Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

University Of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension Connect, May 2007

Connect (University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension)

Inside this issue:

pg. 4 Vegetative Treatment Systems
pg. 5 Fruitful entrepreneurship
pg. 7 Six Easy Bites

Proposition 36: Ignoring Amenability And Avoiding Accountability, Mehgan Porter

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Going In Reverse To Go Forward: Institutional Repositories And The New York Public Library, Summary Of A Presentation By Stewart Bodner And Eric Neubacher, Beth Evans

Urban Library Journal

Stewart Bodner opened his talk giving background information on institutional repositories (IR). He also spoke of the idea of NYPL as “an institution that collects for the historical record.” His quote from former director James Wood Henderson reminds us that the ideal research library should not select its collection based on “what the librarian or the contemporary public regards as good or important,” but rather it should “record life as it passes, its evil, vulgarity and triviality, as well as its more agreeable aspects.” ...

Beliefs Of Violence-Sensitive And Violence-Tolerant People, Amethyst Brell

Senior Honors Projects

Every person views the world through a different lens, and one can never fully understand the motivations and opinions of someone else. However, experiments and statistics can shed some light onto people’s thought patterns and behaviors. When horrific acts of violence occur, many people strive to understand why they happen. Through my study I hope to help solve some of the mysteries behind the different ways people interpret violence. I want to see why some people tend to be more sensitive to violence and why some are more tolerant of violence. I am doing this by building on previous research …

A Pre-Apocalyptic Masterpiece, Brad Orleck

Senior Honors Projects

This article or section or project is not written in the formal tone expected of an honors project. Please improve it or discuss changes on the talk page. See URI's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. For years, various groups have predicted the end of the world, usually a spiritual or nuclear armageddon. Religious groups have predicted the second coming, Hollywood directors have predicted devastating wars with artificial intelligence, and conspiracy theorists predicted Y2K, among others. But every year, the world keeps not ending (widely regarded by scholars as a good thing). And while the world may not end …

International Development Education, Adam Crawley

Senior Honors Projects

Global warming, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation are perhaps three of the most daunting security challenges being faced by the United States today. How to meet these threats is the subject of endless political debate in our society, yet too often the root causes of these threats are overlooked. While the Western world is certainly responsible for the majority of emissions that contribute to global warming, it will not be long until developing nations, led by industrial powers such as China, begin to take on a more significant role in contributing to this problem. Similarly, it is these same developing nations …

Teaching English In The Dominican Republic, Cassandra Craig

Senior Honors Projects

As thousands of immigrants and refugees are entering the U.S., and our school systems, each year, English as a second language (ESL) classes are becoming more and more necessary. As a future ESL teacher, it is crucial that I am aware of the wide variety of school environments from which they are coming. My curiosity brought me to Altamira, Dominican Republic, where I was able to experience first hand the school environment of my potential future students. Altamira is a small town located a half hour outside of Santiago, Dominican Republic. There, I was fortunate to stay with an extremely …

Effects Of Age On Contextually Mediated Associations In Paired Associate Learning, Jennifer Patricia Provyn

Psychology - Theses

Older adults demonstrate an associative memory deficit that has been attributed to difficulty binding item information to contextual information (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000). Accounts of temporally-defined episodic associations that depend upon contextual retrieval (TCM Howard & Kahana, 2002) predict that a deficit in item-to-context binding will result in fewer backward (b-a) and transitive (a-c) associations. To measure group differences in backward and transitive associations, younger and older participants learned single function lists of paired associates with no contextual overlap (e.g., j-k, l-m) and double-function lists of paired associates consisting of chains of pairs (e.g., a-b, b-c). Although younger adults out-performed older adults …

A Clash Of Cultures: Cultural Differences Within American And Japanese Animation, Alexander Nghiem Frasier

