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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Public Education Of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders In Northeast Ohio;The Examination And Comparison Of Current Practices To The Perspective Of Parents And Professionals, Jocelyn M. Geib Jan 2011

The Public Education Of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders In Northeast Ohio;The Examination And Comparison Of Current Practices To The Perspective Of Parents And Professionals, Jocelyn M. Geib

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This study examined the perceptions of professionals and parents of children with autism regarding quality indicators of successful educational practices in Northeast Ohio and compared this information to current literature trends. The study used questionnaires and interviews to look at these topics and compare them to the perceptions of stakeholders. Results indicate that stakeholder perceptions are similar to those promoted in the literature. Parents and professionals perceived methodology based interventions that are individualized and delivered by highly trained and qualified personnel to be the most important components of an educational program for students with autism. Barriers to delivering these services …


Are Amenities Important For The Migration Of Highly Educated Workers? The Role Of Built-Amenities In The Migration Of Highly Educated Workers, Mijin Joo Jan 2011

Are Amenities Important For The Migration Of Highly Educated Workers? The Role Of Built-Amenities In The Migration Of Highly Educated Workers, Mijin Joo

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Across the past two decades, public officials have debated and social scientists have studied the importance of tourist amenities in attracting and retaining human capital. Few studies, however, have examined the relationship between tourist amenities and the migration of educated workers. Information of this nature is needed by public officials considering the best use of tax dollars to attract human capital and advance local economies. This dissertation addresses this need an analysis of the relationship between built amenities and the migration of educated workers. This study's focus was on the importance of built amenities such as sports facilities, museums, and …


Inventive Thought In Endogenous Economic Development;An Empirical Comparison Of Darwinian And Lamarckian Approaches, Songpyo Kim Jan 2011

Inventive Thought In Endogenous Economic Development;An Empirical Comparison Of Darwinian And Lamarckian Approaches, Songpyo Kim

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The importance of knowledge creation in economic development has been enormously emphasized in recent years. Inventions are the first step for innovations that leads to further economic growth. Moreover, when new ideas are created endogenously from within a regional system, rather than from outside, they may lead to internally-generated economic growth and development. Accordingly, this study aims to understand 'the process of generating creative ideas' for endogenous regional economic growth. On the basis of data that reflects the perspectives of actual inventors, the researcher adopted both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative methods were oriented toward phenomenology and were …


Generation Y ; An Exploratory Study Of Worker Experiences, Values And Attitudes In The Federal Government, Antoine D. Moss Jan 2011

Generation Y ; An Exploratory Study Of Worker Experiences, Values And Attitudes In The Federal Government, Antoine D. Moss

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As a result of the unprecedented retirement wave within the federal government, federal agencies are aggressively recruiting young professionals that have been categorized as Generation Y. However, there is currently a lack of systematic research that has been conducted on this new cohort of employees particularly, within the federal government. A lot of the available information that pertains to Generation Y can be classified as pop journalism, as opposed to scholarly research. Furthermore, many federal leaders are utilizing this information along with outdated traditional management assumptions about employee motivation to design and develop their public organizations. This tenuous approach can …


Performance Funding Of State Public Higher Education;Has It Delivered The Desired External Accountability And Institutional Improvement?, Mark M. Polatajko Jan 2011

Performance Funding Of State Public Higher Education;Has It Delivered The Desired External Accountability And Institutional Improvement?, Mark M. Polatajko

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In today's economic climate, state public institutions of higher education face challenges on multiple fronts. This applies particularly to state funding as it relates to the financing of the mission of the institutions. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the effectiveness of allocating state resources to state public institutions of higher education by comparing results from performance funding states to non-performance funding states. The focus was to determine whether the change to the performance funding methodology delivered the desired external accountability and institutional improvement in state public higher education. The research question guiding this study was: To …


Three Essays On Innovation And Regional Economic Development, Jon R. Shelton Jan 2011

Three Essays On Innovation And Regional Economic Development, Jon R. Shelton

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The first essay develops a typology that identifies the multiple pathways, functions and operations where innovation can occur in a firm's internal business cycle based upon the extant literature that includes both technological and non-technological activities. This is an important step toward developing a comprehensive strategy for a regional economy and provides a common platform for the discussion of innovation among academics and practitioners.The typology adds to the existing knowledge of how innovation works in organizations by describing the pathways, business functions and operations in a firm's internal-business-process the business strategies used to advance innovation to the market and the …


