Digital Commons Network^™

The Construction Of The Right To Development: The United Nations, Human Rights, And Economic Development, Nader Izzat Said

Dissertations

The origins of human rights are of interest to social scientists. This study focuses on the construction process of the right to development as related to the UN. The emphasis is on the claims-making processes surrounding the creation of the right to development. To understand these processes, a theoretical framework has been developed. This framework combines interactionism, collective-behavior approaches, a dialectical theory of law-creation, and a capitalist world-economy theory. It is expected that this theoretical framework will explain the specific, organizational, and structural processes that led to the creation of the right to development.

Data for this study came from …

How Gender And Psychological Separation From Parents Interact With Depression In The Young Adult Experience Of Parental Separation And Divorce, Mary Oppenhuizen

Dissertations

The impact of parental divorce on children under the age of 18 has been studied extensively (Hetherington, 1979, 1981; Kurdek & Siesky, 1980; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989; Wallerstein & Kelly , 1974, 1976, 1980). There has been far less research addressing effects of parental divorce on young adults (Bianchi, Rosen, & Reilly , 1987; Cain, 1989; Cooney, Smyer, Hagestad, & Klock, 1986; Farber, Primavera, & Felner, 1983; Kaufmann, 1987/1988). This may be due to the "common" assumption that young adults are psychologically separated from their parents in such a way that they suffer minimally when encountering parental divorce.

In this …

University Students' Personal Histories And Alcohol Programs: A Naturalistic Study, Alexandra E. Michaels

Dissertations

Using a naturalistic inquiry approach, this study sought to generate (a) new insights into the troubling problem of student alcohol abuse as well as (b) a new theoretical basis for alcohol programs. The purpose of the study was to provide a comprehensive understanding of the experiences and characteristics of college students who have discontinued abusive drinking. Using an interview methodology, three main issues were examined: (1) the environmental and personal factors that influenced the participants' drinking behavior and related problems, (2) the factors which hindered or assisted participants in setting and achieving a goal of sobriety or establishing a nonabusive …

Multivariate Quadrature On Mimd Machines With Shared Or Distributed Memory, Ignatios E. Vakalis

Dissertations

For a procedure as numerical integration, of high computational expense which is used extensively in large-scale computations, it is natural to aim at the design of algorithms which can be used on parallel computes. This work deeds with the design of efficient and portable parallel algorithms on MIMD (Multiple Instruction Multiple Data) architectures with shared memory, and on distributed memory systems.

A parallel global adaptive algorithm is presented for multivariate integration over simplex type regions. Process synchronization is achieved through the use of monitors. Macros were developed, for managing the task pool with a heap data structure. Layered over the …

The Effects Of Training And Experience On The Ability To Detect Relapse Precipitants In A Substance Abuse Client, Michael F. Sunich

Dissertations

This study examined the effects of training and experience on counselors' ability to detect relapse precipitants in substance abuse clients. Eighty counselor trainees from Western Michigan University and the University of Northern Colorado participated. They were classified as to their previous level of experience and then exposed to either the treatment condition or the control condition. Pretest-posttest data were gathered using a modified version of the Alcohol Confidence Questionnaire (Annis & Graham, 1988) (ACQ-M).

The findings from this study suggest that counselors with previous substance abuse experience tend to show less confidence in a client's ability to remain abstinent than …

Sense Of Humor As A Mediator Of The Effects Of Stress On Physical Health And Psychological Well-Being, Timothy Eugene Spruill

Dissertations

This paper explores the role of sense of humor as a mediator of the effects of stress on physical health and psychological well-being. One hundred subjects, selected from a population of hospital employees, were administered two measures of sense of humor. In addition, they completed a personal data form, and instruments assessing stressors, perceived stress, physical health and psychological well-being.

Results were evaluated using simple correlations and multiple regression analysis in order to determine whether or not knowledge of a subject's sense of humor enables prediction of their levels of physical health, psychological well-being and perceived stress. Analysis of the …

Computational Neural Networks In Chemistry: Model Free Mapping Devices For Predicting Chemical Reactivity From Molecular Structure, David Wayne Elrod

Dissertations

Computational neural networks (CNNs) are a computational paradigm inspired by the brain’s massively parallel network of highly interconnected neurons. The power of computational neural networks derives not so much from their ability to model the brain as from their ability to learn by example and to map highly complex, nonlinear functions, without the need to explicitly specify the functional relationship. Two central questions about CNNs were investigated in the context of predicting chemical reactions: (1) the mapping properties of neural networks and (2) the representation of chemical information for use in CNNs.

