Digital Commons Network^™

Web Accessibility Compliance For E-Government Websites In The Gulf Region, Muhammad Saleem

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The World Wide Web is a digital platform that helps people access and retrieve information in an accessible and equitable manner. However, people with disabilities can face a number of challenges when it comes to using the Web and accessing content on websites. According to Henry, web accessibility means “that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web” (2005, para.1). While different countries across the globe tackle issues of equitable access to the web via …

Uncovering The Unpublished Chamber Music Of George Frederick Boyle Volume I: Dissertation, Ryan Davies

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This dissertation examines the chamber works for piano and strings by Australian--‐born American composer, pianist, and teacher, George Frederick Boyle (1886–1948). Boyle was somewhat of a prodigy in his younger years and contributed much to Australia’s burgeoning concert scene. In 1905 he left Australia to study with Ferruccio Busoni, and from 1910 until his death he lived and worked in the United States, where he was on the faculty of some of the most prestigious music schools. Despite Boyle's eminence as a pianist, composer and educator, today he is almost forgotten. This dissertation offers a reappraisal of George Boyle through …

Creativity And Illness: An Anecdotal Exploration Of A Writing Practice; Coming Undone: A Collection Of Poems & A Thesis As An Anecdotal Exploration Of A Writing Practice, Matthew Patrick Roberts

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis combines both creative and critical writing in an exploration of creativity and illness. When I began my candidature, I started writing a novel but found with the diagnosis of chronic illness I could no longer write narrative and was irresistibly drawn to poetry.

The collection of poems was written during the period immediately following the diagnosis of, and during my subsequently living with, a chronic autoimmune illness, and is an expression of the lived experience of both being ill and being a writer. The poems have been separated into three chronological parts, each reflective of the emotional changes …

Robust Information Cascade With Endogenous Ordering, Yi Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyze a sequential decision model with endogenous ordering in which decision makers are allowed to choose the time of acting (exercising a risky investment option) or waiting. We show the existence of a unique symmetric equilibrium and characterize information cascade under endogenous ordering. Further, if there are two or more risky investment options, individuals tend to wait longer with competition. Hence, we could end up with a dilemma: more options might be worse.

Meritocracy Voting: Measuring The Unmeasurable, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Learned societies commonly carry out selection processes to add new fellows to an existing fellowship. Criteria vary across societies but are typically based on subjective judgments concerning the merit of individuals who are nominated for fellowships. These subjective assessments may be made by existing fellows as they vote in elections to determine the new fellows or they may be decided by a selection committee of fellows and officers of the society who determine merit after reviewing nominations and written assessments. Human judgment inevitably plays a central role in these determinations and, notwithstanding its limitations, is usually regarded as being a …

Shrinkage Estimation Of Dynamic Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects, Xun Lu, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider the problem of determining the number of factors and selecting the proper regressors in linear dynamic panel data models with interactive fixed effects. Based on the preliminary estimates of the slope parameters and factors a la Bai (2009) and Moon and Weidner (2015), we propose a method for simultaneous selection of regressors and factors and estimation through the method of adaptive group Lasso (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator). We show that with probability approaching one, our method can correctly select all relevant regressors and factors and shrink the coefficients of irrelevant regressors and redundant factors to zero. …

Hot Property In New Zealand: Empirical Evidence Of Housing Bubbles In The Metropolitan Centres, Ryan Greenaway-Mcgrevy, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using recently developed statistical methods for testing and dating exuberant behaviour in asset prices we document evidence of episodic bubbles in the New Zealand property market over the past two decades. The results show clear evidence of a broad-based New Zealand housing bubble that began in 2003 and collapsed over mid-2007 to early 2008 with the onset of the worldwide recession and the financial crisis. New methods of analysing market contagion are also developed and are used to examine spillovers from the Auckland property market to the other metropolitan centres. Evidence from the latest data reveals that the greater Auckland …

The Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers In Singapore: Four Challenges, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In 2012, Singapore amended its Misuse of Drugs to give courts hearing capital drug trafficking cases the discretion to replace the default death penalty with life imprisonment and caning, provided that the accused person can show that he was merely a drug courier and the prosecution certifies that he had substantively assisted the authorities in disrupting drug trafficking activities. The Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal have since made important pronouncements on the 2012 amendments, but several challenges remain: first, whether the privilege against self-incrimination has been further eroded; secondly, whether an accused person can invoke the statutory relief …

