Digital Commons Network^™

Aspiring To An Odd Job: The American Vice Presidency, Jack Van Der Slik

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Using The I-Learn Model For Information Literacy Instruction, Stacey Greenwell

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

With the increasing availability of information and the importance of lifelong information literacy (IL) skills, instructional designers, school media specialists, and librarians need to determine how to best design IL teaching in order to help students locate, evaluate, and use information more effectively. This paper describes the first experimental research study conducted to determine how teaching designed using the I-LEARN model could increase student understanding and application of IL concepts and offer recommendations for future implementations of the model. The experimental study described in this article examined whether IL skills teaching designed using the I-LEARN model increased student understanding and …

The Impact Of Anti-Gay Politics On The Lgbtq Movement, Amy L. Stone

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

Since the late 1970s, the Religious Right has mobilized to oppose the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement in the United States. Sociologists have studied the relationship between these two movements as a classic movement-countermovement dynamic, in which the strategies, actions, and framing of one movement impact the other. I analyze the way Religious Right reactive and proactive opposition to gay rights has affected the LGBTQ movement. First, I provide an overview of the literature on the negative impacts of the Religious Right, including the diversion of movement goals, transformation of frames, and marginalization of queer politics. Second, …

The Rwandan Diaspora In Canada And The United States: Reconciliation And Justice, Jennifer J. Marson

Dissertations

This dissertation analyzed the attempts at achieving justice and reconciliation among the Rwandan diaspora located in Canada and the United States. Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, many Rwandans fled and a modest diaspora found a home in various locations throughout Canada and the United States. The diaspora, located thousands of miles from the institutional mechanism of justice and reconciliation in Rwanda, are subject to many of the same concerns regarding justice and reconciliation as those who remain in Rwanda. This research focused primarily on how this specific diaspora attempted to achieve justice and reconciliation, if institutional mechanisms (gacaca) in Rwanda …

Factors Affecting Climate Change Mitigation Policy Implementation, Kelly M. Anderson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Why do some states have policies that aggressively reduce carbon emissions, while others ignore the threat of climate change? In a world where increasingly extreme weather patterns threaten food production and species extinction, and where rising sea levels and frequent storms damage coastal infrastructure, it is now essential for states to mitigate these effects.

My paper analyzes the role of media attention on climate change and environmental association membership rates on the most recent climate change mitigation policies of South Africa, the United States, and Germany. It argues that media and environmental associations influence a population’s desire to reduce carbon …

Science, Symptoms, And Support Groups:Adhd In The American Cultural Context, Kealy D. Fallon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a cultural analysis of the behaviorally- and psychiatrically-defined disorder ADHD, socio-historically contextualizing it in the United States and exploring ethnographically how people affected by it talk about and organize their experience of its symptoms.

Supplying The Asia-Pacific Theater: United States Logistics And The American Merchant Marine In World War Ii, James Linn

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

America’s victory in World War II came from a number of successes such as production of war materiel, technological advances, and national mobilization on levels not seen before or since. America went into the war behind the Axis Powers both militarily and economically. The Great Depression had a devastating effect on merchant ship building in the United States during the 1930’s. In response, the U.S. Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which created the U.S. Maritime Commission whose mission was to modernize and build ships for the looming world war. Originally slated to build fifty ships a year …

Integrating Technology To Improve Communicative And Cultural Proficiency, Nicholas Frank

Honors Projects

The purpose of this report is to explore how the integration of technology can enhance students’ communicative and cultural proficiency in a second language by connecting two world language classrooms from across the globe. Through a series of weekly emails between partners, students practiced their reading and writing skills while gaining knowledge of their partners’ culture and colloquial language in a meaningful and individualized manner. The participants were high school students in the United States who were learning Spanish and high school students in Spain who were learning English. This created an authentic and organic environment for language acquisition, showing …

U.S. Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity: An Analysis Of Threats, Methods, And Policy-Past, Present, And Future, Justan Phillip Dustan

Senior Theses

This senior thesis focuses on the growth and development of the US critical infrastructure cybersecurity program to better understand where we were, where we are, and where we're going... as well as how we can improve in the future.