Chemical reactivity is here considered an example of …

Training And Maintenance Of Breast Self-Examination Skills, Bernardine M. Pinto

Dissertations

Maintenance of breast self-examination (BSE) skills is crucial to the effectiveness of self-exams in early detection of breast tumors. While researchers have developed an effective technology for training these skills, the maintenance of BSE proficiency is questionable (Pennypacker et al., 1982). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of reassessment (and retraining) on the maintenance of BSE skills. Twenty-nine women (ages 25-64) were trained to criterion using the MammaCare training package. Experimental subjects were required to demonstrate their skills at a 2 month reassessment and received retraining if their skills had declined below criterion. Control subjects were …

A Critical Examination Of The Use Of Preliminary Tests In Two-Sample Tests Of Location, Kimberly Tucker Perry

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the appropriateness of testing the equality of two means using either a t test, the Welch test, or the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test for two independent samples based on the results of using two classes of preliminary tests. One class of preliminary tests determines whether the population variances differ, and the other class ascertains if the underlying distributions are symmetric or skewed. The F-ratio test and the Levene test (using the median) were compared as preliminary tests for variance homogeneity; and the DAgostino Sy and the Triples tests were also compared as preliminary tests …

An Analysis Of Student Math Scores Based Upon Teacher Training In The Instructional Theory Into Practice Model, Martha O'Kray

Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to determine if teacher participation in Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP , Hunter, 1978) training resulted in any difference in student achievement. Student outcomes were measured by scores received on the district's Exit Level Mathematics Test (Roseville Community Schools, 1986).

The study took place in Roseville Community Schools. Six hundred forty-nine students and 32 teachers in Grades 3, 4, and 5 participated.

Fourteen teacher observations were included to confirm the appropriateness and frequency of ITIP strategies in classroom instruction. Observers using the Instructional S kills Observation Instrument (ISOI, Wolfe, 1984) scored non-ITIP-trained teachers …

Neuropsychological Effects Of Short-Term Abstinence In Adolescent Alcoholics, Asiah Mayang

Dissertations

The Michigan Neuropsychological Battery (Smith, 1975) was administered to 14 to 17-year-old alcoholics from an inpatient and outpatient substance abuse treatment center within 7 days of their last drink, and again after 28-33 days of abstinence (a = 26). Comparisons were made between this group and an adolescent alcoholic group who did not abstain and was not receiving treatment for their alcohol abuse (n = 15). The non-abstaining group was also given the same test battery twice. Results indicated that subjects who abstained from drinking (experimental group) performed better than subjects who did not abstain (control group) on measures of …

Identifying A 9-12 Curriculum For High Schools In The Upper Peninsula Of Michigan, Patrick Manning

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify high school graduation standards for high schools in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The standards should meet the state of Michigan recommendations or standards for high school graduation. In addition, recommendations of local, state , and national studies and commission reports were included. A comparison was made between a ll Upper Peninsula high schools' graduation requirements for both non-college-bound and college-bound students and the Michigan State Board of Education recommended graduation requirements and those of the Michigan College Presidents Council.

Inquiry was made into course cred it requirements for graduation, recommended curriculum …

Women And Leadership: The Effect Of Gender, Gender-Role Orientation, Socioeconomic Status, And Parental Influence On Women’S Aspirations To Leader Roles, Barbara Katherine Kreuzer

Dissertations

The objective of this study was to determine which factor or combination of factors are related to the degree to which university women aspire to leadership positions. A random sample of university seniors (N=311) from the business, teacher education, and political science curricula were surveyed by mail. The study attempted to answer the following seven research questions: (1) Are there gender differences among university seniors' aspirations to leader positions, (2) are there differences among university seniors' aspirations to leadership based upon curriculum, (3) are there gender differences among university seniors in their projections of classmates into career roles, (4) are …

Detection Of Sexual Cues: An Assessment Of Nonaggressive And Sexually Coercive College Males, Rita Kenyon-Jump

Dissertations

Seventy-four nonaggressive and 78 sexually coercive college males, as determined by the Sexual Experiences Survey (Koss & Oros, 1982) and ranging in age from 18-25 years, participated in a study designed to assess their ability to detect specific behavioral cues of female partners’ unwillingness to engage in kissing, genital fondling, and sexual intercourse. Contrary to prediction, a 2 (nonaggression and sexual coercion) X 3 (kissing, fondling, and intercourse) analysis of variance revealed no statistically significant difference between the nonaggressive and sexually coercive males in their ability to detect cues of female unwillingness to engage in kissing, genital fondling, and sexual …

Perceptions Of Racial Climate In Residence Halls Between African-American And Euroamerican College Students, Vanessa D. Johnson-Durgans

Dissertations

This study was undertaken to determine if African-American residents perceive the racial climate of residence halls differently than do Euroamerican residents at a predominantly Euroamerican university in southwest Michigan. The questions explored in this study were:

