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2012

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Articles 7081 - 7110 of 15703

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Measurement Error And The Black-White Wage Differential, Jared Huff May 2012

Measurement Error And The Black-White Wage Differential, Jared Huff

All Dissertations

This dissertation encompasses two papers. The first paper examines the impact of measurement errors in potential experience and reported education on Black-White wage differentials. I show that measurement error is not mean zero, is distributed differently for Black and White males and, for experience, is correlated with the value of the variable measured with error. Possible conditional distributions of the true values of education and experience, given reported values, are estimated using auxiliary data. This paper introduces a Maximum Likelihood method to deal with these errors, and evaluates this method as well as other methods currently used in the gender …

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Image-Enabled Discourse: Investigating The Creation Of Visual Information As Communicative Practice, Jaime Snyder May 2012

Image-Enabled Discourse: Investigating The Creation Of Visual Information As Communicative Practice, Jaime Snyder

School of Information Studies - Dissertations

Anyone who has clarified a thought or prompted a response during a conversation by drawing a picture has exploited the potential of image making as an interactive tool for conveying information. Images are increasingly ubiquitous in daily communication, in large part due to advances in visually enabled information and communication technologies (ICT), such as information visualization applications, image retrieval systems and visually enabled collaborative work tools. Human abilities to use images to communicate are however far more sophisticated and nuanced than these technologies currently support. In order to learn more about the practice of image making as a specialized form …

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International, National, And Local Notions Of The Public Library: An Extended Case Study In Namibia, Sarah M. Webb May 2012

International, National, And Local Notions Of The Public Library: An Extended Case Study In Namibia, Sarah M. Webb

School of Information Studies - Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of library use in a poor neighborhood in Windhoek, Namibia, to understand the diffusion of public libraries around the world. I used a sociological approach and the Extended Case Method (Burawoy, 1991; 1998). Two theories framed the research: World Society Theory (Meyer et al. 1997) and New Institutional Theory (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991). World Society Theory was developed from evidence of similarities in governmental, health and educational organizations globally that demonstrates the growth of a world culture based on a rationalistic and scientific approach to knowledge. The findings show that international notions of public libraries …

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The Problem With Nuclear Diplomacy: Jimmy Carter And Pakistan's Nuclear Program, Brittany Raymer May 2012

The Problem With Nuclear Diplomacy: Jimmy Carter And Pakistan's Nuclear Program, Brittany Raymer

Masters Theses

A detailed history of Pakistan's attempt to build the atomic bomb in the 1970s and Jimmy Carter's reaction to the tense diplomatic situation.

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Defined By What We Are Not: The Role Of Anti-Catholicism In The Formation Of Early American Identity, Brandi Hatfield Marchant May 2012

Defined By What We Are Not: The Role Of Anti-Catholicism In The Formation Of Early American Identity, Brandi Hatfield Marchant

Masters Theses

From the colonial era through the mid-nineteenth century, anti-Catholicism colored key points of development in America's early history. Amidst the English colonial experience, the Revolution and establishment of the republic, and the educational reform efforts of the nineteenth-century, anti-Catholicism emerged as a fundamental factor in the development of America's characteristically Protestant political and religious identity. While many studies of early American anti-Catholicism focus on one region or time period, drawing connections across geographic boundaries and constructed historical periods attests to the sentiment's pervasive and enduring influence. While this sentiment varied in intensity throughout America over time, its presence profoundly shaped …

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Minority Participation In Technology Based Growth Industries In Northeast Ohio, Merissa Piazza, Elorm Tsegah, Ziona Austrian, Ellen Cyran May 2012

Minority Participation In Technology Based Growth Industries In Northeast Ohio, Merissa Piazza, Elorm Tsegah, Ziona Austrian, Ellen Cyran

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

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A Comparative Look At The Energetic Efficiency Of Bipedal Locomotion In Humans Versus Quadrupedal Locomotion In Primates: Measurements Of Femoral And Humeral Proximal Head Articular Surface, Kelly Danielson May 2012

A Comparative Look At The Energetic Efficiency Of Bipedal Locomotion In Humans Versus Quadrupedal Locomotion In Primates: Measurements Of Femoral And Humeral Proximal Head Articular Surface, Kelly Danielson

Anthropology

No abstract provided.

