Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Analyzing The Retroreflectivity Mandate, Karyn L. Leverenz

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the costs and benefits of the federal mandate that requires local agencies to assess, replace and maintain the retroreflectivity of all traffic signs that are on a public road as outlined in 23 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 655, Subpart F (FHWA, 2011). It is also a requirement that all signs be inventoried along with their GPS locations for easier maintenance in the future.

Sign retroreflectivity maintenance is important because crash rates at night are much higher than they are during the day despite there being fewer cars on the road. …

The Impact Of The Shared Property Tax System On The Localities' Fiscal Capacity, Sun Ki Kwon

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG), South Korea, introduced the Shared Property Tax System in 2008 in order to mitigate fiscal disparities among twenty five autonomous districts located in its jurisdiction. The new program, introduced at the end of a long controversy, was influenced by St. Paul-Minneapolis (Twin Cities) Metropolitan Area Fiscal Disparities Program in Minnesota.

I examine two questions in my capstone project: (1) whether the program has increased fiscal capacity 1 of each district over the last five years as policy makers expected, and (2) whether the program of the SMG has contributed to relieve fiscal disparities among localities.

To …

Influence Of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs On Acetaminophen-Related Liver Toxicity, Aaron Barcelo

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

No executive summary.

Has The Emergence Of Charter Schools Affected Student Performance In Traditional Public Schools In Shared Markets? Recent Evidence From Public Schools In Ohio, Robert Akers

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This paper addresses a key issue in the charter school debate, which is whether or not the existence of charter schools in a specific locality causes neighboring traditional public schools to improve their effectiveness. Measuring four student outcomes in Ohio counties where charter school enrollment represents at least five percent of the total public school-age population yielded mixed results. Standardized test scores in math and reading failed to keep pace with state averages but progress was made closing the gap in graduation rates and Performance Index Scores (the PIS is a weighted score given by the Ohio Department of Education …

Congressional Voting On The Federal Debt Ceiling: An Analysis Of Voting Behavior In The House Of Representatives, Juanita Espinoza

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This paper is an analysis on House Representative voting patterns in regards to increasing the federal debt ceiling. This study relied on data obtained from Howard Rosenthal and Keith Poole on roll call data from 1993 until 2011, with specific attention to House of Representative votes.

This paper focuses on the federal debt ceiling and the recent increases to continue financing government operations. The federal debt has been increasing at unprecedented levels due to the lack of economic growth and financial crisis that have impacted the United States. The impact of increasing the federal debt limit is examined as well …

Do College Football Games Affect The Level Of Crime In The Local Community?, Micah Johnson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

On the local news channels in major college football towns, there are anecdotal stories during that detail celebratory riots that took place during or after a college football game. Few empirical studies have focused on whether there is a relationship between college football games and crime. This paper attempts to determine that relationship by exploiting the fact that college football games are played in a home stadium and an away stadium.

More specifically, the study addressed the following two questions:

Do jurisdictions in which a home football game is played differ in crime rate from those where an away game …

Can Drug Court Results Be Predicted? Completion And Termination Of Drug Court Participants, Christopher D. Geisler

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The substantial growth in Kentucky’s prison population since the 1980s has resulted in increased spending on corrections, both the total amount and as a percentage of total general fund spending. The sustained growth in corrections spending combined with shrinking budgetary realities has created an incentive to explore ways to reduce costs without compromising public safety. Community supervision programs are one alternative to addressing this problem. They are an attractive approach to dealing with certain types of criminals because the cost is significantly lower than incarceration. Drug courts are an example of community supervision that allows drug offenders to avoid imprisonment …

Corporate Income Tax Credits: Examining The Relationship Between Tax Credits And Employment, Elena Yatskovskaya

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Tax incentives - in particular, corporate tax credits - have been a prominent topic of discussion among government administrators, public economists, and political scholars. This capstone project will contribute to the discussion by addressing the relationship between tax credits and employment, and provide an empirical analysis to aid in determining the effect that tax credits may have on employment.