A Rat Model Of Sleep Deprivation Prior To Traumatic Brain Injury, Steve G. Soehnlen Jan 2011

A Rat Model Of Sleep Deprivation Prior To Traumatic Brain Injury, Steve G. Soehnlen

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Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been called the "signature injury" of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers undergo a variety of stressors during their tours of duty that could complicate recovery from TBI, one of which is sleep deprivation (SD). In this study, we sought to create a rat model exploring the effects of prior REM sleep deprivation (RSD) on recovery from TBI-induced sensorimotor and cognitive deficits. Rats were deprived of REM sleep before they underwent a controlled cortical impact (CCI) to mimic a TBI. Forelimb sensorimotor function, hindlimb motor function, forelimb motor function, and spatial learning were assessed …


Cross Product Generalizability Of Shopping Site Judgments, Steven G. Given Jan 2011

Cross Product Generalizability Of Shopping Site Judgments, Steven G. Given

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The purpose of this study was to examine the generalizability of attribute performance and attribute importance ratings across product classes. Data were collected, with the use of an online survey, from 313 respondents of which 287 were U.S. college students and 26 were close acquaintances of the research team. Seventy-four percent of respondents were male, all respondents had at least four years of internet use experience, and 44 claim to make at least one online shopping purchase per month. Twenty-six web site attributes were selected from the Variegated Inventory of Site Attributes (VISA) (Blake, Hamilton, Neuendorf & Murcko, 2010) to …


A Qualitative Investigation Into The Active Level Of Perception Of Dissociation Of Source From Content Under Narrative Conditions, William J. Weaver Jan 2011

A Qualitative Investigation Into The Active Level Of Perception Of Dissociation Of Source From Content Under Narrative Conditions, William J. Weaver

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This thesis explores what media users perceive about the authors and creators of narrative media based solely on the content of that media itself. It contrasts traditional notions of source credibility (established via rhetoric or debate) versus models of media effects which exert themselves through mere exposure to message, and where a direct evaluation of the message source may be neither salient nor possible. A sample of nine undergraduates were individually interviewed in order to investigate the thematic trends associated with the perceptions of credibility and of authorial source while exposed to narrative. The interviews gave rise to the notion …


The Efficacy Of Hippocampal Stimulation In Preventing Depressive Symptoms, Timothy B. Patrick Jan 2011

The Efficacy Of Hippocampal Stimulation In Preventing Depressive Symptoms, Timothy B. Patrick

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The hippocampus provides negative feedback for the Hypothalamic-Pituitary- Adrenal (HPA) axis. The HPA axis is responsible for producing a response to stressful stimuli. The hippocampus is sensitive to high levels of glucocorticoids (GCs), because of its large number of GC receptors. In times of severe stress, hippocampal function is inhibited and its control over the HPA axis is diminished, leading to hyperactivity of the adrenal glands as well as hypercortisolism, typical of depression. Long-term stress and depression can eventually lead to chronic impairments in cognitive ability, as well as structural damage in the hippocampus. Exercise and environmental enrichment stimulate significant …


The Convergence Of Media, Candidate, And Public Agendas As Predictors Of Voter Choice, Jonathan M. Simon Jan 2011

The Convergence Of Media, Candidate, And Public Agendas As Predictors Of Voter Choice, Jonathan M. Simon

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This thesis examined the role of agenda setting effects in creating conditions that could predict vote choice within the context of the 2010 general election in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. This survey utilized a mail survey sent to independent voters to measure the public agenda and thorough content analyses of local television news, the major local newspaper, candidate television advertisements and candidate websites to measure the media and candidate agendas. These agendas were compared using an innovative convergence score which reported the percent similarity between any two given agendas. This thesis found that relationships do exist between agenda convergence and vote …


Preservice Teacher Awareness Of Risk Factors For Student Suicide, Stacey Heitkamp Jan 2011

Preservice Teacher Awareness Of Risk Factors For Student Suicide, Stacey Heitkamp

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Suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents in the United States. Given this, it is imperative that those who have regular contact with members of the youth population be able to recognize and identify those youth who are at risk for suicide. Part of the process of identifying suicidal adolescents requires having knowledge about adolescent suicide and about those factors that place certain adolescents at greater risk for completing suicide than others. One group of professionals who are in an optimal position to detect at-risk youth is schoolteachers. Fifty-four undergraduate students who were studying to obtain teaching …


