced China’s legal system. This chapter discusses the ideological and positional advantages enjoyed by SOEs in their legal treatment, and provide an analysis of SOEs’ impact on legislation, administrative rulemaking and in particular, the courts. It concludes by exploring a key implication of …

Effect Of The Paris Climate Agreement On U.S. Businesses, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

In December, 195 countries convened in Paris for the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. To the surprise and delight of most of the participants, the conference ended in consensus among all the participants on a document, the Paris Agreement, that will be opened for signature on April 22, 2016. President Barack Obama has indicated that the United States will sign it. (Co-author Michael Gerrard participated in the conference.)

Institutional Versus Intermediated Buyers: Barriers And Requirements Of Buying Local Food Products, Jennifer Marie Moldovan

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Expenditures on locally grown food products are only a small portion of the total food expenditures in the United States. In order to find a way to increase this percentage, this study aims to identify various types of buyers currently participating in the purchase of locally grown food products. Buyers were divided into two groups: institutions and intermediated. A comparison of for both classifications of buyers was done to find the difference in their perceived barriers and requirements for purchasing local food. Determining these differences could help in future policymaking decisions in local food industries. This will also help farmers …

Exploring Teacher And Administrator Perceptions Of Grade Retention On Middle School Student, Wendy A. Cora

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to explore teacher and administrator perceptions of grade retention on middle school students’ performance by examining perceived benefits and drawbacks of the practice of retention to grade, and also, to examine their perceptions of major negative and positive issues that might impact students retained in middle grades and determine critical features of successful retention practices in middle school according to teachers and administrators. The research was conducted at a middle school in Central Florida through a voluntary questionnaire via Survey Monkey. Voluntary participants were school administrators, general and special education teachers, instructional coaches, and guidance …

Sanctified By God's Word: Towards A Websterian Ontology Of Scripture And Church, Benjamin J. Lappenga

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

John Webster’s account of Scripture grants the canonical texts an ontology determined by their divine use, discusses Scripture as an aspect of the doctrine of revelation rather than the church, and above all preserves the capacity of God’s Word to question and form believers. Yet, Webster’s proposal has met resistance from theologians who find his accent on sola scriptura inconsistent with his claim that interpretation (not simply “text”) has ontological force as a part of “sanctification.” This paper asks whether it is possible to retain a robustly Websterian account of Scripture while at the same time denying that Scripture’s primacy …

Complex System Governance For Acquisition, Joseph Bradley, Polinpapilinho Katina, Charles Keating

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

As acquisition processes have become more complex, they appear to no longer be governable by traditional approaches. Missed budgets, delayed deliveries, and expensive canceled systems appear to becoming more prevalent. Numerous investigations have been conducted attempting to elicit the factors that prevented success. Those systems that succeed in terms of usability, budget, and delivery schedule are the rarity and often become case studies themselves as we try to extract the characteristics that differentiate success from failure. A different viewpoint is to look at the acquisition system from the perspective of Complex Systems Governance (CSG). Recent developments in the field of …

Premature Adulthood: Alcoholic Moms And Teenaged Adults In The Abc Afterschool Specials, Amanda R. Keeler

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Chair Support, Faculty Entrepreneurship, And The Teaching Of Statistical Reasoning To Journalism Undergraduates In The United States, Robert J. Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Statistical reasoning is not the same as doing calculations. Instead, it involves cognitive skills such as the ability to think critically and systematically with data, skills important for everyday news work and essential for the era of data journalism. Twin surveys of the chairs of undergraduate journalism programs in the United States, conducted 11 years apart, revealed that those who perceived benefits from statistical reasoning instruction were more likely to reward entrepreneurship (faculty attempts to integrate this instruction into their classes), but with slow gains over time in the fairly small number of such faculty. Being consistent with university goals …

Gender, Guns, And Survival: The Women Of The Walking Dead, Amanda R. Keeler

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Farmed And Dangerous? A Case Study Of Chipotle’S Branded Entertainment Series And Polarized Reactions To Its Satirical Depiction Of Farming And Agribusiness, Nathan Gilkerson, Rebecca Swenson, Betsy Anderson

