Digital Commons Network^™

Biblical Servant Leadership And The Senior Executive Service (Ses) Role In The Federal Government: Quantitative Correlational Study, Eugene Quinn Jr

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Considering the traits of biblical servant leadership, this leadership style may be ideal for the entrusted federal government positions of the Senior Executive Service (SES). The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), SES, was created by Congress to provide a government mobile cadre of managers for the federal government. These federal government employees are the backbone of the executive leadership in the federal government. The SES is mandated to respect and adhere to the fundamental principles of ethical service (behaves in an honest, fair, and ethical manner). The SES are federal government employees and are the link between a federal …

The Difference Between Grade 7 Female And Male Test Scores Based On One-To-One Technology Access: A Causal-Comparative Study, Windy Simonne Hammond

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This causal-comparative study sought to determine whether there was a relationship between the use of one-to-one technology and student achievement among female and male students in Grades 6 and 7 in public schools in South Carolina. This study adds to the body of literature that indicates academic gains occur from using one-to-one devices in classrooms and that these didactic technology tools are beneficial to all students. The current study analyzed the science and social studies achievement scores of 3,747 Grade 7 students, comparing females and males who had access to one-to-one technology to those who did not during the 2016–2017 …

Does Restricted Stock Turn Ceos Into Risk-Averse Managers? Insights From The Regulatory Focus Theory, Rong Ma, Wanrong Hou, Richard L. Priem, Peter Wright

Management Faculty Publications

Restricted stock awards carry upside and downside risks for CEOs. We follow a socio-cognitive perspective by suggesting that awards of restricted stock are viewed as potential gains or potential losses depending on each CEO's dominant regulatory focus. Regulatory focus, therefore, helps determine how a CEO responds to restricted stock awards. We also propose that the moderating effect of regulatory focus strengthens as firm complexity increases and as CEO tenure lengthens, because complexity and tenure both increase CEOs' reliance on heuristic information processing. Specifically, complexity restricts a CEO's cognitive capacity for thoughtful deliberation during decision making, and tenure affects …

No “Pobrecito Student”: Translanguaging High-School Science For Academic Language Development, Agustina Borré

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Borré, A. (2022). No “Pobrecito Student”: Translanguaging High-School Science for Academic Language Development. The research questions addressed in this study were: what are the impacts of translanguaging on academic language development? And what are the challenges and successes in implementing translanguaging in highly culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms? Thus, the topics explored in the literature review range from research on academic language development and the teaching and learning of science in high school and the struggles and challenges English Language Learners (ELLs) face when learning then different content areas. The literature review also reveals some of the findings emerging from …

Concurrent Identification, Characterization, And Reconstruction Of Protein Structure And Mixed-Mode Dynamics From Rdc Data Using Redcraft, Hanin Rafiq Omar

Theses and Dissertations

A complete understanding of the structure-function relationship of proteins requires an analysis of their dynamic behaviors and the static structure. However, all current approaches to studying dynamics in proteins have their shortcomings. A conceptually attractive and alternative approach simultaneously characterizes a protein's structure and its intrinsic dynamics⁠. Ideally, such an approach could solely rely on RDC data-carrying both structural and dynamical information. The major bottleneck in utilizing RDC data in recent years has been attributed to a lack of RDC analysis tools capable of extracting the pertinent information embedded within this complex data source.

Here we present a comprehensive strategy …

Optimizing Automated Kriging To Improve Spatial Interpolation Of Monthly Rainfall Over Complex Terrain, Matthew P. Lucas, Ryan J. Longman, Thomas W. Giambelluca, Abby G. Frazier, Jared Mclean, Sean B. Cleveland, Yu Fen Huang, Jonghyun Lee

Geography

Gridded monthly rainfall estimates can be used for a number of research applications, including hydrologic modeling and weather forecasting. Automated interpolation algorithms, such as the "autoKrige" function in R, can produce gridded rainfall estimates that validate well but produce unrealistic spatial patterns. In this work, an optimized geostatistical kriging approach is used to interpolate relative rainfall anomalies, which are then combined with long-term means to develop the gridded estimates. The optimization consists of the following: 1) determining the most appropriate offset (constant) to use when log-transforming data; 2) eliminating poor quality data prior to interpolation; 3) detecting erroneous maps using …

Atmospheric Transport Of Microplastics During A Dust Storm, Sajjad Abbasi, Mahrooz Rezaei, Farnaz Ahmadi, Andrew Turner

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Dust storms are common events in arid and semi-arid regions that have a wide range of impacts on the environment and human health. This study addresses the presence, characteristics and potential sources of microplastics (MPs) in such events by analysing MPs deposited with dust particles in the metropolis of Shiraz, southwest Iran, following an intense storm in May 2018. At 22 locations throughout the city, MP concentrations on a number basis ranged from 0.04 to 1.06 per g of dust (median = 0.31 MP g−1). Particles were mainly fibrous, with a mean diameter of about 20 μm and >60% under …