1. Do African-American residents perceive the hall environment differently than Euroamerican residents?

2. Do African-American residents perceive the residence hall government differently than Euroamerican residents?

3. Do African-American residents perceive the halls' student staff differently than Euroamerican residents?

4. Do African-American residents perceive their relation to other residents differently than Euroamerican residents?

This study consisted of analyzing the results of this writer's questionnaire e …

Experimental And Theoretical Analyses Of Instructional Tasks: Reading, Discrimination, And Construction, Satoru Shimamune

Dissertations

The effectiveness and efficiency of three kinds of workbooks were compared in teaching behavioral systems analysis to college students. Each workbook contained the same content but utilized different types of instructional tasks. The reading workbook had the definitions, and examples and nonexamples of the concepts to be taught, and the subjects were asked to read them. The discrimination workbook had the same definitions, examples and nonexamples, but the subjects were asked to work on discriminating the examples from the nonexamples. Feedback was given with regard to the correctness of the subjects' responses. The construction workbook had the same definitions of …

An Analysis Of The Effect Of Matching Student Learning Style To The Method Of Instruction, Addamae Akin

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if matching student learning style and teacher teaching style w ill result in any difference in achievement of students in the classroom as measured by the number of students receiving credit in ninth-grade world history classes.

The study was conducted in a mid-size Macomb County, Michigan, school district. Two hundred fifteen ninth-grade students and four teachers participated in this study. World history classes were used because of their heterogeneous grouping and because i t was a required ninth-grade class.

Students were administered the Learning Style Profile (Keefe & Monk, 1986) from the …

Sociolinguistic Dimensions Of Nurse Practitioner Practice: A Question Of Power, Merrily J. Allen Dnsc, Mn, Rn

Dissertations

Ethnographic methods were used to examine the sociolinguistic dimensions of female nurse practitioner interactions with female patients. The purpose was to provide a contextual account of the discursive practices used by the nurse practitioners during routine office visits with female patients. Direction for this research was provided by my concern about power inherent in professional-client dyadic relationships. Data collection methods included formal and informal interviews, participant observation and audio taping nurse-patient encounters. Nine nurse practitioners and 26 patients participated in the study in both private and public ambulatory care settings. Data analysis yielded two concurrent story lines which I labeled …

Behavior Of High Strength Concrete And Slender Reinforced Concrete Columns With And Without Steel Fibers, Lin Showmay Hsu

Dissertations

A series of compression tests are conducted on 3 in. by 6 in. cylindrical specimens using a modified testing method that give the complete stress-strain behavior for both plain and fibrous high strength concretes with or without tie confinements. The volume fractions of fiber in the concrete are 0%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0%, respectively. Empirical equations are proposed herein to represent the complete stress-strain relationships of high strength and high strength fibrous concretes with compressive strength exceeding 10,000 psi. Various parameters are studied and their relationships are experimentally determined. The comparison between the experimental and analytical results shows to have …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Gated Silicon Field Emission Micro Triodes, Nanchou Liu

Dissertations

This dissertation describes the fabrication technology and characterization of a gated silicon field emission micro triode that is a novel electron tunneling device for generating electron emission into a vacuum. Conic (point) and wedge field emitter structures with nm-scale radii were fabricated in silicon and GaAs by etching, MOCVD and dry oxidation. A new self-aligned process was developed for fabrication of vertical field emission triodes. This process allows control of gate opening to less than 0.5 μm diameter without the need of electron-beam writing. It also provides a planar gate electrode and a thick dielectric layer for reduction of the …

The Influence Of Pore Fluids On Shear Strength And Stress-Strain Behavior Of Granular Soils, Prasanna Ratnaweera

Dissertations

When a dry granular soil is subjected to an external load, the stresses are transferred through mineral to mineral contacts. The shear strength of such a soil is governed by its contact properties. Presence of a thin layer of fluid between mineral to mineral contacts in a saturated soil will alter its contact properties. Therefore any change in the physical properties of pore fluid can logically be reasoned to influence the deformation characteristics of granular soils.

To investigate the influence of pore fluid viscosity on shear strength and stress-strain behavior of a soil, a series of consolidated drained triaxial tests …

Expert System For The Injection Molding Of Engineering Thermoplastics, Tzy-Cherng Jan

Dissertations

Injection molding of engineering thermoplastics is the most widely used manufacturing method in industry. It is a priority to maintain a deviation-free operating environment to ensure high quality, low cost manufacture. An expert system for the injection molding of engineering thermoplastics has been investigated. The system can be used to attenuate the deviations experienced during the injection molding of engineering thermoplastics. The system is coded in C programming language.

The resolution procedures of this system include two stages such as the definition of declarative knowledge and the procedure of corrective actions. In the definition of declarative knowledge, all of the …

A Study On Radical Scavenging And Magnetic Resonance Imaging Characteristics Of Stable Radical Nitroxides, Shiey-Shiun Horng

Dissertations

Several nitroxides have been prepared for study of their image enhancement capability. These nitroxides contain different nitroxyl moieties within one molecule. On MRI examination for the nitroxides prepared, TEMPO and HPTPO are better due to their better water solubility, even though some of the others have more nitroxyl centers available. The intensity response is linear with respect to concentration in the range studied in most of the cases except for HPTPO, whose intensity finally reaches maximum when its concentration is higher than 10 mM.

