Digital Commons Network^™

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of Growing Leaders Through Team Building And Continual Learning, Bruce Robert Lotarski

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Team building and continual learning methods have become transdisciplinary, and the effectiveness of these approaches have yet to be fully appreciated across industries. Training, coaching, and team building may alleviate many of the challenges for positioning talent with organizational change. Organizational leaders should provide direction and support with team building by clarifying and prioritizing goals before inducing innovative initiatives (Peralta, Lopes, Gilson, Lourenço, & Pais, 2014). Setting transparent goals and commitment is characteristic of mature groups, which team building may help develop (Peralta et al., 2014). Four goals for team members at the group level are to set goals, assign …

Undergraduate Students’ Satisfaction And Perception Of Knowledge Gained In A Private University, Cathy Ann Mejia

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of the present study is to investigate undergraduate students’ satisfaction and perception of knowledge gained in a freshman level finance class at a private Christian liberal arts university. To study student satisfaction and knowledge gained, several factors were examined for traditional and online delivery formats. Based upon student self-reported data, the predictive factors included student involvement in the course, effective instructor communication, instructor specification of assignments, and the instructor effectively integrating faith and learning. This quantitative study used a Likert-style course evaluation research method in an undergraduate university program. At the subject university, all students enrolled in the …

Estimating Phase Durations For Chloride-Induced Corrosion Damage Of Concrete Bridge Decks In Utah, Kaylee Dee Bateman

Theses and Dissertations

Chloride-induced deterioration of concrete bridge decks can be described in terms of three phases: 1) initiation of rebar corrosion, 2) rust formation and development of deck damage, and 3) accelerated deck damage towards structural failure. The first objective of this research was to investigate relationships among chloride concentration at the top mat of reinforcing steel, deck age, cover depth, and occurrence of delamination for concrete bridge decks with selected surface treatments and rebar types. Relating these factors can help establish greater understanding about the duration of each phase of the deterioration process. A second objective of this research was to …

Developmental Language Disorders And Reticence In Childhood, Aimee Diehl

Theses and Dissertations

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) struggle in a variety of social contexts. These children display different forms of social withdrawal, the most prevalent being shyness which is behaviorally manifested as reticence. The goal of the current study was to further explore the relationship between DLD and reticence in children using a revised set of items from the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS). A total of 220 children participated in the study. A univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine if there were significant differences related to group, age, and gender on reticence. Findings revealed a significant difference …

Moderating Influence As A Design Principle For Human-Swarm Interaction, C Chace Ashcraft

Theses and Dissertations

Robot swarms have recently become of interest in both industry and academia for their potential to perform various difficult or dangerous tasks efficiently. As real robot swarms become more of a possibility, many desire swarms to be controlled or directed by a human, which raises questions regarding how that should be done. Part of the challenge of human-swarm interaction is the difficulty of understanding swarm state and how to drive the swarm to produce emergent behaviors. Human input could inhibit desirable swarm behaviors if their input is poor and has sufficient influence over swarm agents, affecting its overall performance. Thus, …

Investing In Leadership, Vicki Lunkdmark, Jennifer Hargreaves

Group: American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)

With the aging of the nursing workforce, more than 500,000 seasoned RNs are expected to retire by 2022, raising concerns about a pending shortage of nurse leaders. At the same time, there are indications that currently working nurses have a low interest in filling leadership roles. For example, one recent study of 203 RNs with no supervisory experience—48% of whom had a bachelor's degree—found the highest levels of leadership aspirations among the nurses with less than 2 years' experience followed by declining aspiration scores among those in every subsequent career stage. One explanation for the decline of leadership aspirations for …

Revolving Elites: The Unexplored Risk Of Capturing The Sec, Randall S. Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Fears have abounded for years that the sweet spot for capture of regulatory agencies is the “revolving door” whereby civil servants migrate from their roles as regulators to private industry. Recent scholarship on this topic has examined whether America’s watchdog for securities markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), is hobbled by the long-standing practices of its enforcement staff exiting their jobs at the Commission and migrating to lucrative private sector employment where they represent those they once regulated. The research to date has been inconclusive whether staff revolving door practices have weakened the SEC’s verve. In this paper, we …

Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There are two paradigms through which to view trade law and policy within the American constitutional system. One paradigm sees trade law and policy as quintessentially about domestic economic policy. Institutionally, under the domestic economics paradigm, trade law falls within the province of Congress, which has legion Article I authorities over commercial matters. The second paradigm sees trade law as fundamentally about America’s relationship with foreign countries. Institutionally, under the foreign affairs paradigm, trade law is the province of the President, who speaks for the United States in foreign affairs. While both paradigms have operated throughout American history, the domestic …

Will Tenure Voting Give Corporate Managers Lifetime Tenure?, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas, Wei Jiang

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Dual-class voting systems have been widely employed in recent initial public offerings by large tech companies, but have been roundly condemned by institutional investors and the S&P 500. As an alternative, commentators have proposed adoption of tenure voting systems, where investor voting rights increase with the length of time that they hold shares. In furtherance of this proposal, some Silicon Valley investors have requested that the SEC permit the creation of a new stock exchange where all of the companies will be required to use tenure voting systems.