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Analyzing Tophets: Did The Phoenicians Practice Child Sacrifice?, Katelyn Dibenedetto May 2012

Analyzing Tophets: Did The Phoenicians Practice Child Sacrifice?, Katelyn Dibenedetto

Anthropology

This paper examines the controversies surrounding Phoenician religious practices and in particular, the Phoenician Tophet, a cemetery containing the cremated remains of infants and young children in clay jars. According to ancient Hebrew and Greek sources, in the ceremony known as mulk, the oldest son was placed on the arms of a bronze statue and dropped into a brazier below. Though these ancient authors were unanimous in criticizing Phoenician religious practices as cruel and savage, the use of these biased sources to conclude that child sacrifice did occur remains controversial. Both the Hebrew and Greek sources were xenophobic and furthermore, …

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Sizes Of Joint Articular Surfaces In Homo Sapiens And Pan Paniscus And The Relevance To Locomotor Differences, Jacqueline Kenitz May 2012

Sizes Of Joint Articular Surfaces In Homo Sapiens And Pan Paniscus And The Relevance To Locomotor Differences, Jacqueline Kenitz

Anthropology

No abstract provided.

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An Economic Analysis Of Optimum Population Size Achieved Through Boosting Total Fertility And Net Immigration, Hian Teck Hoon May 2012

An Economic Analysis Of Optimum Population Size Achieved Through Boosting Total Fertility And Net Immigration, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

Without net immigration, the population size is projected to decline from 2025 onward. Does it matter? To answer this question, the paper proceeds in two main parts. In the first part, taking a citizen's utility as a measure of welfare, we identify the channels through which a larger population size reduces welfare, on the one hand, and increases welfare on the other hand. The optimum population size is achieved when the net resultant effect of all these channels leaves citizens' welfare at the maximum. When current and projected total fertility rates without net immigration lead to a projected path of …

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Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: The Value Of Political Connections In Social Networks, Quoc-Anh Do, Yen Teik Lee, Bang Dang Nguyen, Kieu-Trang Nguyen May 2012

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: The Value Of Political Connections In Social Networks, Quoc-Anh Do, Yen Teik Lee, Bang Dang Nguyen, Kieu-Trang Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the impact of social-network based political connections on firm value. We focus on the networks of university classmates and alumni among directors of U.S. public firms and congressmen. Comparing firms connected to elected versus defeated politicians in the Regression Discontinuity Design of close elections from 2000 to 2008, we provide evidence that political connections enhance firm value. However, the value of political connections varies in a more complex way than expected. While connections to powerful members of the Senate generate strong positive impact on firm value, connections to newly elected congressmen are less valuable to firms than …

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Measuring The Upstreamness Of Production And Trade Flows, Pol Antras, Davin Chor, Thibault Fally, Russell Hillbery May 2012

Measuring The Upstreamness Of Production And Trade Flows, Pol Antras, Davin Chor, Thibault Fally, Russell Hillbery

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose two distinct approaches to the measurement of industry upstreamness (or average distance from final use) and show that they yield an equivalent measure. Furthermore, we provide two additional interpretations of this measure, one of them related to the concept of forward linkages. We construct this measure for 426 industries using the 2002 US input-output Tables. We also construct our measure using data from selected countries in the OECD STAN database. Finally, we present an application of our measure that explores the determinants of the average upstreamness of exports at the country level using trade flows for 2002.

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Changing Unchanged Inequality: Higher Education, Youth Population, And The Japanese Seniority Wage System, Ken Yamada, Daiji Kawaguchi May 2012

Changing Unchanged Inequality: Higher Education, Youth Population, And The Japanese Seniority Wage System, Ken Yamada, Daiji Kawaguchi

Research Collection School Of Economics

Wage inequality declined in the 1990s and rose after 2000 among full-time male workers in Japan. Narrowing wage inequality in the 1990s can be accounted for by a decline in between-group inequality resulting from a stable return to education and decreased returns to experience and tenure. Widening wage inequality after 2000 can be accounted for by a rise in within-group inequality resulting from a relative increase in educated and experienced workers, as well as changes in heterogeneous returns to human capital.