Semiparametric Estimation Of Partially Linear Dynamic Panel Data Models With Fixed Effects, Liangjun Su, Yonghui Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we study a partially linear dynamic panel data model with fixed effects, where either exogenous or endogenous variables or both enter the linear part, and the lagged-dependent variable together with some other exogenous variables enter the nonparametric part. Two types of estimation methods are proposed for the first-differenced model. One is composed of a semiparametric GMM estimator for the finite-dimensional parameter θ and a local polynomial estimator for the infinite-dimensional parameter m based on the empirical solutions to Fredholm integral equations of the second kind, and the other is a sieve IV estimate of the parametric and …

Alfred D. Gilchrist Architectural Drawings - Accession 1103, Allfred D. Gilchrist

Manuscript Collection

The collection consists of architectural drawings and other related items of Alfred D. Gilchrist (1873-1944). Gilchrist predominately operated in South Carolina and North Carolina from 1913 to 1940. He started working in Rock Hill, SC as the manager of the Rock Hill office of Hook and Rogers, Architects in 1913 and by 1920, he opened his own office in Rock Hill which he maintained through 1940.

The drawings consist of homes, public buildings (i.e. schools, city government buildings, etc.), and private businesses that were mainly located in York County (SC) and Chester County (SC). Some of Mr. Gilchrist’s architectural …

The Ten Tribes Of Wier In America - Accession 715 No. 6, Family History - Wier Family, William Swansea Wier

Manuscript Collection

The Ten Tribes of Wier in America was compiled and printed by William Swansea Wier in Atlanta, Georgia in 1933. The book covers the family and descendants of Thomas and Mary Withrow Wier from the 1700s through 1933. They eventually settled in Greenwood, S.C. There are handwritten notes in the book presumably added by the author. Other surnames found in the volume include: Blake, Britt, Dunbar, Gregg, Peden, McDill, McDowell, Mull, and Scott. The book includes photographs and a folding generational chart. Please see the attached document.

Shaw Land Surveying Inc. Records - Accession 988, Shaw Land Surveying Inc.

Manuscript Collection

The Shaw Land Surveying, Inc. Records consist of the survey plats and field books pertaining to David Shaw and to Shaw Land Surveying, Inc. Shaw earned his professional surveying license in 1994 and operated his surveying business from 1994 until his death on November 5, 1998. The surveys are arranged in alphabetical order by the client requesting survey, how originally organized by David Shaw, and not necessarily the property owner, however, property owners of individual plats are cross-referenced in Appendix/Index I. There are often several surveys per job and many were performed by other surveyors, which are cross-referenced by the …

Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture Photograph Collection - Accession 1543, Brookgreen Gardens

Manuscript Collection

This collection consists of an artificially bounded book of 76 photographs taken of 74 sculptures at Brookgreen Gardens around the 1940s, possibly as early as the 1930s. Brookgreen Gardens is located in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and was established as a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve. The bound volume of photographs was given to Carnegie Library at Winthrop College in January of 1951.

Mccrory's Five And Dime Store Records - Accession 1467, Mccrory's Five And Dime Store Records

Manuscript Collection

This collection contains correspondence, titles, and leases concerning James S. White Jr. and McCrory’s Dime Store, as well as, blueprints, newspaper clippings, and a McCrory’s Store inventory. McCrory’s Dime Store was located on Main Street in Rock Hill, South Carolina in a building built in 1901. McCrory’s operated from 1937 through 1997 and from 1960-1961 was the site of several “sit-in” protests by black students from nearby Friendship Jr. College.

Re-Conceptualising Graduate Employability: The Importance Of Pre-Professional Identity, Denise Jackson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Despite efforts to broaden the concept of graduate employability, there remains an overarching focus on developing industry-relevant employability skills. The skills-based approach is, however, too narrow and does not fully capture the complexity of graduate work-readiness. This paper argues for the redefining of graduate employability by embracing pre-professional identity (PPI) formation. PPI relates to an understanding of and connection with the skills, qualities, conduct, culture and ideology of a student's intended profession. The ‘communities of practice’ model is drawn upon to demonstrate how PPI can be developed during university years. Here, a student makes sense of his/her intended profession through …

'Face' And Psychological Processes Of Laid-Off Workers In Transitional China, Bingxin Wang, Kenneth M. Greenwood

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Objective:

The objective was to explore the psychological experiences of laid-off workers in contemporary transitional China and to formulate a theoretical model of these.