Three sources of biomass, namely, liver microsomes, whole-cell yeast and a bacterial activated sludge consortium, have …

Effects Of Western Education On Employees' Participation And Job Satisfaction In Saudi Arabian Industries, Abdulrahman Y. Al-Selaim

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what degree Western education and Saudi Arabian employees' degree of participation in quality circle programs influences their job satisfaction. These variables were investigated using a survey administered to 150 Saudi Arabian employees working in the production department of a Saudi Arabian company. The Questionnaire of Participation and Satisfaction (QPS) instrument that was used in this investigation is a 20-item questionnaire; items 1-13 were developed by the researcher, and items 14-20 were developed by Abbas (1985). The questionnaire consisted of three components designed to determine: where employees were educated, as well as …

Juvenile Justice: An Examination Of Disparities In Dispositions, Michael P. Brown

Dissertations

The present study tests the utility of status characteristics and expectation states theory in the context of the juvenile court. The theory contends that there is dispositional certainty when case related factors are consistently rated serious or nonserious; the severity of the sanction will reflect the seriousness of the case. However, the likelihood of sentencing disparities based on individual characteristics (e.g., race and SES) increases as case related factors become increasingly inconsistent, with some rated serious and others rated nonserious.

Data to test this theory were collected from the Kalamazoo County Juvenile Court, Kalamazoo, Michigan in June and July, 1990. …

A Measure Of State-Trait Anger With Adolescent Sex Offenders, Adolescent Delinquents, And A Normal Adolescent Population, Brett D. Lincoln

Dissertations

Research indicates that sexual offending juveniles are angry. Furthermore, sexual offending is seen as a primary means to reduce anger by these youth. However there is little empirical support of these positions. Few comparative studies of sexual offenders with other experimental or control groups exist.

The purpose of this study was to assess differences of anger among three adolescent groups: juvenile delinquent, sexual offender and a control. Assessment of anger was across six subscales of Spielberger's (1988) State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI). The subscales of interest were: State, Trait, Trait Anger Temperament, Trait Anger Repressed, Anger Expression/In and Anger …

Applied Relaxation Training In The Treatment Of Genital Herpes, Kent A. Koehn

Dissertations

Four individuals with frequent recurrences of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) were trained in Applied Relaxation (AR). Participants included in the research were all women, had been diagnosed with herpes at least one year prior to the study, experienced 6 or more outbreaks annually, and were not taking antiviral medications.

The experiment employed a multiple baseline across subjects design with individual baselines of 11, 13, 17, and 21 weeks. Participants maintained daily diary recordings of the frequency, duration, and severity of their herpes activity from baseline until a minimum of three months post-treatment.

Treatment consisted of 10 individual AR sessions. …

Foster Parents’ Experience Of Loss And Their Coping Response Style, Kathleen M. Kirby

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the subjective experience of emotional and physical stress reported by foster parents that may be caused by serial placements of foster children. It also addressed the coping response mechanisms and style of foster parents that may promote successful endurance of serial losses. In addition, the relationship between specific coping responses of foster parents was investigated to determine if the circumstances of placement or characteristics of foster parents interact to exacerbate or remediate emotional/physical stress.

Demographics were tabulated for Michigan foster parents including age, family income, religious affiliation, racial/cultural identification, marital status, educational …

The Rise And Decline Of Mental Health Hospitals In The State Of Michigan, Gerald H. Smith

Dissertations

The State of Michigan has been partially responsible for the treatment of the mentally ill population since 1832, when Wayne County General Hospital opened its doors. The state government made a commitment to care for the afflicted, and at the same time provide an opportunity for other individuals to participate in their treatment. Eventually this commitment led to the establishment of employment for many citizens, and gradually, over the decades, a mental health bureaucracy emerged. It was necessary to hire not only professional staff, but also support staff such as food services, housekeeping, maintenance, and the like. Mental health facilities …

Perceived Parental Care And Protection As Correlates Of Chronic Pain In Adults, Daniel L. Walberer

Dissertations

This research was undertaken to explore the significance of care and protection as correlates related to the experience of chronic pain in adults. Chronic pain may affect as many as ten percent of the American population and cost up to a billion dollars a year in treatment costs. It was hypothesized that certain parenting styles are related to the experience of chronic pain in adults.

Thirty male and female patients referred to The Center for Health Psychology and Medicine in Kalamazoo, Michigan who were diagnosed as experiencing chronic pain by a referring physician participated in this study. Each participant underwent …