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2017

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Data Classification For L-Diversity, Koray Mancuhan Dec 2017

Data Classification For L-Diversity, Koray Mancuhan

Open Access Dissertations

Corporations are retaining ever-larger corpuses of personal data; the frequency of breaches and corresponding privacy impact has been rising accordingly. One way to mitigate this risk is through use of anonymized data, limiting the exposure of individual data to only where it is absolutely needed. This would seem particularly appropriate for data mining, where the goal is generalizable knowledge rather than data on specific individuals. In practice, corporate data miners often insist on original data, for fear that they might miss something with anonymized or differentially private approaches. This dissertation provides both empirical and theoretical justifications for the use of …

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An Investigation Of The Neural Circuitry Of Cued Alcohol Behaviors In P And Wistar Rats., Aqilah Maryam Mccane Dec 2017

An Investigation Of The Neural Circuitry Of Cued Alcohol Behaviors In P And Wistar Rats., Aqilah Maryam Mccane

Open Access Dissertations

Alcohol-paired cues invigorate alcohol-seeking and drinking behaviors in both rodents and individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Additionally, genetic susceptibility plays a key role in alcohol addiction behaviors. Alcohol preferring (P) rats model both genetic vulnerability and symptoms of AUD. The basolateral amygdala (BLA), prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus (HC) and nucleus accumbens (NA) are important brain regions involved in cued alcohol seeking. These regions are interconnected and their functional connections are hypothesized to be critical in the expression of motivated behaviors. Electrophysiological recordings in these four regions were collected in P rats engaged in a cued alcohol task. Data were …

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Energy Reduction Techniques To Increase Battery Life For Electronic Sensor Nodes, John K. Lynch Dec 2017

Energy Reduction Techniques To Increase Battery Life For Electronic Sensor Nodes, John K. Lynch

Open Access Dissertations

Preserving battery life in duty-cycled sensor nodes requires minimizing energy use in the active region. Lowering the power supply of CMOS gates down into sub-threshold mode is a good way to decrease energy. In this work, a unique technique to control the current in CMOS gates to reliably operate them in sub-threshold mode is described. Compared to the current state-of-theart for running digital gates in the sub-threshold regime, this work is often superior in its lack of complexity and in reduced variance in delay caused by process variations. In addition to presenting the design considerations, a demonstration of a complete …

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Radical Manifest Destiny: Mapping Power Over Urban Green Space In The Age Of Protest, 1968-1988, Kera N. Lovell Dec 2017

Radical Manifest Destiny: Mapping Power Over Urban Green Space In The Age Of Protest, 1968-1988, Kera N. Lovell

Open Access Dissertations

My dissertation traces how conflicts concerning power over green space in the urban realm sparked a pattern of insurgent park creation as a form of political placemaking in the late Cold War era. While urban and environmental historians and spatial studies scholars have illuminated how cities became the context of political disputes over power and space in the twentieth century, my work sheds light on radical, community-driven environmental design as a method of protest between the late 1960s and late 1980s. While focused on a handful of central case studies across the U.S., my work situates them within a disconnected …

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Teachers' Perceptions Of The Impact Of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy On The Student Learning Outcomes Of African American Male Students., Dennisha M. Murff Dec 2017

Teachers' Perceptions Of The Impact Of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy On The Student Learning Outcomes Of African American Male Students., Dennisha M. Murff

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of the impact of implementing culturally responsive pedagogical practices on the student learning outcomes of African-American male students. The secondary purpose was to identify teachers’ perceptions of the culturally responsive pedagogy strategies needed in the classroom to address the diverse needs of African-American male students. The case study approach allowed for additional insight into the potential impact of culturally responsive pedagogical practices on the student learning outcomes of African-American male students in the elementary school setting. Data were collected from a large, diverse elementary school in an urban school …

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Investigation Of Pore Formation In Lipid Bilayer By Antimicrobial Peptides, Yuan Lyu Dec 2017

Investigation Of Pore Formation In Lipid Bilayer By Antimicrobial Peptides, Yuan Lyu

Open Access Dissertations

As more and more microbes develop resistance to conventional antibiotics and the decline in the approval of new antibiotics in recent years, there is an increasing need for research on identification and design of new therapeutic alternatives. As a result, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are becoming one of the most promising alternative options to target pathogens without developing resistance. It is known that AMPs inactivate microorganisms by forming transmembrane pores in cell membrane through adsorption and aggregation. Understanding the detailed mechanism of inactivation by AMPs is necessary for developing new agent for antimicrobial treatment. This study mainly investigates antimicrobial peptides from …