Cuban Trade Relations Under The U.S. Embargo And Their Impact On Human Development, Elizabeth Drew Ernest

Senior Theses

This senior thesis analyzes the U.S. embargo against Cuba, including how it works and how it has impacted Cuba's trade relations with other countries and regions in addition to the U.S. It then explores the impact of the resulting trade relationships on human development in Cuba through the lens of the three dimensions of the Human Development Index: standard of living, health, and education.

What Do We Know About Gmos: A Comparison Of Regulations And Labeling In The United States And Netherlands, Alexa Nicole Black

Senior Theses

This senior thesis will articulate the similarities and differences in food regulations related to organic and GMO foods in the US versus the Netherlands and identify factors that contribute to these differences. The main goal of this thesis is to explain, through research and my own observations, the need for more comprehensive research and labeling of GM foods.

Same Story, Different Name: A Survey Of The Causes And Effects Of The Medicalization Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sarah Elizabeth Truesdale

Senior Theses

As society sees a rise in the addition of medical issues to the DSM that were previously deemed non-medical conditions, there is reason for a multi-variate analysis to take place. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder was added to the DSM-III in 1980 and has seen change both in the DSM-IV and DSM V. To understand these transitions, we start with a historical analysis of the mental health condition to legitimize its need for medicalization. This will then be followed by an analysis of the medicalization process in order to understand the progress that has been made as a mental health condition that …

Challenging The U.S.-Led War On Drugs: Argentina In Comparative Perspective, Sebastian Antonino Cutrona

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the cases that have resisted the U.S. pressure to adopt the standard security model (SSM) to fight against drug-trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since more can be learned by examining phenomenon that deviate from the modal pattern, this dissertation focuses on Argentina. Existing research, by contrast, has revolved around Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and the Caribbean; countries where the U.S. securitized drug-trafficking by presenting it as an existential threat, justifying the militarization of counter-narcotics policies. In seeking to fill this theoretical and empirical vacuum, this dissertation answers three main research questions: Why have some …

Resettling Syrian Refugees In The U.S.: Regional Stability And Saving Lives, Alexander Kochenburger

Washington Semester Program

In the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II, millions of Syrians have fled their homes since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011. This thesis argues that the United States needs to resettle more Syrian refugees to prevent further destabilization in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Specifically, the United States should go above President Obama’s current proposal to accept 10,000 Syrians this year and follow the recommendation of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and resettle 65,000 additional Syrian refugees over the next five years. In addition, most of these 65,000 refugees should be families with young children and …

Inequality And Financialization, Oscar C. Soons

Senior Honors Projects

This paper analyzes economic inequality in the United States and makes a connection between rising inequality and “Financialization” since the 1970’s. I provide an overview of how and why income and wealth inequality have changed over time. The increase in inequality since the 1970’s is correlated with an increase in Financialization, measured by a Financialization index that I created. Financialization, defined as the increasing size, power and influence of the financial sector in the economy and politics, has changed the economic and political landscape in the United States in a way that increases economic inequality.

A Study That Critically Engages Secondary Language Acquisition And How It Relates To Immigrants Developing Cultural Competence, Susan Alecia Nelson

Sustainability and Social Justice

This study seeks to critically engage in the topic of secondary language acquisition to explore the role it plays in immigration, particularly as this relates to developing cultural competence. Further, the research examines the barriers to second language acquisition, and also makes recommendations for reducing those barriers. This will be done by examining literature that analyzes the role that secondary language learning plays in immigrants becoming culturally competent within the United States, and will look at this more in depth by focusing on Mexican immigrants who have come to the United States.