Methods:

In-depth interviews of 26 laid-off workers were conducted and analysed using grounded theory techniques.

Results:

Four themes underline the psychological processes of these laid-off workers - feeling of loss, feeling of physical pain, feeling of fatalism, and final acceptance. These are characterized by Chinese culture and its philosophy - feeling of loss is dominated by their loss of face (diu mianzi), physical pain is a somatization of their mental painfulness, their fatalism is traced back …

Goal Fluency, Pessimism And Disengagement In Depression, Joanne M. Dickson, Nicholas Moberly, Christian O'Dea, Matt Field

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Despite the development of prominent theoretical models of goal motivation and its importance in daily life, research has rarely examined goal dysregulation processes in clinical depression. Here we aimed to investigate problematic aspects of goal regulation in clinically depressed adults, relative to controls. Depressed participants (n = 42) were recruited from two Improving Access to Psychological Therapy clinics in north-west England. Control participants (n = 51) were recruited from the same region. Participants generated personal approach goals (e.g., improve my marathon time) and avoidance goals (e.g., avoid getting upset over little things) and completed self-report measures of goal attainment likelihood …

Building Online Community On Snac: A Netnographic Study Of The Early Years Sector, Ruth Wallace, Leesa Costello, Amanda Devine

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

‘‘Build it and they will come,’’ an adage critiqued as a common misconception of participatory engagement with online communities. Previous research indicated that a netnographic approach based upon researcher– participant engagement would provide the best opportunity to build and sustain a successful support community [...].

The Uyghur Population And Genetic Susceptibility To Type 2 Diabetes: Potential Role For Variants In Capn10, Apm1 And Fut6 Genes, Feifei Zhao, Dolikun Mamatyusupu, Youxin Wang, Honghong Fang, Hao Wang, Qing Gao, Hao Dong, Siqi Ge, Xinwei Yu, Jie Zhang, Lijuan Wu, Manshu Song, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Genome-wide association studies have successfully identified over 70 loci associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in multiple populations of European ancestry. However, the risk attributable to an individual variant is modest and does not yet provide convincing evidence for clinical utility. Association between these established genetic variants and T2DM in general populations is hitherto understudied in the isolated populations, such as the Uyghurs, resident in Hetian, far southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. In this case–control study, we genotyped 13 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 10 genes associated with diabetes in 130 cases with T2DM and 135 …

Drug Therapy For Obesity With Anti-Aging Genes Modification, Ian J. Martins

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Nutritional regulation and drug therapy has been the focus of the current obesity epidemic in various countries in the world. Epigenetics is the major mechanism for the development of insulin resistance and obesity with unhealthy diets, oxidative stress and environmental factors relevant to alterations in gene expression with effects on mitochondrial biogenesis, adipose tissue lipid metabolism and energy expenditure. Anti-aging genes are involved in the regulation of adipogenesis with increased sensitivity to anti-aging gene dysfunction associated with adipocyte-neuron interactions compared to other cells. Unhealthy diets downregulate adipocyte anti-aging genes associated with the development of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) …

The Many Transformations Of Albert Facey, Ffion M. Murphy, Richard Nile

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In the last months of his life, 86-year-old Albert Facey became a best-selling author and revered cultural figure following the publication of his autobiography, A Fortunate Life. Released on Anzac Day 1981, it was praised for its “plain, unembellished, utterly sincere and un-self-pitying account of the privations of childhood and youth [...].

