Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mining The Knowledge Base: Wiki Technology And Constructivist Learning In A Reference Services Training Program (Paper), Emily Chan, Marina Torres

Faculty and Staff Publications

In Fall 2009, University of the Pacific's (Stockton, CA) Health Sciences Branch (HSB) Library initiated a reference training program to develop staff competencies and skills in order to promote a uniform level of reference expertise. Training was delivered in a wiki format, informed by constructivist principles. Constructivism views learning as a dynamic process-- learners actively construct knowledge, which is built upon earlier experiences. Content on the wiki was participant-driven and guided by individual interests. The session included a summary of Pacific’s program and its assessment, an overview of constructivist learning, applications for wiki technology in the library setting, and a …

Supplement To Mti Study On Selective Passenger Screening In The Mass Transit Rail Environment, Mti Report 09-05, Brian M. Jenkins, Bruce Robert Butterworth, Larry N. Gertson

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

This supplement updates and adds to MTIs 2007 report on Selective Screening of Rail Passengers (Jenkins and Butterworth MTI 07-06: Selective Screening of Rail Passengers). The report reviews current screening programs implemented (or planned) by nine transit agencies, identifying best practices. The authors also discuss why three other transit agencies decided not to implement passenger screening at this time. The supplement reconfirms earlier conclusions that selective screening is a viable security option, but that effective screening must be based on clear policies and carefully managed to avoid perceptions of racial or ethnic profiling, and that screening must have public support. …

Framing Corporate Social Responsibility On The Websites Of Fortune 10 Green Giants, Kriti Ashok

Master's Theses

This thesis reports a framing study of corporate social responsibility on the Internet. The study explores how Fortune 10 Green Giants frame corporate social responsibility on their websites. The Green Giants are Honda, Continental, Suncor, Tesco, Alcan, PG&E, S.C. Johnson, Goldman Sachs, Swiss Re, and Hewlett-Packard. According to Fortune magazine, these 10 companies have gone beyond what the law requires to operate in an environmentally responsible way. The study is focused on the textual content of these 10 corporation websites. The study involves identification of frames, determination of the most used and the least used frames, and identification of patterns …

Learning Statistics Using Concept Maps: Effects On Anxiety And Performance, Patrick Francis Cravalho

Master's Theses

The aim of this thesis was to study the use of concept mapping in an

undergraduate statistics course in order to examine the effects on statistics anxiety and

academic performance by means of a two-group quasi-experimental design. Two

undergraduate statistics classes were recruited for this study with one serving as the

treatment (concept map) group and one serving as the control (standard instruction)

group. It was hypothesized that the use of concept mapping would decrease the statistics

anxiety and improve the academic performance of students in the concept map group

when compared with the control group. The statistics anxiety of …

Comparative Study Of The Practice Of Product Placement In Bollywood And Hollywood Movies, Shruti Vinayak Gokhale

Master's Theses

Product placement, or placing brands in movies, is a widely recognized practice that dates from the 1980s. This study is a content analysis of product placement in 15Bollywoodand 15Hollywoodmovies from 2005 to 2009.

Statistical tests showed that there were a significantly higher number of product placements in Hollywood movies that were integrated into the storylines, verbally referred to by characters in the movies, appropriate to the movie scenes, and containingimplied endorsementsby the actors than product placements in Bollywood movies. However, in terms of duration of the time that brands were onscreen, product placements in Bollywood movies in 2006 and 2007 …

Implementation And Development Of Vehicle Tracking And Immobilization Technologies, Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce Robert Butterworth, Frances Edwards

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Since the mid-1980s, limited use has been made of vehicle tracking using satellite communications to mitigate the security and safety risks created by the highway transportation of certain types of hazardous materials. However, vehicle-tracking technology applied to safety and security is increasingly being researched and piloted, and it has been the subject of several government reports and legislative mandates.

At the same time, the motor carrier industry has been investing in and implementing vehicle tracking, for a number of reasons, particularly the increase in efficiency achieved through better management of both personnel (drivers) and assets (trucks or, as they are …

Potential Terrorist Uses Of Highway-Borne Hazardous Materials, Mti Report 09-03, Brian M. Jenkins, Bruce Robert Butterworth, William T. Poe, Douglas Reeves

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested that the Mineta Transportation Institutes National Transportation Security Center of Excellence (MTI NTSCOE) provide any research it has or insights it can provide on the security risks created by the highway transportation of hazardous materials. This request was submitted to MTI/NSTC as a National Transportation Security Center of Excellence. In response, MTI/NTSC reviewed and revised research performed in 2007 and 2008 and assembled a small team of terrorism and emergency-response experts, led by Center Director Brian Michael Jenkins, to report on the risks of terrorists using highway shipments of flammable liquids (e.g., …