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It Was A Time Of Confusion: Managing Uncertainty In A New, Competency-Based Polytechnic Program, Kurtis D. Miller Dec 2017

It Was A Time Of Confusion: Managing Uncertainty In A New, Competency-Based Polytechnic Program, Kurtis D. Miller

Open Access Dissertations

Higher education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faces a number of challenges. There are many calls for STEM education to make significant changes moving forward, including calls for competency-based learning and greater integration of the humanities. These efforts require systemic change (Reigeluth & Garfinkle, 1994). Systemic change has significant impacts on students, teachers, and other organizational stakeholders. The challenges of systemic change create significant uncertainty and experiences of uncertainty can interact in a number of ways. Communication as a field is well positioned to speak to how many of these challenges can be avoided and/or avoided. Communication theories …

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Erp System Post-Implementation Success Factors In A Higher Education Institution., Lin Qian Dec 2017

Erp System Post-Implementation Success Factors In A Higher Education Institution., Lin Qian

Open Access Dissertations

ERP systems have been implemented in many industries and institutions, and widely researched. However, it has been observed that many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) fail to achieve their expectations following ERP implementation, yet they move to the post-implementation phase in spite of the system’s issues. This study aimed to provide the fundamentals of an assessment framework by examining the relationship of critical success factors leading the ERP system’s success at the post-implementation phase in HEI. Through a review of previous literature, nine potential factors were applied to the existing measurement model developed in prior related studies. The nine factors are: …

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Active Learning For Designing Detectors For Infrequently Occurring Objects In Wide-Area Satellite Imagery, Tanmay Prakash Dec 2017

Active Learning For Designing Detectors For Infrequently Occurring Objects In Wide-Area Satellite Imagery, Tanmay Prakash

Open Access Dissertations

For designing detectors for infrequently occurring objects in wide-area satellite imagery, we are faced with the challenge that such objects are difficult to find for the purpose of generating the needed training data. As a result, a human agent must expend an inordinate length of time in order to produce a sufficient number of labeled training data. In this dissertation, we reduce this annotation burden by drawing upon the research that has been carried out recently in the area of active learning, whereby the machine searches for human annotation those unlabeled samples that can actually improve the detector. The search …

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Laser-Assisted Processing Of Multilayer Films For Inexpensive And Flexible Biomedical Microsystems, Rahim Rahimi Dec 2017

Laser-Assisted Processing Of Multilayer Films For Inexpensive And Flexible Biomedical Microsystems, Rahim Rahimi

Open Access Dissertations

Flexible/stretchable electronics offer ideal properties for emerging health monitoring devices that can seamlessly integrate with the soft, curvilinear, and dynamic surfaces of the human body. The resulting capabilities have allowed novel devices for monitoring physiological parameters, improving surgical procedures, and human-machine interfaces. While the attractiveness of these devices are indubitable, their fabrication by conventional cleanroom techniques makes them expensive and incompatible with rapid large-scale (e.g., roll-to-roll) production. The purpose of this research is to develop inexpensive fabrication technologies using low-cost commercial films such as polyimide, paper, and metalized paper that can be utilized for developing various flexible/stretchable physical and chemical …

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A Closer Look: How Middle School Principals' Perceptions About Teacher Mindset Impact Instructional Coaching, Jayson P. Snyder Dec 2017

A Closer Look: How Middle School Principals' Perceptions About Teacher Mindset Impact Instructional Coaching, Jayson P. Snyder

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how a middle school principal’s perception about a teacher’s mindset affects how he provides that teacher with coaching and feedback as an instructional leader. The research took an in-depth look at two middle school principals with experience as teacher evaluators and instructional leaders. The theoretical framework for this qualitative study was phenomenology. All data came from interviews conducted with middle school principals. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and confirmed prior to individual and team coding and data analysis. The study was designed to shed light on how a middle school principal’s …

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Prone To Drone: Unmanned Aircraft Systems' Effects On Public Support For The Use Of Military Force, William Shelby Dec 2017

Prone To Drone: Unmanned Aircraft Systems' Effects On Public Support For The Use Of Military Force, William Shelby

Open Access Dissertations

Unmanned aircraft systems (drones) have seen widespread use by the United States in the “War on Terror.” Drones keep soldiers out of harm’s way and they reduce the financial cost of military operations, all while maintaining high levels of precision like regular soldiers. Because they provide the benefits of using force without the risks, drones could make the public more willing to support the use of force. If true, the public may be more prone to support using force rather than seek out other alternatives to solve a foreign policy crisis because they perceive less risk involved in using force. …