Communication Theses - Archive

This research examines the Japanese cultural phenomenon of anime, and the cultural values that allow issues deemed more suitable for adults to be included in anime and viewed by all ages in Japan, but not in the United States. This study used five focus groups: two consisting of Non-Asian participants, one with Japanese participants, and two with Amerasian participants. Each focus group was shown clips from the anime films Spirited Away, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Princess Mononoke. Geert Hofstede's intercultural value dimensions were used as a guide to find greater meaning of the impact of anime …

Media Effects On Chinese And American Stereotypes In College Settings, Lin Zhu

Communication Theses - Archive

This study examines national stereotypes in the contexts of Chinese and American universities and discusses how mass media and previous personal contact affect perceptions of the outgroup separately and interactively. The study employs both qualitative and quantitative methods: focus groups and surveys. During the first stage, eight focus groups were conducted in China and America. Based on the analysis of focus group transcripts, a survey was designed and distributed to 400 students in America and China during the second stage. Main findings from this study include: 1) there is high level of consensus on perceptions of Americans and Chinese; 2) …

For The Greater Good Or Greed? Redistributing Private Space Through Eminent Domain Power: Relocating The Dallas Cowboys Stadium To Arlington, Texas, Kim Probasco

Public Affairs Theses - Archive

The use of eminent domain power to take private land for private use continues to grow in the United States. Many American people lost their homes or businesses to city and council driven economic development in low-income neighborhoods. This paper seeks to explore the social implications that eminent domain power has on residents and examines power that is used by cities and councils to create economic development through the taking of land in low-income communities. I explore these issues through a case study of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium relocation to Arlington, Texas utilizing discourse analysis. I use Henri Lefebvre's conceptual …

Peer Effects In Sports: Evidence From Ncaa Relay Teams, Lisa Elin Haglund

Economics Theses - Archive

This paper investigates whether disparity in team member quality impacts team production using NCAA 4x400m relay teams. As a measure of quality I use the team member's individual rankings. The net peer effects are estimated on a team level rather than on an individual level, and are found to have both an absolute and relative negative effect on the team performance. This paper is differentiated from the existing literature by using a direct measure of quality compared to other indirect measures of worker quality such as wages. The evidence provided herein shows that a greater disparity in team member quality …

User Innovation: Why And How?, F. Basar Kurtbayram

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

There is a new innovation trend which is gaining immense momentum lately: user innovation. The purpose of this project was to examine the current literature, blogs, and online forums to understand the dynamics of user innovation in order to answer the questions: what are the main characteristics of user innovation?; why do users innovate?; how do users innovate?; what are the benefits of user innovation?; and is there a future for this trend?. The answers suggest that user innovation is a permanent change in innovation methods, and that user innovation has the potential to change the foundations of global economy. …

A Run For Mom, Sarah Lucy Lindner-Infante

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project consists of my training, and running in order to participate in the Marine Corps Marathon in honor of my mother. It will require much motivation and hard work. I am relying on my network of family and friends as well as the works of several creative thinkers in the concept of intrinsic motivation.

A New Measure Of Financial Openness, Menzie David Chinn, Hiro Ito

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We create a new index that measures the extent of openness in capital account transactions. Despite the abundance of literature and policy analyses regarding the effect of financial liberalization, the debate is far from settled. One of the reasons for that outcome is the lack of proper ways of measuring the extent of the openness in cross-border financial transactions. We seek to remedy this deficiency by creating an index aimed at measuring the extensity of capital controls based on the information from the IMF’s Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions (AREAER). This paper details how we construct the …

Design Effects In The Transition To Web-Based Surveys, Don A. Dillman, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Innovation within survey modes should always be mitigated by concerns about survey quality and in particular sampling, coverage, nonresponse, and measurement error. This is as true today with the development of web surveying as it was in the 1970s when telephone surveying was being developed. This paper focuses on measurement error in web surveys. Although Internet technology provides significant opportunities for innovation in survey design, systematic research has yet to be conducted on how most of the possible innovations might affect measurement error, leaving many survey designers “out in the cold.” This paper summarizes recent research to provide an overview …