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Off The Cliff And Back? Credit Conditions And International Trade During The Global Financial Crisis, Davin Chor, Manova Kalina May 2012

Off The Cliff And Back? Credit Conditions And International Trade During The Global Financial Crisis, Davin Chor, Manova Kalina

Research Collection School Of Economics

We examine the collapse of international trade flows during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis using detailed data on the evolution of monthly U.S. imports over the November 2006 - April 2009 period. We show that credit constraints and the reduction in the availability of external capital were an important channel through which the crisis affected trade volumes. We identify the effects of credit tightening by exploiting the variation in the cost of capital across countries and over time, as well as the variation in financial dependence across sectors. We find that countries with higher interbank interest rates and thus tighter …

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Advising To Promote Self-Authorship: Exploring Advising Strategies And Advisor Characteristics Among New Student Affairs Professionals, Emily Marx Phd May 2012

Advising To Promote Self-Authorship: Exploring Advising Strategies And Advisor Characteristics Among New Student Affairs Professionals, Emily Marx Phd

Dissertations

Self-authorship, a theory developed by Robert Kegan (1982) and applied to college students by Marcia Baxter Magolda, is the ability to internally define one's own beliefs, identity, and relationships (Baxter Magolda, 2001). People who self-author have the ability to make career, academic, relationship, and life decisions that take into consideration their own internal voice rather than relying on others' advice. The development of self-authorship has been correlated with gains in key learning outcomes, such as cognitive complexity and independence (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Pizzolato, 2008; Pizzolato & Ozaki, 2007). Achievement of self-authorship does not typically occur until after college, when young …

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The Undergraduate Classroom As A Community Of Inquiry, Cara Taylor Miller Phd May 2012

The Undergraduate Classroom As A Community Of Inquiry, Cara Taylor Miller Phd

Dissertations

This project contributes to the literature on action research and undergraduate pedagogy for leadership development through application and expansion of existing theory on collaborative ways of teaching and learning. I applied a participatory, inquiry-based approach to teaching an undergraduate course in leadership studies over four semesters using the action research process of recursively asking and answering living questions in real time about teaching and learning with students' participating as co-researchers. Reflection on my initial, mostly traditional teaching strategies generated questions about the students' detachment from and resistance to exercising leadership, as well as the challenge of aligning my deepest values …

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An Investigation Of The Effects Of Writing Instruction In An Ungraded Informal Learning Environment, Samuel Patterson Edd May 2012

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Writing Instruction In An Ungraded Informal Learning Environment, Samuel Patterson Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate and describe the teaching of writing in an informal setting through the voices of teachers and students. The intent of this study was to describe the roles of teachers and students in this learning environment and specifically to describe the role of writing response groups in this environment. Research in both writing instruction and informal education suggests that writing instruction is a good contextual match to camp-style informal education. Both informal education and writer's workshop-style writing instruction put the individual and their choices at the center of the experience. VI This …

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Investigating The Impact Of A Mentor Text Inquiry Approach To Narrative Writing Instruction On Attitude, Self-Efficacy, And Writing Processes Of Fourth Grade Students In An Urban Elementary School, Christine Marie Kealoha Kane Edd May 2012

Investigating The Impact Of A Mentor Text Inquiry Approach To Narrative Writing Instruction On Attitude, Self-Efficacy, And Writing Processes Of Fourth Grade Students In An Urban Elementary School, Christine Marie Kealoha Kane Edd

Dissertations

Writing in its many forms, is the signature means of communication in the 21st century. Writing is also arguably the most complex and difficult challenge facing all students in school. The purpose of this study was to monitor the narrative writing performance of urban students who received explicit writing instruction using a mentor text inquiry approach. A mentor text is a published piece of writing whose ideas, structure,or written craft can be used to inspire a student to write something original. It is a piece of quality literature text that students can use as an exemplar text to model their …

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Internationalization Into The Gcc: Singapore In Retrospect, Caroline Yeoh, Wilfred Pow Ngee How, Hong Hao Chong May 2012