Roy Acuff, Democratic Candidate, Henry Luther Capps Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to analyze the ways in which fame, cultural capital, and the political landscape of Tennessee placed the political amateur Roy Acuff in a strong position to win the 1944 Democratic primary, adding to our understanding of how fame can impact American politics, and also enriching our understanding of party politics in the single-party Solid South. The first part pays close attention to Acuff’s entertainment career prior to his political engagement with an eye to exploring why Tennessee voters thought Acuff would be a good candidate for governor. The second part details Roy Acuff’s political engagement from the …

Innovative Data-Driven Demand Estimation Strategies In Revenue Management, Sanghoon Cho

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding customers’ choice behavior and decision-making process is crucial in many industries, including hotels, airlines, and retail, as it allows firms to offer the right product to the right customer. This has resulted in a growing focus on accurately estimating customer demand for a product or service in the revenue management space, which can serve as a valuable input to optimal pricing, inventory, and assortment decisions. However, much of the existing work in the literature has not been able to comprehensively address some common challenges that are observed in practice: unobservable no-purchases, heterogeneous customer preferences, and the impact of factors …

On The Influence Of Afp-Induced Defects On Mechanical Behavior Of Composite Laminates Under Fatigue Loading, Pierre Chevalier

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of the work presented in this thesis is to propose and validate a numerical solution to quantify the influence of Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) induced defects on the mechanical behavior of conventional composite laminates in fatigue. The work presented here will be divided in six sections. At first, a description of the Automated Fiber Placement process and its associated defects is proposed. In association, two tools developed for a rapid analysis and a progressive damage analysis respectively are discussed and used as an introduction to the work conducted in this thesis. In the second section, an extensive literature …

Juveniles, Transferred Juveniles, And The Impact Of A Criminal Record On Employment Prospects In Adulthood: An Experimental Study, Joanna Daou

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research shows that a criminal record reduces an individual’s employability. The impact of a juvenile record on employability as a young adult, however, has rarely been examined, and no previous studies have estimated the effect of a criminal record when a juvenile was waived to the adult court. The current study seeks to fill these gaps in the literature using an experimental correspondence approach. The results of this research indicate that the effects of a delinquency record on employability for juveniles and young adults are comparable to the effects of a criminal record for adults.

The Influence Of Perceived Leadership On Teachers’ Job Satisfaction: A Comparative Study Between The United States And China, Jingtong Dou

Theses and Dissertations

The challenge of teacher retention in rural schools is significant for many reasons, not the least of which is that teacher retention problems have been found to be negatively associated with school performances (Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013; Tran & Dou, 2019). Teachers’ job satisfaction is closely related to teacher retention, both of which have been linked to students’ long-term learning outcomes (Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff, 2014). Principals’ support for teachers has been frequently identified as the most important factor influencing teachers’ job satisfaction and retention (Ladd, 2011). Particularly in rural schools, leadership support, autonomy, professional development, and participation among …

Racism-Related State Policies And The Psychological And Physiological Wellbeing Of Black And White Adults, Calley Elizabeth Fisk

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research on how state-policy affects population health outcomes suggests that state contexts are important sites for producing health disparities. In the United States different domains of state policy are historically linked to the livelihood of Black Americans and enacted within a racist system designed to maintain white supremacy. Despite this history and evidence of racial inequities in health outcomes linked to institutional discrimination for Black and white adults, scholars have yet to examine whether racism-related state policies affect the wellbeing of Black and white Americans. Combining a dataset of racism-related state policies with a nationally representative data of older …

A Case Study Of Rural Southern Desegregation: How Black Students In A South Carolina Community Experienced Segregated Schooling And The Integration Process, Margo Mcdowell Gore

Theses and Dissertations

My purpose for this study is to shed light on how the African-American community in a small Southern rural community experienced segregated schools and the long school desegregation process. Conflicts over school integration in urban centers like Little Rock drew the media's attention, but how small communities beyond the glare of the media fared is less well understood and documented. Archival data and contemporary media coverage provide a timeline and context for the experiences of this Black community, and oral history interviews were collected and analyzed to document the range of desegregation experiences.

