Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Appeal Of Documentary-Based Programming: Discerning Viewer Enjoyment Of Reality Television Thorugh Uses And Gratifications, Kristin M. Barton

Iowa Journal of Communication

This study explores how documentary-based reality shows featuring varied types of content influence the gratifications obtained (GO) by viewers. Participants completed surveys which asked about their overall consumption of reality programming and, more specifically, about their reasons for watching the documentary-based shows Jersey Shore, Deadliest Catch, and The Real Housewives series of programs. Results indicated that perceived reality of these shows and the participants who appear on them are the two primary factors in why people choose to watch this particular reality subgenre. This study concludes with an examination of the current findings within the context of previous studies in …

Building An Inclusive Workplace Culture: With Special Focus On The South African Context, Seth Naicker

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We are living in a world of ever-increasing diversity. It is diversity in general, but also diversity specific to the aspect of people. People are engaging one another across culture, language, race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, and class. In some ways, the world has become smaller. One can be sitting in South Africa, and engaging people through social media throughout the world. Facebook has made our world smaller. However, in and amongst our growing diversity there are continued social factors of prejudice, lack of human rights, and warring nations because of their differences, for example the difference of faith, and …

Recalibrating The Scales Of Municipal Court Justice In Missouri: A Dissenter’S View, Kimberly Jade Norwood

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines the inefficiencies of Missouri municipal courts that came into sharp focus following the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Norwood details and expands on her lone dissent in the Final Report of the Municipal Division Work Group—a group created by the Missouri Supreme Court to address the alleged abuses of black and poor residents in Missouri. Norwood argues for consolidating failing municipal courts to create larger, more functional, and just courts.

Calculating Heat Of Formation Values Of Energetic Compounds: A Comparative Study, Michael S. Elioff, Jordon Hoy, John A. Bumpus

Faculty Work

Heat of formation is one of several important parameters used to assess the performance of energetic compounds. We evaluated the ability of six different methods to accurately calculate gas-phase heat of formation (Δ _𝑓𝐻^𝑜 _298,g) values for a test set of 45 nitrogencontaining energetic compounds. Density functional theory coupled with the use of isodesmic or other balanced equations yielded calculated results in which 82% (37 of 45) of the Δ _𝑓𝐻^𝑜 _298,g values were within ±2.0 kcal/mol of the most recently recommended experimental/reference values available. This was compared to a procedure using density functional theory …

Ukraine And The International Criminal Court: Implications Of The Ad Hoc Jurisdiction Acceptance And Beyond, Dr. Iryna Marchuk

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Article examines an array of important legal issues that arise out of the acceptance of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court by Ukraine, a non-State Party to the Rome Statute, within the framework of Article 12(3) with respect to the alleged crimes against humanity committed during the 2014 Maydan protests (Declaration I) and the alleged war crimes committed in eastern Ukraine and Crimea (Declaration II). It provides an in-depth analysis of constitutional law issues linked to the acceptance of the jurisdiction by Ukraine and discusses its possible implications on the proceedings before the ICC. The Article criticizes the …

Response: The Icc, Pre-Existing Jurisdictional Treaty Regimes, And The Limits Of The Nemo Dat Quod Non Habet Doctrine--A Reply To Michael Newton, Carsten Stahn

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a pleasure and a privilege to provide a few reflections on Michael Newton's thought-provoking essay on "How the ICC Threatens Treaty Norms." His article marks an important piece of scholarship. It reflects significant concerns about the reach and function of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that merit further attention and explanation in ICC practice. Newton makes a provocative argument. He argues that the ICC might undermine sovereign law enforcement efforts and exceed its powers if it exercises jurisdiction over American forces in Afghanistan or Israeli offenses in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. This argument is not …

A Hybrid Algorithm Based On Optimal Quadratic Spline Collocation And Parareal Deferred Correction For Parabolic Pdes, Jun Liu, Yan Wang, Rongjian Li

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Parareal is a kind of time parallel numerical methods for time-dependent systems. In this paper, we consider a general linear parabolic PDE, use optimal quadratic spline collocation (QSC) method for the space discretization, and proceed with the parareal technique on the time domain. Meanwhile, deferred correction technique is also used to improve the accuracy during the iterations. In fact, the optimal QSC method is a correction of general QSC method. Along the temporal direction we embed the iterations of deferred correction into parareal to construct a hybrid method, parareal deferred correction (PDC) method. The error estimation is presented and the …

Impacts Of Artisanal And Large Scale Gold Mining On Tropical Rivers In West Africa: A Case Study From The Brong Ahafo Region Of Ghana, Karunia F. Macdonald

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Mining communities in more than 70 developing countries, mostly in the tropical regions, still practise artisanal and small scale gold mining (ASGM). ASGM commonly operates along rivers and streams for easy access to process water and as receptacles for mine water discharges. A largely unregulated industry, ASGM employs rudimentary mining and processing methods including the use of mercury amalgamation, and is often found near to larger scale and modern mining (LSM) operations.