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Generalized Plot Matrices, Automatic Cognostics, And Efficient Data Exploration, Barret Schloerke Dec 2017

Generalized Plot Matrices, Automatic Cognostics, And Efficient Data Exploration, Barret Schloerke

Open Access Dissertations

Statistical visualization of large-scale data has become an increasingly essential task in the era of big data. In particular, exploratory data analysis and visualization is the first step towards any in-depth statistical modeling and analysis. Being able to rapidly specify and generate visualizations regardless of data-scale is crucial. Trellis-cope handles data visualization at scale by attaching cognostics (univariate metrics) to each panel aiding in the organization of panels of interest. While Trelliscope provides a general framework for visualizing data at scale, there are several aspects that can be improved to help users generate displays more rapidly (such as cognostics, axis …

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A Closer Look: How High School Principals' Perceptions About Teacher Mindset Impact Instructional Coaching, Heather T. Short Dec 2017

A Closer Look: How High School Principals' Perceptions About Teacher Mindset Impact Instructional Coaching, Heather T. Short

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how high school principals’ perceptions about the teacher mindset affects how principals provide teachers with coaching and feedback. The research was conducted using the theoretical framework of phenomenology. Data was derived from interviews with two high school principals who have extensive experience in teacher evaluations and coaching. These interviews were recorded, transcribed, and confirmed prior to the coding process and data analysis. The study found a link between principals’ perceptions of teacher mindset and the coaching that ensued. This study pointed to that when principals’ perception increases, coaching effectiveness can increase. …

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Scalable Redundant Proxy Execution For Low-Latency Web Over Cellular Networks, Ashiwan Sivakumar Dec 2017

Scalable Redundant Proxy Execution For Low-Latency Web Over Cellular Networks, Ashiwan Sivakumar

Open Access Dissertations

Web application latency is critical because faster Web sites attract more visitors and it has direct impact on the revenue of many businesses. Further, due to the dramatic upsurge of cellular users it has become imperative for service providers to improve the Quality of Experience of applications. However, Web downloads over cellular networks are 6X slower than that in wired networks. This is because modern Web pages are complex with lots of small objects fetched from many domains. Furthermore, today’s Web page load process is ill-suited for cellular networks resulting in a lot of HTTP request-response interactions in the high …

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Capturing Csr Words And Csr Actions: The Constructive And Constitutive Potential Of Employee Communication In Corporate Social Responsibility, Neva Štumberger Dec 2017

Capturing Csr Words And Csr Actions: The Constructive And Constitutive Potential Of Employee Communication In Corporate Social Responsibility, Neva Štumberger

Open Access Dissertations

Employees have been often overlooked in corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature (Aguilera, Rupp, Williams, & Ganapathi, 2007; May, 2011) despite being regarded as one of the most critical voices that constitute what an organization is and what it does (Morsing & Schultz, 2006; Tompkins, 1987). In particular, there is relatively little research about how employees, as one of the primary stakeholders (Freeman, Jeffrey, & Wicks, 2007), make sense of CSR in their everyday talk, and how such talk informs and shapes the very meanings of organizational CSR (May, 2011). Furthermore, despite the fact that in recent years interest in constructive …

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Using Gifted Student Perceptions Of Motivational Techniques To Inform Teacher Reflection, Kristen K. Seward Dec 2017

Using Gifted Student Perceptions Of Motivational Techniques To Inform Teacher Reflection, Kristen K. Seward

Open Access Dissertations

This mixed methods research investigated the relationship between student and teacher perceptions of five motivational components of instruction—appeal, challenge, choice, meaningfulness, and academic self-efficacy—and how teachers’ knowledge of their students’ perceptions informed their reflection on the quality of instruction. The Student Perceptions of Classroom Quality (SPOCQ; Gentry & Owen, 2004) and Teacher Perceptions of Classroom Quality (T-POCQ; Seward, 2016) survey results of students with gifts and talents (n = 306 for a total of 518 administrations of the SPOCQ) and teachers (n = 23 for a total of 39 administrations of the T-POCQ) who participated in a summer academic enrichment …

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Two Mathematics Teachers' Personal Practical Knowledge: Experiences Making Curriculum Within The 3d Inquiry Space, Elizabeth Suazo Flores Dec 2017

Two Mathematics Teachers' Personal Practical Knowledge: Experiences Making Curriculum Within The 3d Inquiry Space, Elizabeth Suazo Flores