Although the Brown v. Board of Education …

“I Like A Fight”: Margaret Sanger And The First Birth Control Clinic In The United States, Rebecca Linnea Hall

Theses and Dissertations

It is nearly impossible to read the news in the United States today without hearing the name Planned Parenthood, but few Americans know about the origins of this organization. Margaret Sanger founded the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, the precursor to Planned Parenthood, in 1923, but this was not the first time she opened a clinic. In this paper, I assess Margaret Sanger’s 1916 opening of the Brownsville Clinic, the first birth control clinic in the United States, and the responses to this event from multiple historical perspectives. I use historical newspapers to demonstrate how popular media, legal experts, and …

Negotiating Nationalism: Camille Saint-Saëns, Neoclassicism, And The Early Music Renaissance In France, Joshua Arin Harton

Theses and Dissertations

The music of Camille Saint-Saëns hints at modernism. Musicologists have largely avoided describing Saint-Saëns as a neoclassical or modernist composer, since much of his musical output occurred during the Romantic era. However, Saint-Saëns appears to have already been engaging with the nationalist and revivalist concerns which drove later twentieth-century French composers toward neoclassicism and other forms of musical modernism. Revivals of la musique ancienne (‘ancient’ music) and la musique française (“French” music) were well underway when Saint-Saëns began composing, and they continued throughout his career. Scholars have largely pursued these two revivals separately, with early music revival in France following …

No One Is Ever Going To Acknowledge The Language That You Speak”: A Discourse Historical Approach To The Construction Of English Learners’ Identity In Federal Policy, Nicoleta Hodis

Theses and Dissertations

Using the discourse historical approach (DHA), this thesis examined how actors from diverse educational settings (federal, state, and districts) discursively constructed the identity of the English learners (ELs) during the appropriation of new educational policy (i.e., ESSA of 2015). This study intended to understand how both “human” and “non-human” educational actors (i.e., the texts of the educational policy and the key actors responsible for the appropriation of the ESSA of 2015) construct and position the identity of ELs in relations of power and knowledge and how the macro-policy discourse shapes how policies are interpreted at the meso- and micro-level. …

“Whoz Ya People?”: Defining Lumbee Citizenship And Belonging In The 21St Century, Timothy Blake Hite

Theses and Dissertations

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-recognized tribe with an estimated 60,000 citizens. From 2018-2020, the tribe closed their enrollment office so that the tribe could reexamine enrollment policies, particularly the criterion for appropriate contact with the tribal homeland. During this closure, the tribe was continuing its long journey for federal recognition, with a bill passing the U.S. House of Representatives and receiving support from then President Donald Trump and current President Joseph Biden. During the summer of 2021, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with the tribe’s enrollment department, located in Pembroke, NC, to answer the question of how …

For Colored Girls Who Have Experienced Institutional Racism Because The Discipline Code Is Not Enuf: Principals And Assistant Principals, School Discipline Policies, And Discipline Disparities Faced By Black Girls, Lecinda R. Jennings

Theses and Dissertations

For many years, school discipline has been a research focus, particularly the disparities in discipline between Black and White males. Black girls are suspended at a rate that is 5.3 times that of White girls and approximately the same rate as Black boys. Black girls represent the fastest growing group of students who receive discipline disparities. The goal of this case study was to explore if and how principals and assistant principals contribute to discipline disparities faced by Black girls. I discussed the lived experiences of high school administrators to capture their encounters with race, gender, and the implementation of …

Application Of The Test For Memristor To Experimental Memory Devices, Jinsun Kim

Theses and Dissertations

In early seventies, the memristor was introduced as the fourth fundamental nonlinear two-terminal circuit element coupling the charge and flux by Dr. L. Chua. In 2008, the experimental discovery of the memristor was announced triggering significant interest in the development of resistance switching memory devices and their applications. According to Chua, the pinched hysteresis loop in the current-voltage characteristic of experimental memory devices is the fingerprint of memristors (“if it’s pinched it’s a memristor”). However, such loops are not an exclusive feature of memristors as they are also found in the response of other devices with memory that are not …

Coalitional Game Theory For Stormwater Management And Green Infrastructure Practices, Carly Lawyer

Theses and Dissertations

As global warming and climate Variability bring about more frequent and intense rainstorms and accelerate sea level rise, our social and built environments are at heightened risk of flood induced damages and consequent costs. This is particularly true for coastal areas, facing the coupled effects of these threats while serving as home to people, businesses, unique landscapes, and historic landmarks. Complex decisions at all levels of government and community planning stand to benefit from increased understanding of possible outcomes and pathways resulting from decentralized human behavior and decision making in the realm of water resources engineering and management. Game theory …

Increasing The Engagement Of Middle School Males Enrolled In A Foreign Language Class, Georgette Paula Leslie

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative action research study investigated the engagement of middle school males in a foreign language class based in a British overseas territory. The data collection methods consisted of focus groups, observations, and surveys. The participants for this research included five students who are identified as males. The desired outcome of the research was to determine whether teaching strategies aligned with Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (MI), the learner-centered approach, and Robert Gardner’s motivation theory with reference to integrative motivation, increased the engagement of middle school males in the foreign language classroom. The research questions included: RQ 1. How …

Making Privacy Injuries Concrete, Peter Ormerod

Faculty Publications

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the doctrine of Article III standing deprives the federal courts of jurisdiction over some lawsuits involving intangible injuries. The lower federal courts are carrying out the Supreme Court’s instructions, and privacy injuries have borne the brunt of the Court’s directive. This Article identifies two incoherencies in the Court’s recent intangible injury decisions and builds on the work of privacy scholars to fashion a solution.