Is tenure voting a better choice than dual-class stock for both corporate …

Settling In The Shadow Of Sex: Gender Bias In Marital Asset Division, Jennifer Bennett Shinall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Divorce has a long history of economically disempowering women. From the time of coverture to the era of modern divorce reform, women have been persistently disadvantaged by divorce relative to men. Family law scholars have long attributed this disadvantage to the continued prevalence of traditional gender roles and the failure of current marital asset division laws to account adequately for this prevalence. In spite of the progress made by the women's movement over the past half-century, married, heterosexual women endure as the primary caretaker in the majority of households, and married, heterosexual men endure as the primary breadwinners. Undoubtedly, women …

Sharkfests And Databases: Crowdsourcing Plea Bargains, Nancy J. King, Kay L. Levine, Ronald F. Wright, Marc L. Miller

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The stock image of a plea negotiation in a criminal case depicts two lawyers in frayed business suits, meeting one-on-one in a dim corner of a courtroom lobby. The defendant is somewhere nearby, ready to receive information about the prosecutor’s offer and to discuss counteroffers with his attorney and perhaps with his family. The victim or arresting officer may be available by phone, although neither has the power to veto a deal the prosecutor otherwise thinks is reasonable. In this depiction of plea bargaining, the defense attorney and the defendant form one unit, allied against another unit—comprised of the prosecutor, …

Why Are Seemingly Satisfied Female Lawyers Running For The Exits? Resolving The Paradox Using National Data, Joni Hersch, Erin E. Meyers

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Despite the fact that women are leaving the practice of law at alarmingly high rates, most previous research finds no evidence of gender differences in job satisfaction among lawyers. This Article uses nationally representative data from the 2015 National Survey of College Graduates to examine gender differences in lawyers’ job satisfaction, and finds that any apparent similarity of job satisfaction between genders likely arises from dissatisfied female JDs sorting out of the legal profession at higher rates than their male counterparts, leaving behind the most satisfied women. This Article also provides a detailed examination of the specific working conditions that …

Similar Secrets, Joseph P. Fishman, Deepa Varadarajan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A foundational question in every dispute over intellectual property is whether the defendant’s product is too similar to the plaintiff ’s. For almost all intellectual property regimes, an extensive body of case law and academic commentary has examined how such similarity should be measured. Trade secrecy, however, remains a remarkable exception. In trade secrecy cases, just as in other intellectual property cases, the defendant’s good or method can diverge markedly from what the plaintiff developed. Yet it turns out that trade secret case law provides little guidance for assessing how much similarity is too much. The standard remains, fittingly but …

Weathering The Storm: Utilizing Congressional Investigations To Improve National Hurricane Preparedness, Jennifer Safstrom

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

During the 2017 hurricane season, three major storms impacted differ- ent regions of the United States. These storms-Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria-devastated communities in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico within the span of a month. These storms were so destructive that the World Meteorological Organization has retired all three storm names, meaning no future hurricane will ever bear the names Harvey, Irma, or Maria again. In response, according to the Government Accountability Office ("GAO"), "19 federal agencies had entered into contracts and obligated over $5.6 billion on those contracts to support efforts related to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria" as …

States As Civil Rights Actors, Jennifer Safstrom

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A British politician, David Miliband, once said, "My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics." While his perspective--of starting small and building up--is an often-used strategy used by advocates of all stripes, his quote does not give sufficient credence to the intrinsic value of these small battles. These efforts are an end unto themselves, as the smaller battles within each state are not just training to take on larger federal …

Unfamiliar Justice: Indigent Criminal Defendants' Experiences With Civil Legal Needs, Lauren Sudeall, Ruth Richardson

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Our legal system - and much of the research conducted on that system - often separates people and issues into civil and criminal silos. However, those two worlds intersect and influence one another in important ways. The qualitative empirical study that forms the basis of this Article bridges the civil-criminal divide by exploring the life circumstances and events of public defender clients to determine how they experience and respond to civil legal problems.