The study uses aggregate data spanning ten years, from 1999 to 2008, and representing 18 industrial sectors with 180 observations. The data are analyzed with the help of the two panel data regression models: Fixed Effects and Between Effects. The …

Federal Tax Policy And Charitable Giving: Revisiting The 1985 Study By Charles T. Clotfelter, Mary Catherine Tinnon

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This study was inspired and given its basic research design by a study conducted in 1985 by Charles T. Clotfelter, which sought to explain charitable giving by both individuals and corporations in relation to federal tax policy. Clotfelter determined that federal tax policy did influence charitable giving by corporations. The issue to be addressed here is, do the Clotfelter findings still hold true today?

The focus of this current study is on charitable giving by corporations only and the dataset was built from the same IRS Statistics of Income that Clotfelter used. Additional data were added from the Bureau of …

Critical Pedagogy In The Classroom: Library Instruction That Gives Voice To Students And Builds A Community Of Scholars, Michelle Reale

Library Faculty Scholarship

When librarians apply critical pedagogy in a classroom, they can both impart knowledge and ignite breakthrough thinking among students. By partnering with professors and decentralizing the power in the classroom, librarians can tap into knowledge that students already possess and encourage them to express their own ideas. This article describes the process in a 200-level literature interpretation course taught primarily to English majors at Arcadia University.

Review Of Who We Are Hispanics, 2nd Edition. Ed. By The New Strategist Editors, Rebecca Tolley

ETSU Faculty Works

Review of Review of Who We Are Hispanics. New Strategist. 2011. 3v, 9781935775331, 9781935773317, 9781935775355, $120.00

Enabling Learning And Enhancing Education In Ipm In The Midst Of Dwindling Financial Resources: Why Open Access To Resources And Publishing Could Be A Strategic Step To Support Students Today And Tomorrow?, Ousmane Youm

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

When I was invited to join the editorial board of the journal Entomology, Ornithology & Herpetology (EOH), I read carefully the note coming with the invitation and also looked at the content and scope. Then two things came into my mind as I stopped a few minutes to reflect on a couple of issues: (1) how the new journal links and is relevant to Integrated Pest Management—IPM (for those who understand its definition)—and (2) the issue of open access and relevance in the current situation of an ailing global economy, particularly in the vulnerable developing nations.

In the latter, more …

Personal Experiences With Long Term Care Services And Supports, Julie Fralich Mba, Mark Richards Ba, Louise Olsen, Vanessa Bell, Jennifer Pratt

Disability & Aging

This report captures, in a direct way, the first hand experiences of older and disabled consumers of long term care services and supports. In addition, it includes the collective experiences of eight Maine communities regarding the long term care service delivery system in our state.

Review Of Griffith Taylor – Visionary Environmentalist Explorer By Carolyn Strange And Alison Bashford, Christina E. Dando

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

Few would argue the inherently visual nature of geography, our use (and love of) maps, our emphasis on fieldwork and observation. Carolyn Strange and Alison Bashford’s biography Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Environmentalist, Explorer is as much a visual biography as a textual one, drawing on extensive visual materials as well as diaries and letters. Through images and texts, Strange and Bashford create a portrait of a complicated geographer, revealing a leading geographer of the twentieth century whose contributions cover the spectrum and the globe.

Book Review Of Civic Discipline: Geography In America, 1860–1890 By Karen M. Morin, Christina E. Dando

Geography and Geology Faculty Publications

Karen Morin's Civic Discipline: Geography in America, 1860–1890 examines nineteenth-century American geography practices outside of academia and the contributions of Charles P. Daly, New York judge and American Geographical Society (AGS) president. Daly was not an academic geographer yet had tremendous influence over public geographic knowledge, impacting the actions of many actors on many stages. Civic Discipline is not a biography but rather “a sociology of Charles Daly's geography—a social geography,” illuminating an area frequently ignored in geography's history: the ways in which Daly and the AGS impacted the American geographical imagination (p. 3).

