Digital Commons Network^™

International School Director Turnover As Influenced By School Board/Director Relationship, Zakariya Palsha D+Z30:Ae30

Education Dissertations

In recent years, public school superintendents have faced increased demands from rigorous federal and state accountability standards. Yet, researchers have reported that academic improvement does not happen by chance but rather through effective leaders with ample time to implement broad, sustainable reform. The purpose of this study was to examine the self-reported causes of turnover of international school directors, specifically, whether the relationship between the school board and the international school director is linked to length of tenure of the international director. The theoretical framework that addresses superintendent turnover as influenced by internal board dynamics, including school board/superintendent relationship, is …

Beringian Biogeography: Patterns Of Intercontinental Dispersal And The Structuring Of A Holarctic Tapeworm Genus, Genevieve M. Haas

All NMU Master's Theses

The opening and closing of the Bering Land Bridge due to Pleistocene climate fluctuations facilitated the exchange of taxa between the Palearctic and Nearctic. While many studies have worked toward elucidating the role of Beringia in assembling northern faunas, relatively little work has focused on parasites. Here I examine the number and direction of transberingian colonization events within the Holarctic tapeworm genus, Arostrilepis Mas-Coma & Tenora, 1997. I performed maximum likelihood and multi-locus coalescent phylogenetic reconstructions using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences. Biogeographic ancestral range estimations were conducted on the resulting species phylogeny. My systematic reconstructions reveal as many as …

Using A Project-Based Language Learning Approach In The High School Spanish Classroom: Perceived Challenges And Benefits, Lisa D. Collier

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the action research study done to investigate the perceived challenges and benefits of a project-based language learning (PBLL) approach in a high school Spanish classroom. The research involved four high school Spanish 3 classes taught by the same teacher. Two classes formed an experimental group and were taught one thematic unit using a PBLL approach, while the other two classes formed the control group and were taught by the same approach that had been used the rest of the year. Two of the objectives of the study were to see how the PBLL approach affected the achievement …

Measuring The Impact Of Three Different Co-Teaching Models On Student Test Results In Ninth-Grade Algebra I, Amy Marie Cermele

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this retrospective case analysis was to see if post-exam Algebra I mathematics scores were impacted in any way by the utilization of three different models of co-teaching: “interventionist,” “specialist,” and “departmentalized.” Two years of archival pretest and posttest exam scores from classified and nonclassified student exams were used to determine the overall mean growth for students who were educated in these instructional models. The data revealed that all co-teaching models produced statistically significant results for all students. However, the model that consistently produced statistically significant outcomes was the interventionist model. Recommendations for the selected district are to …

Patterns Of Communication Technology Utilization For Health Information Among Hispanics In South Carolina: Implications For Health Equity, Deanne K.Hilfinger Messias, Robin Dawson Phd, Rn, Cpnp-Pc

Publications

Background: Language, culture, geographic, social, and economic factors are associated with health disparities. Among more recent Hispanic immigrants, limited English proficiency and immigration status are barriers to health information and healthcare access. Improved access to culturally and linguistically tailored health information through technology could potentially enhance healthcare access and health outcomes. However, little is known about health information-seeking through technology among Hispanics in recent settlement areas. Purpose: The aim of this exploratory study was to describe patterns of self-reported utilization of technology for health information-seeking among the growing Hispanic population in South Carolina (SC) over a period of 5 years. …

Evaluating Relevance And Reliability Of Twitter Data For Risk Communication, Xiaohui Liu

Dissertations

While Twitter has been touted to provide up-to-date information about hazard events, the relevance and reliability of tweets is yet to be tested. This research examined the relevance and reliability of risk information extracted from Twitter during the 2013 Colorado floods using five different approaches. The first approach examined the relationship between tweet volume and precipitation amount. The second approach explored the relationship between geo-tagged tweets and degree of damage. In the third approach, the spatiotemporal distribution of tweets was compared with flood extent. In the fourth approach, risk information from tweets were compared with survey responses obtained in a …

Using Community Assessments To Improve 4-H Youth Development Programming Efforts, Dan Teuteberg, Melissa M. Cummins

Journal of Extension

Understanding resources available in a community is essential before any 4-H youth development professional can begin addressing local needs. Conducting a community assessment generates valuable information about the unique components and resources of a specific community. This information then provides a foundation for identifying specific community needs and determining ways in which needs can be addressed through Extension-based programming.