The Ciné “Never Sets…”: British Cinema As A Transatlantic Cultural Commodity, 1927-1938, Karen E. Beasley

History Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation exemplifies how the application of a transatlantic commodity approach can broaden understanding of film as a mass medium, its business, and its cultural influences. By employing a more inclusive national cinema framework, this study is able to investigate sites of interaction between the British and Hollywood film industries as a two-way exchange as well as engage those sites at their peripheries, including those between the cultural product and its consumer throughout the broader Atlantic community. This dissertation focuses on the diversity of British audiences throughout a “British world” and the distribution and exhibition methods used to reach them. …

The Irish Republican Army Through Film, (1935-2014), Colleen B. Gottfried

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will explore the evolving relationship between terrorism and its visual representations and what these representations say about the reception of terrorism by audiences all over the world. This study examines thirty movies produced in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland between 1935 and 2014. These films portray different versions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), an association founded in 1917 with the intent to end British control in Ireland and establish the Republic of Ireland. This thesis examines how concurrent events may have shaped the way filmmakers chose to portray the organization. For instance, if earlier …

Conflict Beyond Borders: The International Dimensions Of Nicaragua's Violent Twentieth-Century, 1909–1990, Andrew William Wilson

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this research is to identify the importance of Nicaraguan political contests in the global twentieth century. The goal is to demonstrate that, despite its relatively small size, Nicaragua significantly influenced the course of modern history. This has been done by examining the international contestations between Nicaragua’s revolutionary and counterrevolutionary currents from Augusto Sandino’s resistance to U.S. imperialism, to the machinations of the Somoza family, and the Contra War of the 1980s. Upon examination of these events, it becomes clear that Nicaraguans on both sides of the conflict proved adept at cultivating and utilizing transnational networks of material …

The Lonely Nineties: Visions Of Community On Television Between The End Of The Cold War And 9/11, Paul Andrew Arras

Dissertations - ALL

“The Lonely Nineties” provides a close reading of six popular series on primetime American television in the 1990s, setting their depictions of community within the context of late 20th century problems and developments in civic disengagement. This dissertation examines Seinfeld, N.Y.P.D. Blue, Law & Order, The X-Files, Touched by an Angel, and The Simpsons within their respective genres, revealing what makes nineties television distinctive, and connecting those distinctions to related developments in American social and cultural history. In the final decade when the medium still offered regularly a simultaneous experience of mass culture, television imagined communities in various states of …

Amateur Paleontological Societies And Fossil Clubs, Interactions With Professional Paleontologists, And Social Paleontology In The United States, Bruce J. Macfadden, Lisa Lundgren, Kent J. Crippen, Betty A. Dunckel, Shari Ellis

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Considerable interest exists among lifelong learners in the USA about fossils and the science of paleontology. Unlike some other science-related groups, e.g., astronomy and ornithology, interest in fossils among amateur paleontologists is primarily focused within local clubs and societies with little national coordination. This paper presents the results of formative evaluation of the FOSSIL project, conducted after the project “Kickoff” meeting held at the NAPC (North American Paleontological Convention) in 2014. FOSSIL is developing a national networked community of practice that includes amateur and professional paleontologists. Our research indicates that more than 60 amateur fossil clubs and societies exist in …

Waging The War Against Unpaid Labor: A Call To Revoke Fact Sheet #71 In Light Of Recent Unpaid Internship Litigation, Rachel P. Willer

University of Richmond Law Review

Part I of this comment provides an overview of prevailing agency and judicial interpretations of unpaid internships. Part II describes recent internship litigation and the trend towards courts abandoning the Wage and Hour Division's six-factor test in favor of a more expansive primary beneficiary test. Part III suggests that Fact Sheet #71 is an outdated model that is inapplicable to contemporary internships. The Wage and Hour Division's six-factor test lacks the "force of law" and should not warrant un- due judicial deference. Alternatively, the primary beneficiary test, articulated in the Second Circuit's holding in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc." …

African American Female Offender's Use Of Alternative And Traditional Health Services After Re-Entry: Examining The Behavioral Model For Vulnerable Populations, Carrie B. Oser, Amanda M. Bunting, Erin L. Pullen, Danelle Stevens-Watkins