Where's My Daddy? Effects Of Fatherlessness On Women's Relational Communication, Latoya Marie Jackson

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis research was to understand the relationship between father absence and women's communication styles in romantic heterosexual relationships under social cognitive theory. Two studies were conducted using a multi-method research approach in order to triangulate the results. Seven fatherless women were interviewed to arrive at a better understanding of how father absence informed their romantic relational experiences. Specifically, the topics of relationship roles, self-disclosure, expression, and self-silencing in romantic relationships were examined in the interviews. Participants reflected on what growing up fatherless meant to them and whether or not this had any influence on the role …

Anthropocentric Distance In National Geographic’S Environmental Aesthetic, Anne Marie Todd

Anne Marie Todd

Tourism is the way we understand the world: tourists travel in an increasingly mediated environment in which ubiquitous promotional material and other popular artifacts employ stunning images and romantic travel narratives to describe local environments. Tourist texts “sell” local landscapes to entice visitors, employing an environmental aesthetic that urges travel. With its mission to “explore the planet,” the National Geographic Society contributes to this tourist aesthetic. This essay examines three special issues on Africa simultaneously published by the National Geographic Society: its official journal, National Geographic, and its sister magazines, National Geographic Traveler, and National Geographic Adventure. The photographic images …

Roads: Leading Indicators Show Ramp-Up In Activity, Shishir Mathur, Kunal Katara

Shishir Mathur

No abstract provided.

Bringing World-Class High-Speed Rail To America: Special General Session, 12th Annual Transportation And Infrastructure Summit, Mti S-09-04, Mti

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

The 12th Annual Transportation & Infrastructure Summit, held in Irving, Texas on August 11?14, 2009, provided more than 1,100 attendees from 30 states and 13 countries the opportunity to network and interact with elected representatives and influential transportation officials from the United States, and to learn about transportation systems on a global scale. The special session, "Bringing World-Class High-Speed Rail to America," featured representatives from three proposed regional high-speed rail projects currently planned for the United States. Majority Whip of the California State Assembly Fiona Ma shared information about California´s High-Speed Rail Initiative. Assemblywoman Ma talked about her experience on …

Using The Iphone And Ipod Touch@Work, Susan L. Kendall, M Nino, S Stewart

Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

A Case Study Of Enterprise Historic Resources Information Management In Large Transportation Agencies, Mti Report 09-06, Eric E. Ingbar

Mineta Transportation Institute Publications

Historic resources are in some way managed by every transportation agency in the nation. Transportation agencies manage historic and prehistoric archaeological sites, buildings, structures, objects, routes, landscapes, and districts to prevent damage to such resources and to mitigate damage when it is unavoidable. In order to track known resources, transportation agencies often keep local files in a variety of forms, rely upon external sources of information (e.g., historic preservation agencies at the state level), and depend upon staff expertise gained by years of local work. Starting in 1997, Caltrans started a series of surveys of rural rights of way in …

Clicking With Your Audience: Evaluating The Use Of Personal Response Systems In Library Instruction, Emily K. Chan, Lorrie A. Knight

Emily K. Chan

University of the Pacific librarians used personal response systems (PRS) or clickers in first- year mandatory library instructional sessions to assess their effects on student engagement and retention of learning outcomes. Students who utilized clickers during their library sessions reported greater enjoyment and encouragement to participate (n=291). Students in the sessions not utilizing the clickers achieved better learning outcomes than their counterparts who utilized clickers (n=326). The implications of these results are discussed, specifically within the context of pedagogy and tailoring instruction to the Millennial generation.

Farmers' Search For Information During The Uk Foot-And-Mouth Disease Crisis- What Can We Learn?, Christine Hagar

Christine Hagar

This paper reports on the findings of a study which explored the multiple information needs that faced the Cumbrian farming community in the north-west of England during the 2001 UK foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. Findings highlighted the importance of: changes in information needs at different stages of the crisis, context in which information seeking took place, overlap of information and emotional needs, formal and informal channels of information seeking during the crisis, farmers as information providers as well as information seekers, sense-making approach to information seeking during the crisis, trusted information sources need for a mix of ICTs during the crisis, …

Crisis Informatics: Introduction, Christine Hagar

Christine Hagar

No abstract available.

Crisis Informatics: Introduction, Christine Hagar

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Structure And Content Of Online Child Exploitation Networks, Richard Frank, Bryce Westlake, Martin Bouchard

Faculty Publications

The emergence of the Internet has provided people with the ability to find and communicate with others of common interests. Unfortunately, those involved in the practices of child exploitation have also received the same benefits. Although law enforcement continues its efforts to shut down websites dedicated to child exploitation, the problem remains uncurbed. Despite this, law enforcement has yet to examine these websites as a network and determine their structure, stability and susceptibleness to attack. We extract the structure and features of four online child exploitation networks using a custom-written webpage crawler. Social network analysis is then applied with the …

Women Of The Long View, Victoria Rue

Victoria Rue

No abstract provided.