Lack Of Spatial Resilience In A Recovery Process: Case L'Aquila, Italy, Diana Contreras, Thomas Blaschke, Michael E. Hodgson

Faculty Publications

The lack of coordination between government agencies, involvement of the collaboration networks existing in the community, and incorporation of spatial planning in the location of the new settlements around L'Aquila (Italy) after the 2009 earthquake has delayed reconstruction of the city centre. The displaced population was relocated to 19 new settlements. These new settlements are characterized by a lack of urban facilities. The aim of this paper was to analyze the relationship between urban facilities, collaboration networks and lack of spatial resilience in the recovery process in L'Aquila. Specifically, we focused on the preferences of inhabitants to search for alternative …

Agreements To Improve Student Aid: An Antitrust Perspective, Deborah Jones Merritt, Andrew Lloyd Merritt

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Landscape-Scale Geophysics At Tel Shimron, Jezreel Valley, Israel, Rachel Grap

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometry were used at Tel Shimron, an archaeological site in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. GPR primarily measures electric properties while magnetometry measures magnetic properties, making them complementary methods for subsurface prospection. Magnetometry can be collected and processed quickly, making it an ideal landscape-scale reconnaissance tool. It takes more time to collect, process, and interpret GPR data, but the result is a higher resolution dataset. In addition, GPR often works better than magnetometry in desert environments such as the Jezreel Valley. Conventional wisdom suggests that GPR should not be used as a landscape-scale reconnaissance tool unless there is …

Knowledge Spaces And The Politics Of Pedagogy: Politicizing Portland State University's Environmental Education Paradigms, Sasha Kramer

University Honors Theses

I critically consider Portland State University’s Environmental Science and Management (ESM) department’s strategies in presenting Western scientific and Indigenous knowledge in regard to environmental management and interaction through the ESM department's core curriculum. I conduct qualitative primary research through semi-structured interviews with two faculty members from the ESM department, an ESM student, and a faculty member in the Nation Studies department. The interviews illustrate the gap in the ESM's core curriculum where multicultural perspectives are not represented. My research works to understand this gap by considering the historical, political, and economic constructs for the ways in which knowledge systems of …

"There Was No Sign Of Man In It": Casting Dracula As Posthuman And Valuing The Progressive Vampire, Mary Elizabeth Wolverton

Master's Theses

Although not an immediate commercial success, Dracula has since become a seminal example of Gothic horror at the fin-de-siècle, leading not only to film, stage, and television adaptations, but also to literary reimaginings and a plethora of scholarship. I argue that the vampires in Dracula do not fit into the traditional critical understandings of the vampire; rather, they belong in two different but related categories recently theorized by science fiction studies and related to human evolution: transhuman and posthuman. I suggest that a reading of the novel that prioritizes the pervasive influence of evolutionary theory on Victorian literature encourages …

Integrating Apache Spark And R For Big Data Analytics On Solving Geographic Problems, Mengqi Zhang, Tin Seong Kam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the advent ofdigital technology and smart devices, a flood of digital data is beinggenerated every day. This huge amount of data not only records the historyactivities but also provides future valuable information for organizations andbusinesses. However, the true values of these data will not be fullyappreciated until they have been processed, analyzed and the analysis resultsbeen communicated to decision makers in a business friendly manner.In view of thisneed, big data has been one of the major research focus in the academicresearch community especially in the field of computer science and the softwarevendor as well as the big data service …

Amphibian Use Of Wetlands Created By Military Activity In Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana, Usa., Stephen M. Ecrement, Stephen C. Richter

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Constructed wetlands can provide breeding habitat for amphibians and might offset the loss of natural wetlands. Although protecting natural systems is a priority, investigating and protecting constructed wetlands should also be included in amphibian conservation efforts. We surveyed 48 small wetland pools created from military tank training (i.e., tank defilades) on Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana, USA. We conducted surveys monthly from April to October 2012 and March to September 2013. Across both years amphibian community composition consisted of eight frog species, and the most commonly found taxa were Cajun Chorus Frogs (Pseudacris fouquettei), Southern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates sphenocephalus), and Bronze …

Turkish Pre-Service Secondary Mathematics Teachers: An Examination Of Tpack, Affect, And Their Relationship, Ercan Dede

All Dissertations

Pre-service teachers' knowledge, beliefs or attitudes gained during their undergraduate education is one of the most influential factors shaping their future teaching in their field. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006) identifies the knowledge domains needed by teachers to effectively integrate technology into teaching their field. Due to the fact that pre-service teachers' TPACK domains cannot be directly measured, most of research studies in the literature addressed developing a TPACK survey instrument in order to indirectly measure teachers' TPACK in terms of their perceptions. However, there were rare research studies focusing on development a TPACK survey …