The substantial use of mercury by ASGM has drawn the attention of agencies and researchers but so has its persistent economic role in providing much needed rural employment. …

An Exploratory Investigation Into The Impact Of Downsizing On Occupational Stress And Organisational Commitment, Bridget Girak

Theses : Honours

Downsizing has become an increasingly widespread organisational strategy to reduce costs in order to improve performance and remain globally competitive. However, the negative effects associated with survivor syndrome, a term used to describe a set of attitudes, feelings and perceptions that occur in employees who remain within an organisation following involuntary dismissal, continue to plague many organisations post-downsizing. Despite this prevalence of downsizing, little attention has been paid to explore the interrelationships between downsizing, occupational stress and organisational commitment of those who remain. Thus, the purpose of this research is to understand the effects of downsizing on survivors’ occupational stress …

Knocking On The Door: Examining The Practice Of Classical Singers At A Performing Arts Institution, Laura Pitts

Theses : Honours

Practice is a major part of the everyday existence of musicians at a performing arts institution, and is of particular importance for singers, who are not just learning to sing but also building their vocal instrument along the way. The purpose of this study was to examine the practice of classical singers studying at a performing arts institution, through an interpretive case study approach. Participants completed a multi-part survey which asked logistics of their singing practice, their use of practice strategies, how these strategies were acquired, and the influence of various factors related to practice. The quantitative and qualitative data …

Mitochondrial Coding Genome Analysis Of Tropical Root-Knot Nematodes (Meloidogyne) Supports Haplotype Based Diagnostics And Reveals Evidence Of Recent Reticulate Evolution, Toon Janssen, Gerrit Karssen, Myrtle Verhaeven, Danny Coyne, Wim Bert

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The polyphagous parthenogenetic root-knot nematodes of the genus Meloidogyne are considered to be the most significant nematode pest in sub-tropical and tropical agriculture. Despite the crucial need for correct diagnosis, identification of these pathogens remains problematic. The traditionally used diagnostic strategies, including morphometrics, host-range tests, biochemical and molecular techniques, now appear to be unreliable due to the recently-suggested hybrid origin of root-knot nematodes. In order to determine a suitable barcode region for these pathogens nine quickly-evolving mitochondrial coding genes were screened. Resulting haplotype networks revealed closely related lineages indicating a recent speciation, an anthropogenic-aided distribution through agricultural practices, and evidence …

Insights From Machine-Learned Diet Success Prediction, Ingmar Weber, Palakorn Achananuparp

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To support people trying to lose weight and stay healthy, more and more fitness apps have sprung up including the ability to track both calories intake and expenditure. Users of such apps are part of a wider “quantified self“ movement and many opt-in to publicly share their logged data. In this paper, we use public food diaries of more than 4,000 long-term active MyFitnessPal users to study the characteristics of a (un-)successful diet. Concretely, we train a machine learning model to predict repeatedly being over or under self-set daily calories goals and then look at which features contribute to the …

Friendship Maintenance And Prediction In Multiple Social Networks, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the proliferation of online social networks (OSNs), users find themselves participating in multiple OSNs. These users leave their activity traces as they maintain friendships and interact with other users in these OSNs. In this work, we analyze how users maintain friendship in multiple OSNs by studying users who have accounts in both Twitter and Instagram. Specifically, we study the similarity of a user's friendship and the evenness of friendship distribution in multiple OSNs. Our study shows that most users in Twitter and Instagram prefer to maintain different friendships in the two OSNs, keeping only a small clique of …

Iot+Small Data: Transforming In-Store Shopping Analytics And Services, Meera Radhakrishnan, Sougata Sen, Vigneshwaran Subbaraju, Archan Misra, Rajesh Balan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We espouse a vision of small data-based immersive retail analytics, where a combination of sensor data, from personal wearable-devices and store-deployed sensors & IoT devices, is used to create real-time, individualized services for in-store shoppers. Key challenges include (a) appropriate joint mining of sensor & wearable data to capture a shopper’s product level interactions, and (b) judicious triggering of power-hungry wearable sensors (e.g., camera) to capture only relevant portions of a shopper’s in-store activities. To explore the feasibility of our vision, we conducted experiments with 5 smartwatch-wearing users who interacted with objects placed on cupboard racks in our lab (to …