First Year Business Students' Perceptions Of Academic Support Through Embedding. A Practice Report, Carmela De Maio, Anibeth Desierto

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper explores the perceptions of first year Business students to embedding sessions and additional support workshops offered through a collaboration between learning advisors and lecturers in a first year foundational unit. Through a social constructivist lens and utilising action research methods, questionnaires (n = 42) were administered to two cohorts of students at the conclusion of the unit in 2011 and 2012 to explore firstly, whether or not they perceived the embedding sessions to be of benefit and, secondly, whether having the learning advisor in the class made them more likely to utilise additional support outside class time. In …

Climate Change And Malaria Control: The Importance Of Mitigation And A Call To Action, Emmanuel O. Adewuyi, Kazeem Adefemi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Malaria has remained an important target for global disease control efforts for decades. The streams of funds and, consequently, availability of effective interventions for the disease have resulted in considerable reduction in its burden, globally. Despite the relative success of such global efforts, malaria remains a significant threat in over a hundred countries, worldwide, leading to about one million deaths and hundreds of millions of hospital visits, annually. Many researchers and health commentators have argued that global warming, a consequence of climate change, could be linked – directly or indirectly – to the persistence as well as the re-emergence of …

Population Dynamics And Management Implications For American White Pelicans (Pelecanus Erythrorhynchos) Breeding At Marsh Lake, Lac Qui Parle Wildlife Management Area, Minnesota, Jon J. Dimatteo

Biological Sciences

The American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) is a prominent breeding bird in Minnesota, but little information has been available on their production, population dynamics, growth and development, or demographic characteristics. I examined life-history traits of American white pelicans nesting colonially at Marsh Lake, Lac qui Parle Wildlife Management Area, Minnesota. Marsh Lake is an impounded river floodplain lake on the Upper Minnesota River that holds the largest American white pelican breeding colony in Minnesota (and one of the largest American white pelican breeding colonies in North America). An analysis of colony population levels and spring streamflow data indicated that more …

Blurred Lines: Privacy Management, Family Relationships, And Facebook, Joshua H. Miller, Carly Danielson, Erin Sahlstein Parcell, Kristine Nicolini, Theresa Boucher

Iowa Journal of Communication

Social media has enhanced and complicated family communication dynamics. For example, while Facebook gives many family members a space for connection, "friending" a family member on Facebook, or choosing not to do so, can make privacy management challenging and may serve as a potential source of conflict within the family. Such dynamics inspired the authors to ask college students how Facebook use has negatively influenced their family relationships and communication. Sensitized by Petronio's (2002) Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory, we qualitatively analyzed online survey responses (n = 80) and identified four themes in our participants' family experiences with conflicts related …

Annual Report Of The Registrar 2015/2016, University Of Northern Iowa

Institutional Effectiveness & Planning Documents

Contents:

--- Definitions
--- Some Comparisons
--- Annual Report Data
--- Summary of Attendance
--- Attendance by Session
--- Degrees Granted 2015/16
--- Degree Summary 2015/16
--- Program Certificates 2015/16
--- Miscellaneous Enrollment Information
--- Degrees Granted by College, Degree and Racial/Ethnic Classification

Justice By Proxy: Combatting Forced Labor In The Greater Mekong Subregion By Holding U.S. Corporations Liable, Sasha Beatty

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Human trafficking in Southeast Asia is still a thriving and lucrative industry. Despite these blatant human rights violations, international and local laws have struggled to keep ahead of the rapidly growing human trafficking industry. The result is a legal system that cannot effectively combat human trafficking in this region. This Note highlights the United States' significant financial contribution to the growth of this slavery industry, particularly in the purchase of significant quantities of goods produced by forced labor in this region. This Note argues that a way to expedite change in this region should be from external, foreign law targeting …

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.

What Does The Research Say About Standards-Based Grading? A Research Primer, Matt Townsley, Tom Buckmiller

Faculty Publications

Traditional grading practices have been used for over one hundred years, and to date, there have been no meaningful research reports to support it. As such, some schools are transitioning to standards-based grading, a practice based upon several evidence-based principles. The purpose of this research primer is to provide an overview of the research literature on standards-based grading.

The International Reach Of Criminal Copyright Infringement Laws, Sara K. Morgan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Piracy and illegal downloading in the Internet age have been on the forefront of the intellectual property community's mind since the early 2000s. Websites such as The Pirate Bay are often labeled as being leaders in copyright infringement, giving users the ability to illegally download thousands of files. However, there are both jurisdictional and extradition issues with prosecuting the founders of these websites, because The Pirate Bay and many others like it are often based in other countries. Recently, the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act have stirred up controversy, with many alleging that their international reach went …