Examining Whether Social Factors Affect Listeners Sensitivity To Talker-Specific Information During Their Online Perception Of Spoken Words, Jessica L. Newell Jan 2011

Examining Whether Social Factors Affect Listeners Sensitivity To Talker-Specific Information During Their Online Perception Of Spoken Words, Jessica L. Newell

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McLennan and Luce (2005) found no significant cost associated with changing which talker produced a particular word from the first block of trials to the second (no talker effects) when participants responded relatively quickly (easy lexical decision), and that talker effects emerged when participants responded relatively slowly (hard lexical decision). In a lexical decision task, participants hear words and nonwords and reaction times to correct responses are measured. In the current study, we examined whether social factors would lead to talker effects in an easy lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, participants were told that they have a chance to …


Examining The Effects Of Variation In Emotional Tone Of Voice On Spoken Word Recognition, Maura L. Wilson Jan 2011

Examining The Effects Of Variation In Emotional Tone Of Voice On Spoken Word Recognition, Maura L. Wilson

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Despite the importance of emotional tone of voice for optimal verbal communication, how emotional speech is processed and its effects on spoken word recognition have yet to be fully understood. The current study addressed these gaps in the literature by examining the effects of intra-talker variability in emotional tone of voice on listeners' ability to recognize spoken words. Two lexical decision experiments, varying in task difficulty, were implemented to analyze participants' percent correct (PC) and reaction times (RTs). Previous research on spoken word recognition using this paradigm has found performance costs resulting from stimuli that mismatch on specific information (e.g., …


The Poreh Nonverbal Memory Test, Chelsea Kalynn Kociuba Jan 2011

The Poreh Nonverbal Memory Test, Chelsea Kalynn Kociuba

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Nonverbal memory focuses on the remembrance of information that cannot be described or put into a verbal component, such as remembering a person's face, identifying abstract stimuli, or remembering objects. Because nonverbal memory focuses on the remembrance of things that cannot be put into words it is a difficult construct to measure accurately. One area that is of great importance in the assessment of nonverbal abilities is spatial memory (Reynolds & Coress, 2007, Foster, Drago, & Harrison, 2009). Most of the tasks that have been developed to assess this construct employ verbally mediated clues allowing the examinee to compensate for …


Treatment Of Co-Morbid Chronic Pain And Substance Use Disorders, Lisa Ellison Jan 2011

Treatment Of Co-Morbid Chronic Pain And Substance Use Disorders, Lisa Ellison

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Chronic pain affects approximately 15 of the adult population with substance use disorders (SUDS) estimated to co-occur in 15 to 28 of the chronic pain population. When these two disorders co-occur, there can be multiple implications for the affected individuals as well as numerous complications for treatment. This study examined the outcomes and program completion rates of two groups of chronic pain SUDS patients who had followed different treatment paths after their admission to the Cleveland Clinic's Chronic pain rehabilitation program (CC-CPRP). Prior to June of 2009, pre-identified chronic pain SUDS patients were advised to complete a separate chemical dependency …


The Impact Of Stress On Pain And Daily Living In Fibromyalgia, Meredith Brooke Wessner Jan 2011

The Impact Of Stress On Pain And Daily Living In Fibromyalgia, Meredith Brooke Wessner

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Fibromyalgia (FM) is a condition that is characterized by widespread pain, which occurs in about 2 of the population, and impacts more women than men. This study sought to: 1) determine if stress, pain intensity, and the interference of pain in daily living predict if FM patients are likely to complete the pain rehabilitation program 2) Explore the interrelationship between stress, pain intensity, gender, and the interference of pain in daily living at admission and discharge. This study examined 142 FM patients admitted to the Cleveland Clinic Chronic Pain Rehabilitation Program (CPRP) from January 2007-August 2010 (84.5 female). Logistic regression …


Promoting Disrespect Through Children's Television, Amy B. Brown Jan 2011

Promoting Disrespect Through Children's Television, Amy B. Brown

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The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency and portrayal of disrespectful behaviors as they occur on popular children's cable television shows. A content analysis of children's shows appearing on The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon was conducted. Disrespectful acts were organized into three categories: non-verbal, verbal, and physical. A total of 468 acts were recorded across the 18 episodes sampled for this study. Disrespectful acts that were classified as verbal in nature were the most prevalent, with 73 of the 468 identified acts falling into the verbal category. Fourteen percent of the acts were physical in nature, and …