Speaking The Lower Frequencies 2.0: Digital Ghost Stories, Walter R. Jacobs

Walter R. Jacobs

In Speaking the Lower Frequencies: Students and Media Literacy Walter R. Jacobs explores how college students can become critical consumers of media while retaining the pleasure they derive from it. Speaking the Lower Frequencies 2.0: Race, Learning, and Literacy in the Digital Age builds on its predecessor by examining pedagogy and literacy through theories and practices of digital media making, specifically digital storytelling methods used in a fall 2008 undergraduate class, "Digital Storytelling in and with Communities of Color." Jacobs begins his keynote with the course description and then examines one component of the class project. students' engagement with "social …

The Pedagogy Of Digital Storytelling In The College Classroom, Rachel Raimist, Candance Doerr-Stevens, Walter R. Jacobs

Walter R. Jacobs

In the fall of 2008, Rachel Raimist and Walter Jacobs collaboratively designed and taught the course “Digital Storytelling in and with Communities of Color” to 18 undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines. Candance Doerr-Stevens audited the class as a graduate student. This article examines the media making processes of the students in the course, asking how participants used digital storytelling to engage with themselves and the media through content creation that both mimicked and critiqued current media messages. In particular, students used the medium of digital storytelling to build and revise identities for purposes of rememory, reinvention, and cultural …

Understanding The M-Form Hypothesis, Matthew J. Holian

Matthew J. Holian

The theory of the firm deserves to play a prominent role in both the undergraduate and graduate industrial organization curriculum, both because of the vast amount of attention that has been paid to this area over the last four decades, as well as its practical relevance for strategy and antitrust. This lecture briefly presents some background on the theory of the firm in general, and the M-form Hypothesis in particular. The M-form Hypothesis is an important theory of firm structure, developed by Chandler (1962) and Williamson (1975). A mathematical model, discussion section and accompanying lecture slides illustrate the concepts necessary …

If A Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn’T It Exist? The Importance Of Changing Preferences Versus Incentives In Social Change, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Edward P. Stringham

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Many economists argue that a pure market economy cannot come about because people will always have incentives to use coercion (Cowen and Sutter, 2005; Holcombe, 2004). We maintain that these economists leave out an important factor in social change. Change can come about by altering incentives or preferences, but since most neoclassical economists ignore changing preferences, they too quickly conclude that change is impossible. History shows that social change based on changes in preferences is common. By recognizing that preferences need not be constant, political economists can say much more about changing the world.

The Persistence Of Accounting Versus Economic Profit, Matthew J. Holian, Ali M. Reza

Matthew J. Holian

Drawing on Schumpeterian theory, this article presents estimates of a first-order autoregressive model of profit persistence for large US firms, using Economic Value Added (EVA), the popular measure of profits produced by Stern Stewart and Company, and simple (unadjusted) accounting measures from the Compustat database. We hypothesize about the differences we should expect to find between these two sets of estimates, and also provide a fresh normative assessment of the dynamic competitiveness of the US economy.

Intellectual Property And Antitrust Limits On Contract: Comment, Matthew J. Holian, Neil Nguyen

Matthew J. Holian

In their chapter in Dynamic Competition and Public Policy (2001, Cambridge University Press), Burtis and Kobayashi never defined their model's discount rate, making replicating their simulation results difficult. Through our own simulations, we were able to verify their results when using a discount rate of 0.10. We also identified two new types of equilibria that the authors overlooked, doubling the number of distinct equilibria in the model.

Military Innovation In Russia And Japan During The Interwar Years: A Relevant Case Study In Strategic Analysis, Leonard Lira

Faculty Publications

This article looks at military innovation through a political, social, and economic lens. Contrasting Japan and Russia in the interwar years as case study, it demonstrates the importance of political, social, and economic variables as the critical determinants. This begs the question of how these factors affect U.S. military innovation in the coming years.

The Structure And Content Of Online Child Exploitation Networks, Richard Frank, Bryce Westlake, Martin Bouchard

Bryce Garreth Westlake

The emergence of the Internet has provided people with the ability to find and communicate with others of common interests. Unfortunately, those involved in the practices of child exploitation have also received the same benefits. Although law enforcement continues its efforts to shut down websites dedicated to child exploitation, the problem remains uncurbed. Despite this, law enforcement has yet to examine these websites as a network and determine their structure, stability and susceptibleness to attack. We extract the structure and features of four online child exploitation networks using a custom-written webpage crawler. Social network analysis is then applied with the …