To date, studies addressing civil legal needs more generally have not focused on those individuals enmeshed with the criminal justice system, even though that group offers a …

Private Governance Response To Climate Change: The Case Of Refrigerants, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Shannon Vreeland, Ted Atwood

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Refrigerants are promising targets for private green- house gas (GHG) emissions reduction initiatives. Air conditioning units, fire extinguishers, aerosols, and solvents all contain chemical refrigerants that absorb and release heat. Refrigerants are used to chill food, buildings, and vehicles. Among commercial buildings, office space, health care, food service, and retail sales and service comprise well over 50 percent of all buildings in the United States and contribute a comparable amount of refrigerant emissions. Air Conditioning, Heating, & Refrigeration Insti- tute, AHRI Releases December 2017 U.S. Heating and Cooling Equipment Shipment Data 4 (2017). Certain refrigerants have been identified as ozone …

Delaying Kindergarten Entrance By Participating In Pre-Kindergarten And Academic Achievement In Elementary School: Red-Shirting And Achievement Scores, Rachael Postle-Brown

Dissertations

The purpose of this ex post facto causal comparative study is to examine the academic achievement of students entering the educational system, that is, kindergarten, either through pre-kindergarten or no pre-kindergarten. Allowing me to examine “red shirting,” a practice of giving children an additional year, in pre-kindergarten, to mature physically, socially, and academically before entering kindergarten. This study is important to school district personnel and parents whom need to make informed decisions concerning pre-kindergarten programs.

In this study, I compare the elementary academic achievement of students through 3^rd grade, who delayed kindergarten entrance with those who did not delay. …

University Auxiliary Services: A Review Of Factors Impacting Privatization Decisions, Rita S. Gordon

Dissertations

The dynamics of higher education funding present unique challenges and opportunities for administrators. One method university administrators employ to contain expenses and provide additional revenue is privatization of academic and non-academic services.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the specific factors considered in a decision to privatize bookstore and/or dining service operations, and perceptions about whether the post-privatization decision met pre-privatization expectations. Gordon’s (2019) Privatization Decision Framework was created based upon existing research and then used to develop survey questions. Twelve pre-privatization decision factors, nine post-privatization contracted relationship expectation factors, overall satisfaction with the privatization decision, and …

Design Parameters For Planning Cluster Randomized Trials Of Cognitive Skill Interventions: An Empirical Analysis Using The Collegiate Learning Assessment, Yu Du

Dissertations

Recently, higher education has started to place a premium on rigorous research that uses randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to test the impact of educational interventions. This may be due in part to concerns about a deficiency of high-quality evidence of the effectiveness of programs, policies, and practices to improve undergraduate students’ outcomes. Given the naturally nested structure in higher education, e.g., students nested in colleges/universities, researchers in higher education start considering a specific type of RCT called a cluster randomized trial (CRT), which have been frequently used in K-12 impact research. In a CRT, whole clusters, such as colleges/universities, are …

Neocolonial Epidemiology: Public Health Practice And The Right To Health In Guatemala, Alejandro Cerón

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between public health practice and the fulfilment of the right to health is often assumed to be synergistic. With the goal of understanding how exactly this relationship happens, I studied the everyday practice of epidemiology in Guatemala, seeking to understand how it shapes and is shaped by the notion of health as a human right. Here I present findings from my ethnographic investigation of the Guatemalan Centro Nacional de Epidemiología (National Epidemiology Center), created in 2004 with the explicit mission of contributing to fulfilling the right to health for the inhabitants of Guatemala. While the relationship between epidemiological …

Factors Contributing To The Attrition Of New Student Affairs Professionals, Nicole Millar Allbee

Dissertations

Alumni who graduated within the previous five years from student affairs master’s degree programs across the nation were surveyed to examine issues related to attrition. In total, 697 alumni responded, of which 588 (84.36%) were still in the field of student affairs and 109 (15.64%) had departed. Participants were surveyed regarding their levels of occupational commitment to student affairs and their satisfaction and burnout in their first postgraduate professional role in order to understand how these factors influenced their retention in the profession. These measures were assessed for all alumni as well as for both comparison groups and a logistic …

V.1 Spring 2019, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Spring 2019 issue contains articles on studio practice, a Sculpture studio that uses Fort Adams as an installation site, Harvard Art Museum's pigment collection, a student's recollections of the British Club in Bahrain, creativity in Sri Lanka, gender agnosticism/transgenderism, RISD Provost Ken Kleinman, Vice-President of Social Equity and Inclusion Matthew Shenoda, reflections from the workshops "Urgency Lab," the Sunrise Movement, a RISD Museum performance "Strand," a counter-protest to the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, religion …