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This study follows Chipotle’s innovative strategy of using branded entertainment and satire to enhance its brand image and positive consumer perceptions, while negatively portraying an entire industry. The study explores audience reactions to Chipotle’s satirical Farmed and Dangerous program, part of the company’s broader “Food with Integrity” campaign. Increasing agricultural literacy and understanding among the general public is a priority (Doerfert, 2011). Yet marketing communication campaigns—and responses or reactions to those campaigns—that simplify issues into distinct “sides,” or focus on attacks, prevent deep discussion of the complexity of our food system and efforts to collaborate on solutions. Research presented uses …

Defining A Medium: The Educational Aspirations For Early Radio, Amanda R. Keeler

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This essay examines the attempts by many writers to steer the burgeoning U.S. radio industry towards educational uses and programming in the 1920s. At the same time that commercial radio began to take shape, several competing and seemingly incompatible visions of the airwaves emerged—one of which privileged the use of radio for educational purposes. Using discourse from trade journals, general interest magazines, and newspapers, this article explores the calls for educational programming amid the rapidly expanding and consolidating commercial radio industry.

Sound Recognition Of Historical Visibility: The Radio Preservation Task Force Of The Library Of Congress: Introduction, Josh Shepperd, Amanda R. Keeler, Chris Sterling

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This issue of Journal of Radio & Audio Media serves as a gesture toward increasing attention to many untold cultural sound histories. The “question” of radio preservation, we’re just coming to realize, closely equates to our responsibility to identify gaps within our historical record, as those gaps are delineated along race, class, orientation, and gendered lines. Sound preservation turns out to be one strategy for how to reconcile failures of recognition. It’s widely accepted that a historian must not project a different meaning upon historical materials than its author intended. Yet at the same time historians might now play the …

Old New Media: Closed-Circuit Television And The Classroom, Amanda R. Keeler

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This article explores closed-circuit television (CCTV) and its ‘bright promise stage’, as it was contemplated, marketed, and implemented as a low-cost classroom tool. After the Federal Communications Commission issued the 1952 Sixth Report and Order, many schools and communities sought to bring educational television to the classroom. However, this model was financially out of reach for most. CCTV was a more affordable version of educational television that could cater to specific classroom needs and allow schools to create their own in-house network. CCTV represents just one of many new technologies that have been promoted as ideal for classroom instruction over …

How & Why Technology Matters In Consulting & Coaching Interventions, Keri Stephens, Eric D. Waters

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Taking The Ethics Test, Young Kim

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Community College Faculty Members’ Perceptions Of Creating Digital Content To Enhance Online Instructor Social Presence, Karen M. Arlien

Theses and Dissertations

Current technologies, specifically asynchronous video, allow instructors to enhance their online instructor social presence (OISP) by creating digital content in which they can simultaneously convey their unique persona verbally and nonverbally while supplementing course content. A strong OISP has been shown to contribute toward students’ successful course completion, which continues to be an issue at community colleges. Existing research on the use of digital content to enhance OISP, however, has primarily focused on students’ perceptions even though faculty members are responsible for establishing OISP. The purpose of this study was to ascertain community college faculty members’ perceptions of creating asynchronous …

The Relationship Between Athletes' Perceptions Of Coaching Efficacy And Collective Efficacy In Collegiate Soccer, Frazer Atkinson

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between athletes’ perceptions of their coaches’ confidence and team confidence in a sample of 272 collegiate soccer players (M = 19.84 years; SD = 1.42) from the NCAA and NAIA. Athletes’ perceptions of their coaches’ confidence were assessed using a modified version of the Coaching Efficacy Scale (CES) (Feltz, Chase, Moritz & Sullivan, 1999), and a single item measure asked participants to rate their perceptions of their coaches’ confidence. Team confidence was assessed using the Collective Efficacy Questionnaire for Sport (CEQS) (Short, Sullivan & Feltz, 2005). Athletes also reported the results of their team’s previous …