Extractability And Chemical Forms Of Radioactive Cesium In Designated Wastes Investigated In An On-Site Test, Yoko Fujikawa, Hiroaki Ozaki, Xiaming Chen, Shogo Taniguchi, Ryouhei Takanami, Aiichiro Fujinaga, Shinji Sakurai, Paul Lewtas

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In the aftermath of the 2011 accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (F1 hereafter), municipal solid waste (MSW) contaminated with radioactive cesium (rad-Cs hereafter) has been generated in 12 prefectures in Japan. The Japanese Minister of Environment classified MSW that contained rad-Cs in the concentration more than 8,000 Bq/kg as “designated (solid) waste (DSW hereafter), and prescribed the collection, storage and transportation procedures. When MSW containing rad-Cs was incinerated, rad-Cs was concentrated in fly ash, and the ash often fell into the category of DSW. We have investigated a technique that can reduce the volume of the rad-Cs-contaminated fly-ash …

Development Of Distributed Research Center For Analysis Of Regional Climatic And Environmental Changes, E. Gordov, Alexander I. Shiklomanov, I. Okladnikov, Alexander A. Prusevich, A. Titov

Faculty Publications

We present an approach and first results of a collaborative project being carried out by a joint team of researchers from the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Russia and Earth Systems Research Center UNH, USA. Its main objective is development of a hardware and software platform prototype of a Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and environmental changes in the Northern extratropical areas. The DRC should provide the specialists working in climate related sciences and decision-makers with accurate and detailed climatic characteristics for the selected area and reliable and affordable tools for …

The Unwritten Federal Arbitration Act, Anthony J. Sebok

Articles

The article examines the tension between the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and state public policy, particularly in consumer arbitration cases. It argues that while the FAA prioritizes arbitration agreements, state public policy can override such agreements when they undermine fairness or due process. The analysis focuses on the implications of ATT Mobility v. Concepcion, which upheld the enforceability of class action waivers under the FAA, and explores how state laws and policies continue to influence arbitration outcomes, especially regarding consolidation and assignment of consumer claims.

Fasten Your Seatbelts: The Use Of Checklists, Mara Berman

All Publications

No abstract provided.

2016 Affirmative Action Plan, Illinois State University

Affirmative Action Plans

Illinois State University Affirmative Action Plan

The Importance Of Including Co-Factor Information When Reporting Resting Heart Rate, John Hart

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Resting heart rate, sometimes referred to as resting pulse rate (RPR) is taken for various reasons in the various health care professions. As with many physiological tests, there are a number of basic factors that can affect RPR, such as gender and position of the patient during measurement. In most papers, these basic factors are included but in some they are not. If such information is lacking, the meaningfulness of the reported RPR is diminished. The purpose of this manuscript is to highlight the importance of including such information when reporting on RPR data.

An Investigation Of Screening For Medical Referral By Physical Therapists, Heather E. Mount, Cecilia Graham, Diane Clark, David Morris, Kathleen Foley

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Screening for medical referral is essential to physical therapist practice; however, no studies have examined medical screening across physical therapy practice settings. The purpose of this study was to determine if physical therapists in a variety of practice settings, given brief clinical vignettes, would screen for medical referral in a similar manner. The Delphi Technique was implemented to establish content validity, although only 2 vignettes reached 100% consensus by the expert panel. After reviewing the vignettes, physical therapist subjects determined if they would provide intervention, provide intervention and refer, or refer before intervention. To determine which variables were associated with …

Seasonal Differences In Density But Similar Competitive Impact Of Aedes Albopictus (Skuse) On Aedes Aegypti (L.) In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Daniel Cardoso Portela Camara, Claudia Torres Codeço, Steven A. Juliano, Philip Lounibos, Thais Irene Souza Riback, Glaucio Rocha Pereira, Nildimar Alves Honorio

Faculty Publications – Biological Sciences

Previous studies have shown that the negative effects of density of Ae. albopictus on Ae. aegypti exceed those of Ae. aegypti on Ae. albopictus for population growth, adult size, survivorship, and developmental rate. This competitive superiority has been invoked to explain the displacement of Ae. aegypti by Ae. albopictus in the southeastern USA. In Brazil, these species coexist in many vegetated suburban and rural areas. We investigated a related, but less-well-studied question: do effects of Ae. albopictus on Ae. aegypti larval development and survival occur under field conditions at realistic densities across …

Disruptive Leadership: A Grounded Theory Study Of How Three Kentucky Women Are Leading Change, Christian N. Ryan