Exploring The Key Determinants Of Bicycle Share Program Use In A Leisure Context, Li-Hsin Chen

All Dissertations

Over the past two decades, bicycle share programs (BSPs) have developed rapidly around the world, with studies finding that people use such service not only for commuting but also for leisure. However, compared to utilitarian BSP users, limited research has focused on the factors influencing BSP use for leisure experiences. To begin this limitation in the current cycling literature, this dissertation explores the key determinants of leisure BSP use. The extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology proposed by Venkatesh, Thong, and Xu (2012) and the dual-attitudes model conceptualized by Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler (2000) provided the theoretical …

The Lawyer: Fall 2017, Seattle University School Of Law

Lawyer

•Between Two Deans
•Educating Tech-Savvy Lawyers
•Working in the Iconic Northwest

Lemonade, Gin, And Juice: The Performance And Deconstruction Of Black Masculinity From N**Gers To Negus, Robert A. Barry

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the effects of Black masculinity: its performance, the identity politics that materialize in the discovery of Black “maleness,” and its manifestation through male intrasexual competition to analyze how Black men learn and perform traditional patriarchal masculinity. Existing literature provides evidence regarding patriarchal masculinity as the “political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” (hooks 2004, 1) Critical media literacy through a Black …

The Role Of Omics In The Application Of Adverse Outcome Pathways For Chemical Risk Assessment, Ek Brockmeier, G Hodges, Th Hutchinson, E Butler, M Hecker, Ke Tollefsen, N Garcia-Reyero, P Kille, D Becker, K Chipman, J Colbourne, Tw Collette, A Cossins, M Cronin, P Graystock, S Gutsell, D Knapen, I Katsiadaki, A Lange, S Marshall, Sf Owen, Ej Perkins, S Plaistow, A Schroeder, D Taylor, M Viant, G Ankley, F Falciani

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Exploitation Of Land And Labor In Appalachia: The Manipulation Of Men In Ann Pancake's Strange As This Weather Has Been, Britani W. Baker

Master's Theses

Ecofeminism is traditionally interested in the relationship between patriarchal domination of women and nature. Ann Pancake’s novel Strange As this Weather Has Been critiques the way the coal mining industry has affected the Appalachian people and land. The novel reflects natural ecofeminism, which views the connection between women and nature in essentialist terms. This outdated mode of ecofeminism leads to a reinforcement of gender stereotypes and a misrepresentation of the relationship between gender, nature, and culture. This study of Pancake’s novel employs a material ecofeminist approach to both critique and develop the novel’s gender politics. Material ecofeminism, even as it …

Sedimentary Characteristics And Nutrient Sequestration Of Embanked Floodplains Along The Lower Mississippi River, Mississippi And Louisiana, R M Malitha Rathnayake

Master's Theses

The Mississippi River Basin is the largest river basin in North America and the third largest river basin in the world. Most of the corn, soybeans, wheat, cattle, and hogs harvested in the United States come from the Mississippi River Basin and about 58% of the entire drainage basin is croplands. Runoff from these lands carries sediments and nutrients, and the Mississippi River transports these downstream and ultimately deposits them in the Gulf of Mexico. The northern Gulf of Mexico is one of largest human-caused hypoxic zones in the world. Hypoxia is the phenomena where the dissolved oxygen level decreases …

Environmentally-Driven Variation In The Population Dynamics Of Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia Patronus), Grant D. Adams

Master's Theses

Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) is an abundant forage fish distributed throughout the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). Gulf Menhaden support the second largest fishery, by weight, in the United States and represent a key linkage between upper and lower trophic levels. Variation in the population dynamics can, therefore, pose consequences for the ecology and economy in the NGOM. Here we aim to understand variation in the individual and population dynamics of Gulf Menhaden throughout ontogeny and how such variation relates to environmental processes. We utilized a suite of fishery-dependent and –independent, remote sensing, modeled, and in situ data …

Textural Analysis Of Historical Aerial Photography To Determine Change In Coastal Marsh Extent: Site Of The Present-Day Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (Gbnerr), Mississippi, 1955-2014, Heather Michelle Nicholson

Master's Theses

Coastal marshlands are among the world’s most highly productive ecosystems but they have diminished greatly in the past several decades owing to sea-level rise and direct anthropogenic influences. An effective means of quantifying loss or gain in marsh area is through the use of aerial image data, which offers synoptic views of the landscape at decadal-scale sampling frequencies. However, a potential problem with older panchromatic, or black-and-white, imagery is the absence of multispectral information that might be used otherwise in remote identification of vegetation types. Nevertheless, the analysis of horizontal variability in image brightness values, or image texture, can be …