Tensiones Entre El Patrimonio Tangible E Intangible En Yucatán, México: La Imposibilidad De Re-Crear Una Cultura Sin Alterar Sus Características / Tensions Between Tangible And Intangible Heritage In Yucatán, Mexico: The Impossibility Of Re-Creating A Culture Without Altering Its Characteristics, Fernando Armstrong-Fumero

Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Este artículo examina las tensiones y diálogos entre el patrimonio cultural tangible e intangible a través del caso del reciclaje arquitectónico en Yucatán, México. Ciertas contradicciones son evidentes en las definiciones oficiales de estos dos tipos de patrimonio en declaraciones que caracterizan al patrimonio intangible como algo dinámico y activo y al patrimonio tangible como una serie de objetos que se deben mantener in situ sin alteraciones humanas. Estas tensiones son aún más evidentes cuando las leyes que rigen el patrimonio cultural se aplican dentro de las comunidades rurales mayahablantes, cuyos residentes participan en una serie de tradiciones de colonización …

Talking The Talk And Walking The Walk: Do A Federal Agency's Women-Centered Services Match A Women-Centered Organizational Culture?, Sally Anne Mcshane

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Federal government agencies that provide services for women would presumably have an internal women-friendly organizational culture. In this study, organizational culture is measured by financial benefits - annual salary and federal General Schedule grade - provided to women. Regression analyses were used to examine whether gender, grade, and type of agency have an effect on salary and grade. Also bonuses to women are examined, as well as whether men or women are the heads of individual agencies or umbrella departments. Women were awarded fewer bonuses and lesser amounts as compared to men. Also women often are leaders of individual women-centered …

The Impact Of Mindfulness And Relaxation Techniques Implemented Within Minnesota School Settings: A Program Proposal For Waseca Junior And Senior High School, Laura Bartsch

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research project is to gain insight into the extent of the use of relaxation oriented curriculums within Minnesota schools through the distribution of an email survey. Additionally, a review of empirical literature was conducted to identify and evaluate evidence based relaxation-oriented curriculums and to create a proposal for implementation at Waseca Junior and Senior High School.

The Effectiveness Of The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Across Cultures, Caylin Cedergren

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This project has two purposes. First, to evaluate the effectiveness of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) across cultures since it is the standard depression tool used across Mayo Clinic Health System. Second, to develop a Standard of Care that would create consistency in the follow-up provided to patients at Mayo Clinic Health System – Springfield Clinic whose PHQ-9 score reflects signs of depression.

40 Developmental Assets: A Research Analysis: Healthy Youth Committee & Fairmont's Youth Surveys, Tiffany Gullord

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This writer teamed together with the Healthy Youth Committee of Fairmont, Minnesota. The Healthy Youth Committee is a committee comprised of about 15 various community professionals who want to make a positive change for the youth of Fairmont. The committee includes court administrations staff, police chief, probation officers, teachers, non-profit employees, and social worker. The Healthy Youth Committee requested the Search Institute to complete the 40 Developmental Assets survey Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors with the youth in Fairmont, in 1997, 2002, and 2011. 40 Developmental Assets is a research-based framework that identifies basic building blocks of human …

Stroke Rehabilitation, Length-Of-Stay, And Re-Admission Rates: A Literature Review, Morgen Hagedorn

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Stroke is shown to be a significant U.S. health problem with a profound impact on the nation’s rising healthcare costs (Hall, Levant, & DeFrances, 2012). Longer patient length-of-stay [LOS] and higher re-admission rates have brought consequences to healthcare systems as institutional budgets are unable to reconcile the additional services and the influx of healthcare demands. Through a comprehensive literature review, the author illustrates the general knowledge available on the stroke experience, on stroke care and rehabilitation, and on patient LOS and re-admission rates. The literature review is based on general medical research with a focus on the stroke population. The …

Study Skills, Organizational Skills, Self-Awareness And Understanding Self Skills: A Development Of Skills Curriculum For Middle School Students, Aliina Vivant Peterson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The skills curriculum: Study Skills, Organizational Skills, Self-Awareness and Understanding Self Skills: A Development of Skills Curriculum for Middle School Students was created for the guidance staff at Twin Oaks Middle School. Each lesson is designed around an issue or topic that has been identified as a common subject matter during scheduled group sessions during this age of adolescence. The purpose of the skills curriculum allows for the guidance staff to have an additional resource to pull material from regarding specific subject matters.