An Experimental Evaluation Of Stereotype Lift, Jennifer Rubbelke

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

Stereotypes have been shown to have a detrimental effect on those with whom negative stereotypes are associated. However, very little research exists on the positive effects experienced by those who benefit from such discrimination, a condition known as stereotype lift. This condition, termed stereotype lift is an upward effect on performance, experienced among members in a non-discriminated group. The cause of this occurrence could be due to an increase in self.-esteem or mood experienced among members of the non-discriminated group. To this end, participants in this study served as a control group to be compared against an experimental group, wherein …

The Framework For Early Learning: A Background Paper:Children's Early Learning And Development Executive Summary, Geraldine French

Reports

This is the Executive Summary of the background paper Children’s early learning and development, sets out the theory and research underpinning children’s early learning and development in the Framework for Early Learning. The paper essentially responds to the question - how should we envision and understand the child as a young learner? The paper begins by outlining the context for early childhood care and education in Ireland by referring to our economic and social climate, the increasingly multicultural nature of society and relevant legislation and policy. Drawing on centuries of research, the modern day view of the child is one …

The Relevance Of Offsetting Policy Effects: Covert Distributive Politics In The Conservation Reserve Program , Robert Carey

All Dissertations

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), as initially authorized by the Food Security Act of 1985, operated by removing land from agricultural production in order to generate environmental benefits, primarily erosion reduction. Policy, however, often generates unintended consequences. One potential unintended consequence in the CRP is slippage; if the upward pressure that the idling of cropland exerts on commodity prices results in the activation of new land, behavior that may partly offset the program's environmental benefits, then price-feedback slippage is said to have occurred. Examination of county-level wheat production data for the United States during the years 1980 to 1993 utilizes …

Testimony Of Jeremy Travis, President Of John Jay College Of Criminal Justice, City University Of New York, Before The New York State Senate Committee On Higher Education, May 1, 2007, Albany, Ny., Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

The President speaks in response to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Sex Differences In Object Location Memory: Fixed Versus Moving Through Space, Jose Antonio Velarde

Psychology Theses - Archive

Previous studies suggest that females possess superior object location memory than males. The present study investigated object location memory using both static and dynamic tasks. Additionally, the correlation between object location memory and other variables such as spatial self-rating items, MRT, and 2D:4D was examined. Participants were 136 (70 female and 66 male) undergraduates. Results indicated no significant sex differences in the dynamic task, and only one significant main effect for sex in the static task. As predicted, males rated their sense of direction (SofD), and one-trial directional memory (OTDM) significantly superior to females. Navigation preference also showed significant sex …

Music Piracy Or A Permanent Passive Revolution, Kevin D. Neely

Sociology & Anthropology Theses - Archive

The goal of this thesis is to examine a classic interpretation of Antonio Gramsci's notion of hegemony in the modern era and the emergence of counter-hegemonic forces through technology. The individualization of modern computers and related products, combined with the extreme popularity of file-swapping and social-networking websites (i.e. Napster, KaZaA, MySpace and the brand new YouTube) has completely altered the way the music industry conducts its business and has erased its hegemony over the creation, distribution and profit made from the sale of music. What makes this relationship between an industry and technology specifically different and worthy of our interest …

Creative Destruction In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Darshak Patel

Economics Theses - Archive

Pharmaceutical firms usually patent any new innovation in terms of the chemicals they use. These innovations are then developed in to drugs which are marketed once approved by FDA. These patents have made and receive citations. Citations made by patents granted today are backward citations and citations a patent will receive in the future are forward citations. This research shows that these patent citations on have a positive effect on market value of Pharmaceutical firms related to the patent. Backward citations do not destroy company rents. In fact, backward citations, illustrate the importance of the cited patent. Multiple citations imply …

Improving Corporate Governance : Character Education As A Supplement To Corporate Ethics Training, Richard L. Muney

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores the hypothesis that ethics training for corporate personnel will significantly increase ethical behavior and thereby significantly reduce the incidence of corporate malfeasance.