Integrating Black Bear Behavior, Spatial Ecology, And Population Dynamics In A Human-Dominated Landscape: Implications For Management, Jarod D. Raithel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The American black bear (Ursus americanus) has made a robust recovery within the human-dominated, social-ecological systems characterizing the Mid-Atlantic United
States. For example, in northwestern New Jersey (NJ), USA, black bear abundance increased from an estimated 450-500 in 1996 to 3200-3400 in 2010. Bear recovery
coincided with increasing human populations, coupled with shifting settlement patterns toward sprawling suburban communities. Consequently, conflicts have rapidly proliferated over the past three decades and resulted in >1400 incidents of verified property damage, >400 livestock kills, >250 pet attacks and/or kills, seven human attacks and one human fatality since 2001. The New Jersey …

Three Essays On Likability Factors, Crowdfunding, And Entrepreneurial Performance, Yuanqing Li

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I conduct three empirical studies exploring the relation between likability factors, crowdfunding characteristics and entrepreneurial performance. Together these studies integrate aspects of major entrepreneurial likability factors including liking of the entrepreneur (source attractiveness, credibility, personal traits) and liking of the message (verbal content and expression), and components of nonverbal and verbal cues. I apply computer-mediated communication (CMC) and persuasion theories, political and marketing literature to provide a more fine-grained understanding of likability on crowdfunding success. In the first essay, I study how the non-verbal cues of a crowdfunding video influence the crowdfunding success. By employing social presence …

Some Things Are Better Left Unseen: Toward More Effective Communication And Team Performance In Video-Mediated Interactions, Martin Hassell, John Cotton

Management Faculty Research and Publications

By default, most video-mediated communication systems show the user his or her own video feed, yet there is no prior research to show if this helps or hinders communication. In general, virtual teams desire richer media to improve team interaction. However, in this case more information may not be helpful. Drawing on Objective Self Awareness theory in social psychology and theories of cognitive overload from communication, hypotheses are proposed concerning how viewing oneself influences virtual team interaction. It is argued that viewing oneself will lead to lower team performance and other negative outcomes. The hypotheses are tested in a laboratory …

Inequity In Rebuilding After Disasters, Sara Brown

Sustainability and Social Justice

Natural disasters are becoming more and more frequent. Policies that help rebuild residential areas after disasters need to be equitable. The five residential programs researched are The Road Home Homeowner Assistance Program, The Road Home Small Rental Property Program, LIHTC Piggyback Program, Hazard Mitigation Gram Program, and Non- Profit Rebuilding Pilot Program. Through a case study of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans this research reviews five residential rebuilding programs to see if its goals were written equitably. This research then compares the Lower Ninth Ward with the entire City of New Orleans as well as two other planning …

Reshaping The Financial Order, Christopher Dula, David Kuo Chuen Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The financial system, which governs and manages the practice of deposits, lending and payments, is in the throes of disruption following the shortcomings of the current regime. Despite US$11 trillion in quantitative easing since 2007, economic growth has been persistently sluggish. The money isn't going where it should be. In 2015, McKinsey reported that global debt had grown by US$57 trillion since 2007. The debt is becoming unsustainable, yet the global debt-to-income ratio continues to rise disproportionally to any deleveraging. The Fed's meandering signaling to nudge up interest rates beyond the near zero range raises concerns that private and even …

Economic Growth In The Caribbean And Other Topics, Huili Li

All Dissertations

Income differences across country, banking crises and oil price shocks are the dominant macroeconomic features of our age and main economic difficulties faced by economies. This paper attempts to discuss these three topics one by one.

In the first Chapter, using a PPP-adjusted series of GDP per capita for the entire Caribbean over 1960-2013 period, we examine why some countries in this area are so rich and some others are not. We employ a Bayesian Model Averaging Framework and surprisingly find that the identity of last colonizer and the length of history after achieving independence matter most in determining the …

Sustainable Solar Energy Development In Thailand, Kitiluk Thanomboonchai

All Dissertations

Energy independence and energy security have become important topics for Thailand. Thailand depends on natural gas as the primary fuel for electricity generation while Thailand’s Ministry of Energy projected the depletion of available natural gas by 2032. As such, the Thai government established The Alternative Energy Development Plan (AEDP), which set a goal of producing approximately 20% of electricity by 2036 from renewable sources; 6,000 MW of which would come from solar power.

This thesis aims to provide guidance on policy and solar siting issues that will aid Thailand in achieving their solar energy goals. There are four objectives of …