Specifically, each lesson is based upon research and literature that supports the introduction, education, and implementation of …

Policies In Hospital Social Work, Jolene L. Reisdorfer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The goal of this project was to create an environment that provides a professional standard of care to ensure patient safety. This project will address the absence of policies in the Social Service Department at Mayo Clinic Health System, Southwest Region. A standard of care is a detailed standardized model of an intervention process that discusses the goals, objectives, settings, process, procedures and interventions (Gayle, 2005). Policy development must occur to assure that patients with social service needs are being identified appropriately and are being provided necessary interventions to meet their needs (Gordon & Rehrs, 1969). The project also identified …

A Review Of Developmentally Appropriate Evidence-Based Effective Parenting And Resources For Parents, Kari Schwecke

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Krisma Counseling, a counseling center located in rural southern Minnesota, offers high quality and affordable consumer-centered mental health services to individuals, families, couples, including in-home therapy. In order to provide adequate services and care that abides by the Nation Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, there needs to be standard ethical practice rooted in evidence based literature. The purpose of this project was to research developmentally appropriate evidence-based effective parenting and create a resource guide for clinicians to use in their work with parents of children ages two to 17.

Bridging Tactics: Parental Support Systems: A Proposal For A Psycho-Educational Parent Group, Emily F. Thompson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this Capstone project is to design and present a new intervention program for increasing supportive services to the parents of clients being served through the infant/early childhood mental health program at CSSM. The goal of this project is to provide CSSM with a culturally-­responsive, theoretically grounded, evidence-­based proposal for the development of a psycho-educational group that includes a clear rationale for why this intervention is needed and how it will help the agency achieve the outcomes of infant/early childhood mental health program.

Reconnecting To Work: Policies To Mitigate Long-Term Unemployment And Its Consequences, Lauren D. Appelbaum Editor

Upjohn Press

The goal of this book is to enable a better understanding of the consequences of long-term unemployment and the policies that are needed to address it. The contributors present research that examines the psychological as well as economic consequences of experiencing a prolonged spell of joblessness. Included are discussions of policies to increase job creation and to get the long-term unemployed back into jobs.

Employment Growth From Public Support Of Innovation In Small Firms, Albert N. Link, John T. Scott

Upjohn Press

Link and Scott provide a statistical assessment of the employment growth associated with public support of R&D in small, entrepreneurial firms through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Dragon Versus Eagle: The Chinese Economy And U.S.-China Relations, Wei-Chiao Huang Editor, Huizhong Zhou Editor

Upjohn Press

This book contains a group of papers that examine the complex and evolving economic relationship between China and the United States.

Haptics-Augmented Training Software For Undergraduate Engineering Mechanics, Ernur Karadogan, Robert L. Williams, David R. Moore, Tian Luo

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This paper presents the development efforts for a set of software activities and tutorials to augment teaching and learning in standard required undergraduate engineering mechanics courses. Using these software activities, students can change parameters, predict answers, compare outcomes, interact with animations, and feel the results. The overall system aims to increase teaching and learning effectiveness by rendering the concepts compelling, fun, and engaging. The problem with current examples and homework problems is that they are flat, static, boring, and non-engaging, which may lead to student attrition and a less than full grasp of fundamental principles. We implement integration of haptics …

Farm Lease Termination, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

Many farm leases, especially those between family members, are not written but are verbal "handshake" agreements. Because nothing is in writing, the parties may have different recollections of their agreement, making lease disputes more difficult to resolve. The most common legal issue associated with verbal farm leases is how a lease may legally be terminated. For unwritten leases, six months advance notice must be given to legally terminate the lease. In contrast, the termination of a written lease is determined by the terms of the written lease. If nothing is specified, a written lease terminates automatically on the last day …