Entrepreneurial Intention Towards Sustainable Growth: The Case Of Tourism Msmes, Tia Mare L. Ebdane

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The study aimed at determining the effect of perceived desirability through perceptions on normative, regulatory, and cognitive profile; and perceived feasibility through effectiveness in marketing, innovation, management, risk-taking, and financial control measures to the sustainable growth intention of micro, small, and medium tourism establishments in an untapped tourism destination in the Philippines. Data was gathered through a survey of 95 respondents using a survey questionnaire, and was analyzed through multiple linear regression. Results indicate that only the perception on the cognitive profile was significant among the perceived desirability measures, and the effectiveness of financial control, among the perceived feasibility measures.

Sustainable Entrepreneurship In Response To Grand Challenges: What Do We Know And How Do We Move Forward?, Eula Bianca Villar, Francesc Miralles

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The role of sustainability is gaining ground in management and entrepreneurship research especially in the midst of increasing exposure of the society to grand challenges. This paper provides a narrative review of the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) and juxtaposes it with the concept of grand challenge. The narrative review in turn surfaces a potential framework on how the discourse in both areas can be converged. The framework proposes how grand challenges can be integrated as a critical component in the SE literature. In turn, this paper seeks to inform future conversations on SE both in the theoretical and applied …

Motives Of Entrepreneurs In Entering The Informal Economy Using The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Gem) Data, Emilina R. Sarreal

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The GEM 2013 Adult Population Survey (APS) conducted in the Philippines revealed that out of the 677 owner- manager respondents, 293 or 43% had not registered their business with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which

handles business name registration as the initial step for entering the formal economy. According to the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) 2016 report (as cited by Pasion, 2017), the informal sector employs 15.6 million of the Filipino workers which comprise 38% of the total working population. This implies that a large number of informal entrepreneurs employ these people to help them run …

The Pathophysiological Implications Of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury On Diagnosis And Treatment, Braeden Edleman

Honors Thesis

A mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), or concussion, affects millions of athletes on a yearly basis. A mTBI is the result of biomechanical forces, such as acceleration and deceleration, acting on the skull and brain. These forces create acute neurological injuries throughout the brain. The consequences of mTBI are apparent in multiple common medical practices. Sideline assessments and clinical evaluations used in diagnosis are based largely on the signs and symptoms which arise as consequences of mTBI. Treatments, including symptom management and a gradual return to play, are further based on controlling the signs and symptoms of mTBI. The purpose …

Age-Related Changes In Two Muscle Enzymes Of The Hawk Moth, Connor Mcmahon

Honors Thesis

Aging has been associated with significant declines in muscle strength and mass. The specific molecular mechanisms behind these changes, however, are not well known. One potential mechanism behind muscle aging could be enzymatic dysfunction. This research examines the enzyme changes that occur in the dorsolateral flight muscles of the hawk moth. The hawk moth, Manduca sexta, is an excellent model of muscle aging due to its short lifespan, ease of rearing, and endothermic flight muscles. We assayed citrate synthase (CS) and β-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (HADH) to determine the activity of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and fatty acid oxidation, respectively. A significant …

Plant Mitochondrial Genome Evolution And Structure Has Been Shaped By Double-Strand Break Repair And Recombination, Emily Wynn

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Plant mitochondrial genomes are large but contain a small number of genes. These genes have very low mutation rates, but genomes rearrange and expand at significant rates. We propose that much of the apparent complexity of plant mitochondrial genomes can be explained by the interactions of double-strand break repair, recombination, and selection. One possible explanation for the disparity between the low mutation rates of genes and the high divergence of non-genes is that synonymous mutations in genes are not truly neutral. In some species, rps14 has been duplicated in the nucleus, allowing the mitochondrial copy to become a pseudogene. By …

Pilgrimage To Palmyra, Reid L. Neilson, Carson V. Teuscher

BYU Studies

The arrival of autumn in 1923 brought more than a mature harvest to the quiet farming village of Palmyra, New York. On a late September weekend, a torrent of visitors flooded the township—a spectacle unlike anything the locals had ever seen. “Trudging along the roads leading into Palmyra today there came a small army of pilgrims,” the local Rochester Herald reported, “each with his pilgrim’s scrip and each wearing slung across his shoulders a banner with the cryptic word ‘Cumorah’ blazoned on it.” Befuddled residents witnessed the young male and female pilgrims arrive—two by two—until they eventually coalesced in large …