The first incoherency is a line-drawing problem: the Court has never explained why some intangible injuries create an Article III injury in fact while others …

Life In The Time Of Covid-19: The Everyday Impacts Of The Pandemic In Amman, Jordan, Patrick Mckenzie

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic and the responses taken to combat it caused enormous changes to the everyday lives of people around the world. Jordan, in its early success against the virus and with its large refugee population, represents a unique country in which to study these everyday impacts. From May to August of 2021, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Jordanian capital city of Amman while working with the refugee nongovernmental organization the Collateral Repair Project. In this thesis, I explore the COVID-19 Spectacle, examining the ways in which policies and discourses at the national and international scales bled into the …

Why Ask Questions? How Phenomena-Based Inquiry Affects Student Engagement In A Middle School Science Classroom, Laura Nix

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of phenomena-based inquiry on students’ engagement levels in my science classroom. This action research study took place in the fall of 2021 with six student participants. Participants were enrolled in an eighth-grade honors science course in a middle school in South Carolina. The research was predominantly qualitative, and data was collected from participant pre- and poststudy surveys and interviews, anticipation guides, exit tickets, online discussion forums, and teacher field notes. The data revealed that phenomena-based inquiry encouraged students to participate and engage in their own learning, as indicated by post …

Evidence-Based Practices And Teacher Practice, Deanna Mozingo Parish

Theses and Dissertations

The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) by special education teachers is still inconsistent. Additionally, special education teachers often have little knowledge of high-quality indicators of research that identify specific EBPs proven effective for designated populations of students with disabilities. Teacher preparation during college programs (i.e., pre-service) and training from districts (i.e., in-service) can certainly play an important role in introducing EBPs to special education teachers. In pre-service and in-service training, observation, feedback, and coaching experiences can help to ensure the acquisition of skills and implementation of EBPs into daily teaching. In this study, I investigated special education teachers’ experiences with …

Understanding The Genomic Influence And Virulence Capabilities Of Environmentally Isolated Vibrios, Shannon Elizabeth Pipes

Theses and Dissertations

The genus Vibrio consists of Gram-negative bacteria that possess a curved rod shape and are routinely isolated from estuarine and coastal salt water. Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Vibrio vulnificus are the major three species that contribute to human disease worldwide, and a variety of other Vibrio species contribute to persistent problems in the aquaculture and fishing industries. The CDC estimates that vibrios cause 80,000 cases of disease each year in the United States alone, however, this number is thought to be underestimated, since some disease is only self-limiting, meaning patients may not seek medical treatment and have …

Dissecting Human Capital Resources: Unpacking The Structure And Activation Of Human Capital Resources Within Firms, Caitlin Ray

Theses and Dissertations

Human capital resources (HCR) are often identified by scholars and practitioners as a firm’s most crucial resource. However, the academic use of the HCR construct, which is relatively new addition to the research vernacular, is often described with vague and imprecise terms, challenging the ability for academics and practitioners to clearly understand HCR’s precise impact on firm outcomes. One of the challenges arises because much of the HCR research literature focuses on the processes surrounding HCR without clearly specifying the components that make-up the HCR. Such lack of specificity has resulted in theoretical and empirical work which is often too …

‘Conspiring Together’: Woolf’S Investigations On ‘Party Consciousness’ And Interwar Instability In Mrs. Dalloway And To The Lighthouse, Madeline Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Woolf has been generalized popularly as enthusiastic about parties, relishing their effervescence and conversation, and she had a particular bent for imagining a party’s vivacity while often remaining distanced from it. This imagination and duality would mark Woolf’s thoughts as is recorded in her diary entries, and they became especially apparent in her fiction. In an entry on April 27^th, 1925, less than one month from Mrs. Dalloway’s May 14^th publication, she declares that “people have any number of states of consciousness” and reports that she “should like to investigate the party consciousness” (A Writer’s …

Alexa, Should I Trust You? A Theory Of Trustworthiness For Artificial Intelligence, Elizabeth K. Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

As people turn to AI driven technologies for help with everything from meal planning to choosing a mate, it is increasingly important for individuals to gauge the trustworthiness of available technologies. However, most philosophical theories of trustworthiness focus on interpersonal trust and are inappropriate for non-agents. What, then, does it mean for non-agents such as AI driven technologies to be trustworthy? I distinguish two different forms of trustworthiness: naive trustworthiness and robust trustworthiness. An agent is naively trustworthy to the extent that it would be likely to meet the truster’s expectations with respect to a given domain. An agent is …