Fasd, Verbal Comprehension And Maladaptive Behavior, Anthony Brian Athmann

Theses and Dissertations

A Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Diagnosis is comprised of various levels of physical

dysmorphia and behavioral and cognitive dysfunctions. Early identification and diagnosis is difficult, requires specially trained practitioners and often results in the delay of receiving necessary services. This is particularly true for those individuals living in

underserved rural areas. However, screening children with commonly used assessment

tools may help to more quickly identify children who have been prenatally exposed to

alcohol. The purpose of the present study was to contribute to the development of a

neurobehavioral profile of alcohol-exposed children through examining if relationship

exists between verbal comprehension deficits …

The Invocative Use Of The Bible's Rhetorical Power In The Transcripts Of Anne Hutchinson's Trials, Carolyn D. Baker

Theses and Dissertations

Generally speaking, some Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans invoke the rhetorical power of the Protestant Old and New Testaments in their writings to specify and dictate certain courses of action, especially during the period known as the Antinomian Controversy. These authoritarian, dogmatic, directive allusions to Scripture-- what I call the invocative use of the Bible's rhetorical power--appear frequently in some specific contemporaneous Massachusetts Bay Colony journals, sermons, and letters. The author employs these uses to establish the literary and interpretive contexts for the rhetorical use of the Bible in the transcripts of Hutchinson's civil and ecclesiastical trials. For example, the author …

The Industrialization Of The Knowledge Economy: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Intellectual Property Policies, La Royce Batchelor

Theses and Dissertations

Whether a singular stroke of brilliance or a slow evolution of discovery; ownership of ideas has been the root of innovation and controversy. Innovation is often nothing more than an idea. Ideas may be bought or sold, traded or stolen, developed or lost. Intellectual property is a legal construct created to protect exclusivity of creation and rights of commercialization and distribution. The landscape of intellectual property has become expansive and complicated. It has become difficult to classify intellectual property rights as many people consider them economic rights, and others, property rights, and still more, increasingly in the West, personal rights, …

Negotiating Higher Education In The Us: Voices Of Ghanaian Graduate Students At A Midwestern University, Mildred Emefa Biaku

Theses and Dissertations

In this case study, there was an examination to gain a deeper understanding of the

effects of social interactions experienced by Ghanaian Students with various actors in

curricular and co-curricular departments and perceptions of the support during these

social interactions. Recommendations were made for ways to enhance social interactions.

Data for this qualitative study was collected using three methods; non-participant

observation, interviews, and focus group discussions. Participants for the study were six

Ghanaian international students and five service providers selected from departments

across the campus of a university in the Midwest. It was found that there were systemic

issues that …

The Impact Of Parental Involvement On Academic Achievement In Children, Martin Blank

Theses and Dissertations

Academic achievement in children is affected by many factors including family income, family structure, class size, parental education, and parental expectations. Recent research on academic achievement has evaluated the relationship between parental involvement in children’s education and academic achievement. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, this study investigates the socioeconomic and parental factors that affect academic achievement in children. The question of endogeneity between parental involvement and academic achievement is also explored. The statistical analysis performed utilized OLS regression and instrumental variable techniques. OLS regression techniques demonstrate a negative relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement …

Space Solar Power Satellite Systems, Modern Small Satellites, And Space Rectenna, Corey Marvin Bergsrud

Theses and Dissertations

Space solar power satellite (SSPS) systems is the concept of placing large satellite into geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) to harvest and convert massive amounts of solar energy into microwave energy, and to transmit the microwaves to a rectifying antenna (rectenna) array on Earth. The rectenna array captures and converts the microwave power into usable power that is injected into the terrestrial electric grid for use. This work approached the microwave power beam as an additional source of power (with solar) for lower orbiting satellites. Assuming the concept of retrodirectivity, a GEO-SSPS antenna array system tracks and delivers microwave power to …

Adolescent Victims' Experiences With Cyberbullying: A Grounded Theory Study, Melvina S. Brandau

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to construct a Grounded Theory that explains the processes involved in cyberbullying from the perspectives of those who have been victimized. A Constructivist Grounded Theory approach was used to explain the processes that occur as cyberbullying begins, unfolds, and ends, as well as to determine the methods that adolescent victims use to cope, and the context in which cyberbullying occurs.