Sociology Faculty Publications

This is the first known study to use the Gelberg-Andersen Behavioral Model for Vulnerable Populations to predict African American women's use of three types of health services (alternative, hospitalization, and ambulatory) in the 18 months after release from prison. In the multivariate models, the most robust predictors of all three types of service utilization were in the vulnerable theoretical domains. Alternative health services were predicted by ethnic community membership, higher religiosity, and HIV/HCV. Hospitalizations were predicted by the lack of barriers to health care and disability. Ambulatory office visits were predicted by more experiences of gendered racism, a greater number …

Fhfa Announces Principal Reduction Modification Program And Further Enhancements To Npl Sales Requirements, United States: Federal Housing Finance Agency (Fhfa)

Documents

No abstract provided.

Economic Freedom And Quality Of Life Impacts: A Comparison, Rachel S. Bauer

Senior Honors Theses

The “invisible hand” is a concept foundational to the argument for free market economics, and so is hotly debated. One measure of whether or not the free market is a successful economic model is the quality of life of a country’s residents. Quality of life can be assessed through the areas of housing, labor, health, and education. Economic indicators and quality of life statistics for Hong Kong, the United States, China, and Venezuela appear to prove that there is a correlation between quality of life and economic freedom, as defined by the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Even …

Similarities And Differences In Sexual Risk Behaviors Between Young Black Msm Who Do And Do Not Have Sex With Females, Richard A. Crosby, Leandro Mena, Angelica Geter, Demarc Hickson

Health, Behavior & Society Faculty Publications

The objective of this study is to determine whether young Black MSM who also have sex with females report similar levels of sexual risk behaviors as those not having sex with females. YBMSM (N = 400) were recruited from an STI clinic, located in the Southern U.S. Men completed an audio-computer assisted self-interview and donated specimens for STI/HIV testing. Forty-three percent recently engaged in penile-vaginal sex. They were less likely to report having concurrent partners (P = .01), unprotected fellatio (P = .04), multiple partners as a bottom (P < .02), any unprotected anal sex as a bottom (P < .013), and any anal sex (P = .007). They were equally likely …

Droughtscape, Spring 2016, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

Director’s report

First quarter drought summary

First quarter drought impacts

Drought Risk Management Research Center

Kenyan official visits

DrIVER eyes forecasting

Drought scenario exercise

Student projects

Drought tournament

Response and recovery guide

Drought Portal

Network of drought observers

Caribbean “writeshops”

Communications staff grows

Canadian Perspectives On Animals And The Law, Sabrina Tremblay-Huet

Dalhousie Law Journal

It is commonplace to affirm that animal law is much more developed in the United States than in Canada; animal abuser registries are being implemented,' animal law degrees are offered,2 and prosecutions ofanimal abusers occur frequently,3 for example. However, the tide is changing in Canada as well, the legal norms and case law becoming increasingly aligned with the social norms surrounding the treatment of animals. An example ofthis is the recent adoption by Quebec ofa new status for animals in its Civil Code, the Loi visant 1'amiliorationde la situationjuridiquede l'animal, adopted on December 4th, 2015.' There are also new challenges …

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, April 2016, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

In this section: • United States Achieves Progress in Iran Relations with Nuclear Agreement Implementation, Prisoner Swap, and Hague Claims Tribunal Resolutions • European Union and United States Conclude Agreement to Regulate Transatlantic Personal Data Transfers • After Lengthy Delay, Congress Approves IMF Governance Reforms that Empower Emerging Market and Developing Countries • United States Joins Consensus on Paris Climate Agreement • United States and Eleven Other Nations Conclude Trans-Pacific Partnership

Uamsho, Uhuru Na Umoja = (Revival, Freedom And Unity) : The Transnational Faith And Identity Of Tanzanian Christians Negotiating Diaspora Life In The United States, Grant Brandon Miller

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.