Facebook Anonymous Information Seeking (Fais) Behaviors: Emerging Definitions And Conceptual Relationships, Julie A. Cajigas Jan 2011

Facebook Anonymous Information Seeking (Fais) Behaviors: Emerging Definitions And Conceptual Relationships, Julie A. Cajigas

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One of the fastest growing modes of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), Social Network Sites (SNS) are revolutionizing the way that people communicate andacquire interpersonal information. The largest of these is Facebook, with more than 500 million users (Facebook.com, 2011). A new lexicon of terms has evolved to describebehaviors specific to Facebook, including the term "Facebook stalking," a term which is used to describe a specific type of browsing behavior on Facebook. This exploratory research study attempts to define and measure "Facebook stalking," a behavior that has anumber of interpersonal and network communication implications.Using previous research as a guide, the terms …


A Content Analysis Of Advertising In Popular Video Games, Peter G. Lindmark Jan 2011

A Content Analysis Of Advertising In Popular Video Games, Peter G. Lindmark

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There have been a plethora of analyses on the effects of and brand image of advertising in video games, but a dearth of analyses simply examining the role advertising has played in video games over the years. This study seeks to add to the available research on this topic. This study has yielded a great amount of information which should have pre-dated any analysis of the effects of advertising in video games, or brand placement and recall, and certainly any analysis on purchase intent as a result of interacting or observing brand or product placement in video games. Not only …


Perceived Difficulty In A Fitts Task, Suzanne M. Grilli Jan 2011

Perceived Difficulty In A Fitts Task, Suzanne M. Grilli

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This study provided a detailed investigation of perceived difficulty (PD) in a Fitts task. The Fitts task has been used to study Fitts's law, which shows that movement time (MT) is related to the information constraints of the movement (Fitts's Index of Difficulty, ID) such that there is a positive, linear relationship between MT and ID and MTs are similar when the scale of the movement requirements vary but ID is equal (scale invariance). According to Fitts's law, Fitts's ID provides an index of objective difficulty does Fitts's ID also provide an index of subjective difficulty? The main goal of …


Perspective Taking In Dyadic Interactions: Influences Of Cooperation And Competition On Third Person Representation Of Movement, Michael H. Summers Jan 2011

Perspective Taking In Dyadic Interactions: Influences Of Cooperation And Competition On Third Person Representation Of Movement, Michael H. Summers

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Similar processes between a third person representation and a first person representation may be at work in understanding the limitations of another. These processes may lead to errors in estimating the abilities of another by anchoring those estimates to one's own abilities. A study designed to test how interactive conditions may mediate these processes. It was hypothesized that, due to an increase in interdependence, an individual would show a higher degree of difference between his or her own abilities and those of another when cooperating, compared to non-interactive conditions. It was also hypothesized that competition, due in part to a …


The Impact Of Motivational Systems On Dynamic Inconsistency In Risk Taking, Alexander E. Dorf Jan 2011

The Impact Of Motivational Systems On Dynamic Inconsistency In Risk Taking, Alexander E. Dorf

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Every day we are confronted with risky decisions in which the rewards and the punishments are not always clear. We like to believe that logic is the primary force behind our decisions, but in reality, emotion plays a very important role. This study examines the impact of participants' Behavioral Activation System (BAS) and Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) on dynamic inconsistencies in a sequential gambling task. Contrary to the hypotheses, neither system predicted deviations following a win or and a loss. However, participants high in BAS were more likely to make negative deviations


Change Detection Ability In Naturalistic Scenes: Are Object Appearances Or Disappearances Easier To Detect When Disappearances Should Be More Noticeable?, Maria J. Donaldson Jan 2011

Change Detection Ability In Naturalistic Scenes: Are Object Appearances Or Disappearances Easier To Detect When Disappearances Should Be More Noticeable?, Maria J. Donaldson

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Onset primacy is a robust phenomenon in which appearance of new objects in a scene effectively captures observers' attention. The present study explored conditions under which object offsets may also capture observers' attention. We hypothesized that our visual attentional system is programmed by default to look for onsets of new objects. However, our attentional priority may be able to flexibly adapt to the detection of object offsets depending on what types of visual event better fulfills observers' behavioral goals. To test this hypothesis, an experiment was conducted in which participants were biased toward finding offset of an existing object. Results …