Open Access Dissertations

This study is an effort to expand conceptualizations of mathematics teachers’ knowledge where teachers’ experiences are considered an important source of their knowledge. Using Schwab’s (1969, 1983) concept of curriculum and Dewey’s (1938) theory of experience as theoretical lenses, the researcher, a former secondary mathematics teacher, explored an eighth-grade mathematics teacher’s personal practical knowledge ([PPK], Elbaz, 1981, 1983). The mathematics aspect of this study was the emerging concept of area as students worked on a lesson involving real-world context. Field and research texts were constructed through narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). This study illustrates how under a four-year collaboration: …

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An Assessment Of The Subseasonal Predictability Of Severe Thunderstorm Title Environments And Activity Using The Climate Forecast System Version 2, Adam J. Stepanek Dec 2017

An Assessment Of The Subseasonal Predictability Of Severe Thunderstorm Title Environments And Activity Using The Climate Forecast System Version 2, Adam J. Stepanek

Open Access Dissertations

The prospect for skillful long-term predictions of atmospheric conditions known to directly contribute to the onset and maintenance of severe convective storms remains unclear. A thorough assessment of the capability for a global climate model such as the Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) to skillfully represent parameters related to severe weather has the potential to significantly improve medium- to longrange outlooks vital to risk managers. Environmental convective available potential energy (CAPE) and deep-layer vertical wind shear (DLS) can be used to distinguish an atmosphere conducive to severe storms from one supportive of primarily nonsevere ordinary convection. As such, this …

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Computational And Theoretical Study Of The Physical Constraints On Chemotaxis, Julien Varennes Dec 2017

Computational And Theoretical Study Of The Physical Constraints On Chemotaxis, Julien Varennes

Open Access Dissertations

Cell chemotaxis is crucial to many biological functions including development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. Chemotaxis is the process in which cells migrate in response to chemical concentration gradients. Recent experiments show that cells are capable of detecting shallow gradients as small as a 1% concentration difference, and multicellular groups can improve on this by an additional order of magnitude. Examples from morphogenesis and metastasis demonstrate collective response to gradients equivalent to a 1 molecule difference in concentration across a cell body. While the physical constraints to cell gradient sensing are well understood, how the sensory information leads to cell …

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Roles Of Time Perception And Expected Action Effects In Selecting Delayed Outcomes From Description And Experience, Aiping Xiong Dec 2017

Roles Of Time Perception And Expected Action Effects In Selecting Delayed Outcomes From Description And Experience, Aiping Xiong

Open Access Dissertations

In everyday life, many action outcomes and the information associated with them (e.g., the receiving time or probability) can be learned through description or experience. Experimental studies of choice behavior document distinct, and sometimes contradictory, deviations from maximization. For example, when people make decisions from described probabilities, they tend to overweight rare events. In contrast, when people make decisions from experienced outcomes, they tend to exhibit the opposite bias. People’s experience is always sequential and extended in time, whereas one-shot descriptions are not. Typically, the chance of something happening relies on individuals’ sampling from the past experience, indicating a probabilistic …

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Narrative Inquiry Into Understanding Chinese Teachers' Lived Experiences: Interculturalism, Intercultural Education, And Teacher Identity Development, Qing Wang Dec 2017

Narrative Inquiry Into Understanding Chinese Teachers' Lived Experiences: Interculturalism, Intercultural Education, And Teacher Identity Development, Qing Wang

Open Access Dissertations

Globalization brings the trend that intercultural teacher recruitment and migration become more prominent, and teaching internationally is a worldwide phenomenon. My research is aimed at examining Chinese intercultural teachers’ lived experiences and identity development from a theoretical perspective of interculturalism. I employed narrative inquiry as the research methodology to explore the experiences of five Chinese teachers who have teaching experiences in China and in the U.S. To understand the Chinese teachers’ lived experiences and to explore their identity development, I examined the personal disposition and social contexts in which these teachers lived and worked, teaching practices in different cultures, and …

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Layout Evaluation By Simulation Protocol For Identifying Potential Inefficiencies Created By Medical Building Configuration, Timothy Brian Mcclure Dec 2017

Layout Evaluation By Simulation Protocol For Identifying Potential Inefficiencies Created By Medical Building Configuration, Timothy Brian Mcclure

Open Access Dissertations

With the healthcare industry in a state of change, one focus is on efficiency in the healthcare environment. The trend for architects is a focus on an evidence-based design decision making process. In this context, simulation is gaining acceptance as a source of evidence. This research developed the Layout Evaluation by Simulation (LES) protocol to evaluate the design of a healthcare facility layout. The approach contains a Systems-of-Systems analysis for developing a healthcare delivery (HD) model, a computer model and simulation of an existing medical facility validated by existing data. Then simulations are run through the validated model inserting the …