Cyberbullying is a pervasive public health issue, affecting an estimated 10-30% of youth. Cyberbullying, though closely related to traditional physical bullying, has qualities that make it distinctive. Unlike traditional bullying, cyberbullying is relatively new …

Trash Matters: An Investigation Into The Current Waste Management And Recycling Strategies In Rural North Dakota And Foreseeable Solutions, Amy Densborn

Theses and Dissertations

Rural North Dakota is behind the times for establishing an economically and socially beneficial method for collecting recyclables from residents, and in some areas providing sustainable trash removal. As the waste stream continues to grow, so will the burdens on our landfills, our resources and our environment for generations to come. An even worse alternative to landfilling garbage is the use of burn barrels, which release dioxins into the local environment, settling on vegetation and waterways and further bio-accumulate in the food chain. Rural residents currently do not have conveniently located or affordable disposal options for household generated waste and …

The Role Of Child Characteristics, Parental Self-Efficacy, And Social Support On Parental Stress In Mothers And Fathers Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Lindsey Devries

Theses and Dissertations

Although parents of any child experience stress related to child rearing, parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are especially prone to parenting stress. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship that child characteristics (symptom severity, adaptive behavior, and problem behaviors), parental self-efficacy, and social support have on parenting stress in mothers and fathers of children with an ASD. Participants included mothers (n= 26) and fathers (n=18) of children ages 3 to 24 years in age with a diagnosis of ASD. Maternal and paternal participants completed measures of symptom severity (GARS-3; Gilliam, 2013), adaptive and problem …

The Effect Of Pulsed Flow On The Heat Transfer Coefficient Of A Vertical Tube Suspended In A Fast Fluidized Bed, Tyler Curran

Theses and Dissertations

An experimental study was conducted to determine the effects of pulsing the fluidizing air on the heat transfer of a small vertical cylindrical heater suspended along the axis of a 101.9 mm diameter fast bed. Spherical aluminum metal power with a density of 2700 kg/m3 and dp50 of 107 μm was used in this investigation. Experiments were first conducted without pulsing the air supply. Solids fractions were observed as high as .0154 with superficial velocities from 1.98 m/s to 4.04 m/s and recirculation rates up to 27.6 kg/m2 s. The maximum heat transfer observed was 74.1 W/m2 K at a …

"Mad In Craft": Action And Melancholy In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Daniel Arthur Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains two parts. First, I will present a character analysis of Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet; secondly, I will perform the role and conclude this project with a brief reflection on the experience. For the character analysis, I will examine Hamlet’s inner action and his melancholy.

The Impact Of The Group Performance And Assessment Program (Gpa Program) On Math Interest, Effort, Self-Efficacy, Peer Influence, And Performance In A University College Algebra Setting, Dewitt Lasalle Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

College algebra courses, as important as they might be to the students that take them, continue to represent some of the most difficult of the pre-major courses in the required general education environment. Various pedagogies aimed at improving student performance have been explored through educational research with results generally mixed. Using a theoretical framework of Vygotsky’s social learning theory (1962, 1978), this research compared the impact of the Group Performance and Assessment Program (GPA Program) versus the traditional lecture pedagogy on four psychosocial factors of student performance: math interest, effort, self-efficacy, and peer influence. Using a retrospective Likert-type survey, this …

Ice Fluctuations In Moraine Canyon, Antarctica Dated With Cosmogenic 26al, 10be, And 21ne, Emma Mirabelli Lord

Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge and understanding of past Antarctic ice sheet behavior is necessary to illustrate ice sheet response to our currently warming climate and the ice sheet’s contribution to global sea level change. Our knowledge of glacial fluctuations in the southern Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) is limited because few studies in this area have been done; therefore much information can be gained from further investigations in this region. Glacial deposits in Moraine Canyon, a tributary of Amundsen Glacier in the southern TAM, show numerous periods of ice thickening. Moraine Canyon responds to changes in the thickness of Amundsen Glacier, and Amundsen Glacier responds …