Dissertations

In this grounded theory study, I explored the process of leadership demonstrated by three women in south central Kentucky as a unique model of leadership: disruptive leadership. These citizen leaders seek to solve wicked problems, disrupting the unacceptable status quo by offering better alternatives. The study is guided by the following research questions: (1) What does it mean to be a disruptive leader?; (2) What are the central concerns of leaders facing wicked problems?; (3) What motivates leaders to solve such problems?; (4) What strategies are employed to address such problems?; and (5) How can disruptive leadership be distinguished from …

Errors In Surgical Pathology Reports: A Study From A Major Center In Pakistan, Zubair Ahmad, Romana Idrees, Nasir Uddin, Arsalan Ahmed, Saira Fatima

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Background:
Errors in surgical pathology diagnosis can have serious consequences for the patient. Since the final product of a surgical pathology lab is the report, errors can be picked by reviewing reports of cases.AIM: To determine the frequency and types of error in surgical pathology reports of cases signed out in 2014 in a laboratory in Karachi, Pakistan.
Material and Methods:
All surgical pathology reports in which changes were made in the original report after sign out and an amended report was issued were included. Errors included: (1) misinterpretations; (2) missing critical information; (3) erroneous critical information; (4) misidentification; and …

The Law And Policy Of People Analytics, Matthew T. Bodie, Miriam A. Cherry, Marcia L. Mccormick, Jintong Tang

All Faculty Scholarship

Leading technology companies such as Google and Facebook have been experimenting with people analytics, a new data-driven approach to human resources management. People analytics is just one example of the new phenomenon of “big data,” in which analyses of huge sets of quantitative information are used to guide decisions. Applying big data to the workplace could lead to more effective outcomes, as in the Moneyball example, where the Oakland Athletics baseball franchise used statistics to assemble a winning team on a shoestring budget. Data may help firms determine which candidates to hire, how to help workers improve job performance, and …

Marital Sharing Of Transfer Tax Exemptions, Kerry A. Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article analyzes portability and its antecedents in order to distill a positive account of marital sharing oftransfer tax exemption amounts. Prior to 2010, the estate and gift tax exemption equivalent was a nontransferable, separate tax attribute of each spouse. A spouse could only access his or her spouse’s effective exemption by shifting property into the other spouse’s tax base. With the enactment of portability, Congress decoupled tax-free availability of a spouse’s unified credit from the necessity of a prior intra-spousal transfer. All that is required is an election by the decedent spouse, via the executor, to share the decedent’s …

Involuntary Consent: Conditioning Access To Health Care On Participation In Clinical Trials, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

All Faculty Scholarship

Although the controversy over the lack of consent in fetal-tissue clinical trials is relatively new, history is replete with instances of medical researchers who have conducted clinical trials with minorities and the economically disadvantaged without their consent.1 Traditionally, American bioethics has served as a safety net for the rich and powerful (for they are not forced to act as research subjects to obtain access to health care for themselves or their children) while failing to protect the vulnerable, which includes minorities and the economically disadvantaged. Without access to health care, minorities and the economically disadvantaged are unduly influenced to participate …

Missing The “Target”: Preventing The Unjust Inclusion Of Vulnerable Children For Medical Research Studies, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

All Faculty Scholarship

Nearly everyone has experienced a burn and the resulting pain. Now imagine that you suffer a third-degree radiation burn that injures all the layers of your skin as well as the tissue, causing you extreme pain. . The burn turns your skin white, cherry red, or black and may produce blisters that are dry, hard, and leathery-looking. The burn can also be seen on the surface of your lungs and gastrointestinal tract. If the burn is big enough you will need skin grafts and surgery to replace the skin and tissue that will never grow back, as well as treatment …

Importance Of State Law In Police Reform, Roger L. Goldman

All Faculty Scholarship

Most articles on police reform concern the role of federal courts in enforcing constitutional rights under the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments through application of the exclusionary rule, criminal prosecution of law enforcement officers and pattern and practice suits brought against police departments. Additionally, much has been written about the need for civilian review of departmental discipline at the local level. In contrast, the focus of this article is on state law. On the one hand, state criminal prosecution of officers involved in shootings of unarmed, Black suspects has been shown to be ineffective because of the unwillingness of prosecutors …

Public Wrongs And Public Reason, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

The distinction between crimes that involve wrongs in themselves and crimes that are wrong because the law makes them so has long puzzled theorists. This essay argues that the distinction, while getting at something real, is based on a mistake. That mistake is made both by those who see moral wrongness as a necessary condition for criminality and by those who believe merely making something illegal is sufficient to make it criminal. Neither is correct. Rather, what makes something a criminal wrong is that it involves a violation of a law that has been justified in terms of “public reason.”