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A New Transduction Mechanism For Detecting Biological Radiation Damage Using Metabolic Response Of Yeast As A Surrogate Marker, Chang Keun Yoon Dec 2017

A New Transduction Mechanism For Detecting Biological Radiation Damage Using Metabolic Response Of Yeast As A Surrogate Marker, Chang Keun Yoon

Open Access Dissertations

Radiation was a serendipitous discovery in the late 19th century and since then has been an effective tool utilized in many different fields such as energy, weaponry, medical diagnosis/treatment, food sterilization, and archaeological. As its demand increased in multiple areas, it became necessary to control it more precisely and cautiously, and so began the accelerated development of radiation detectors. Such radiation sensors (or dosimeters) have existed since the beginning of the 20th century in various forms. Most radiation dosimeters in use today are targeted for healthcare and industrial workers who work around high levels of radiation (e.g., hospital personnel and …

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Towards Name Disambiguation: Relational, Streaming, And Privacy-Preserving Text Data, Baichuan Zhang Dec 2017

Towards Name Disambiguation: Relational, Streaming, And Privacy-Preserving Text Data, Baichuan Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

In the real world, our DNA is unique but many people share names. This phenomenon often causes erroneous aggregation of documents of multiple persons who are namesakes of one another. Such mistakes deteriorate the performance of document retrieval, web search, and more seriously, cause improper attribution of credit or blame in digital forensics. To resolve this issue, the name disambiguation task 1 is designed to partition the documents associated with a name reference such that each partition contains documents pertaining to a unique real-life person. Existing algorithms for this task mainly suffer from the following drawbacks. First, the majority of …

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Designing Hand-Driven Input With Novel Sensing Techniques For Natural Interactions In Tangible And Soft Interfaces, Sang Ho Yoon Dec 2017

Designing Hand-Driven Input With Novel Sensing Techniques For Natural Interactions In Tangible And Soft Interfaces, Sang Ho Yoon

Open Access Dissertations

The advancements in electrical components and computing power have introduced new types of sensing capabilities and interfaces. To support upcoming interfaces like augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), previous studies suggested on utilizing natural correspondences like human motions and natural behaviors [1]. However, conventional input methods still rely on utilizing built-in motion and touch sensors. Although these approaches are offered in effective and efficient manner, they do not fully accommodate human’s natural motions and behaviors as a meaningful input metaphor. Introducing new sensing techniques that are capable of understanding human motions and behaviors will become essential in supporting emerging interfaces. Recent works have …

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The Regulation Of Calcium Oscillations In Porcine Eggs At Fertilization, Lu Zhang Dec 2017

The Regulation Of Calcium Oscillations In Porcine Eggs At Fertilization, Lu Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

As the most abundant mineral in organisms, ionized calcium (Ca2+) plays a crucial role in cellular signaling, regulating a great number of physiological activities. In this study, the Ca2+ entry mechanism that sustains the long-lasting Ca2+ oscillations in fertilized pig eggs was investigated. Porcine eggs matured in vitro were used for the experiments. In some eggs, the intracellular Ca2+ stores were depleted using cyclopiazonic acid (CPA, a SERCA pump blocker), others were inseminated with boar spermatozoa. To identify the mechanism that mediates the Ca2+ influx, various inhibitors of store-operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE) were used. We found that the inhibitors blocked …

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Formative Research On An Instructional Design Theory For Fostering Self-Efficacy Through Gamification, Stacey Zurek Dec 2017

Formative Research On An Instructional Design Theory For Fostering Self-Efficacy Through Gamification, Stacey Zurek

Open Access Dissertations

The merits of gamification as a learner-centered pedagogy that positively influences learner engagement and motivation are widely established in the literature; yet, few studies have ventured beyond motivation to consider the impact gamification has on self-efficacy. Moreover, guidance for the effective design and development of gamified instruction is lacking. This study describes formative research conducted on the Gamification for Enhancing Learner Self-Efficacy (GELSE) instructional design theory, which was developed to guide the design of gamification aimed at fostering self-efficacy. The goal of formative research is to identify improvements for an instructional design theory based on a designed instance of the …

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The Public Speaks, Again: An International Study Of Legal Communication, Christopher R. Trudeau, Christine Cawthorne Dec 2017

The Public Speaks, Again: An International Study Of Legal Communication, Christopher R. Trudeau, Christine Cawthorne

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Survey Of Legislation: 2017 Arkansas General Assembly, Amie Alexander, Sarah Giammo Dec 2017

Survey Of Legislation: 2017 Arkansas General Assembly, Amie Alexander, Sarah Giammo

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

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