For over 100 years the federal government has been trying to curb malfeasance by managers of public corporations and their boards of directors. This thesis examines the history of that legislation and those regulatory efforts, concluding that these legislative and regulatory attempts have met with varying degrees of success, but, on balance, that success has been transitory at best. It also comes to the conclusion that corporate training programs in ethics, in the absence of …

Institutional Repositories (Ir) In Higher Education – A Panel Discussion, Summary, Beth Evans

Urban Library Journal

Theresa McManus, the moderator, introduced the panel and opened with her own concerns about IRs. She finds herself caught between faculty advocating for mandating e-print repositories, priorities in a context of budget reductions, and faculty who view repositories sometimes with trepidation and doubt in regard to them being mandated to put materials in them. ...

Sylvia Maier On Human Rights In The World Community. Issues And Action (Third Edition) Edited By Richard Pierre Claude And Burns H. Weston. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 543 Pp., Sylvia Maier

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights in the World Community. Issues and Action (Third Edition) edited by Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H. Weston. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 543 pp.

Metropolitan-Micropolitan Difference In Available Labor Force Characteristics: Three Great Plains Labor Basins, Michael Walker, Brett Zollinger

Sociology Faculty Publications

This study explores differences in labor availability characteristics among those living in metropolitan and micropolitan areas. Data used in this study are from surveys of adults in two adjacent Midwestern states and from three separate labor basins. Primary patterns under examination include wage demands, benefit demands, distance willing to commute for a job, perceived underemployment and entrepreneurial propensity. Bivariate analyses show no relationship between basin size and entrepreneurial propensity nor between basin size and willingness to commute. However, basin size has significant influence on four of the seven dependent variables, even after controlling for many sociodemographic characteristics. In multivariate analyses, …

Murder Clearance Rates: Guest Editors' Introduction, John P. Jarvis, Wendy C. Regoeczi

Sociology & Criminology Faculty Publications

The journal Homicide Studies has long been devoted to empirical studies addressing issues pertinent to the study of homicide and violence. Although a large variety of theoretical papers, research summaries, and public policy reviews of issues concerning homicide and violence have been explored in the journal over the past 10 years, at least one issue has garnered relatively little attention—the law enforcement response to homicide. This special issue attempts to begin filling this gap in the literature.

A Collaborative Voyage To Improve Students' Career Information Literacy, Angela Farrar, Lateka Grays, Diane Vanderpol, Amanda Cox

Library Faculty Research

Librarians, a member of the Hotel College faculty, and a member of the Career Services staff at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas collaborated in the design, implementation and evaluation of a non-traditional research assignment asking students to demonstrate real world information literacy skills.

Session attendees will explore the process by which the traditional librarian-teaching faculty member collaboration grew into a richer project involving a non-traditional partnering. Attendees will be guided through a discussion on levels of collaboration and an audit of potential non-traditional partner opportunities at their own institutions.

Attendees will examine the product of this partnership: an assignment …

Newcomer Adjustment During Organizational Socialization: A Meta-Analytic Review Of Antecedents, Outcomes, And Methods, Talya N. Bauer, Berrin Erdogan, Todd Bodner, Donald M. Truxillo, Jennifer S. Tucker

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

The authors tested a model of antecedents and outcomes of newcomer adjustment using 70 unique samples of newcomers with meta-analytic and path modeling techniques. Specifically, they proposed and tested a model in which adjustment (role clarity, self-efficacy, and social acceptance) mediated the effects of organizational socialization tactics and information seeking on socialization outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance, intentions to remain, and turnover). The results generally supported this model. In addition, the authors examined the moderating effects of methodology on these relationships by coding for 3 methodological issues: data collection type (longitudinal vs. cross-sectional), sample characteristics (school-to-work vs. work-to-work …