Internationalization Into The Gcc: Singapore In Retrospect, Caroline Yeoh, Wilfred Pow Ngee How, Hong Hao Chong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As internationalization becomes, increasingly, the chosen method of (ironically) competing for competitiveness among firms, new and rich frontiers for business come into ever-expanding demand. Among the foremost of these frontiers, the countries of the GCC represent both fertile ground and uncharted waters for internationalizing firms, with cultures as rich as their markets and sometimes byzantine yet fascinating socio-political forces presenting a plethora of challenges to erstwhile investing firms. As a culmination of our research into this region over past years, then, we examine in this paper, as a case study of sorts, the experiences of Singapore firms in the various …

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Wage-Vacancy Contracts And Coordination Frictions, Nicolas L. Jacquet, Serene Tan May 2012

Wage-Vacancy Contracts And Coordination Frictions, Nicolas L. Jacquet, Serene Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a directed search model with risk-averse workers and risk-neutral entrepreneurs who can set up firms that post wage-vacancy contracts, i.e., contracts where firms can make payments to more than one applicant, and where the payments can be different for each applicant and be contingent on the number of applicants. We establish that the type of contracts the literature focuses on are not offered if firms can post wage-vacancy contracts. We show that there exists an equilibrium satisfying a Monotonic Expected Utility property which is efficient. Furthermore, we investigate the role of wage-vacancy contracts on welfare and competition.

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Towards Interactive, Internet-Based Decision Aid For Vaccination Decisions: Better Information Alone Is Not Enough, Terry Connolly, Jochen Reb May 2012

Towards Interactive, Internet-Based Decision Aid For Vaccination Decisions: Better Information Alone Is Not Enough, Terry Connolly, Jochen Reb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Vaccination decisions, as in choosing whether or not to immunize one's small child against specific diseases, are both psychologically and computationally complex. The psychological complexities have been extensively studied, often in the context of shaping convincing or persuasive messages that will encourage parents to vaccinate their children. The computational complexity of the decision has been less noted. However, even if the parent has access to neutral, accurate, credible information on vaccination risks and benefits, he or she can easily be overwhelmed by the task of combining this information into a well-reasoned decision. We argue here that the Internet, in addition …

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Predicting How Adaptation To Climate Change Could Affect Ecological Conservation: Secondary Impacts Of Shifting Agricultural Suitability, Bethany A. Bradley, Lyndon D. Estes, David G. Hole, Stephen Holness, Michael Oppenheimer, Will R. Turner, Hein Beukes, Roland E. Schulze, Mark A. Tadross, David S. Wilcove May 2012

Predicting How Adaptation To Climate Change Could Affect Ecological Conservation: Secondary Impacts Of Shifting Agricultural Suitability, Bethany A. Bradley, Lyndon D. Estes, David G. Hole, Stephen Holness, Michael Oppenheimer, Will R. Turner, Hein Beukes, Roland E. Schulze, Mark A. Tadross, David S. Wilcove

Geography

Aim: Ecosystems face numerous well-documented threats from climate change. The well-being of people also is threatened by climate change, most prominently by reduced food security. Human adaptation to food scarcity, including shifting agricultural zones, will create new threats for natural ecosystems. We investigated how shifts in crop suitability because of climate change may overlap currently protected areas (PAs) and priority sites for PA expansion in South Africa. Predicting the locations of suitable climate conditions for crop growth will assist conservationists and decision-makers in planning for climate change. Location: South Africa. Methods: We modelled climatic suitability in 2055 for maize and …

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Cost Estimate Modeling Of Transportation Management Plans For Highway Projects, Research Report 11-24, Jae-Ho Pyeon, Eul-Bum Lee, Ralph D. Ellis, Taeho Park May 2012

Cost Estimate Modeling Of Transportation Management Plans For Highway Projects, Research Report 11-24, Jae-Ho Pyeon, Eul-Bum Lee, Ralph D. Ellis, Taeho Park

Mineta Transportation Institute

Highway rehabilitation and reconstruction projects frequently cause road congestion and increase safety concerns while limiting access for road users. State Transportation Agencies (STAs) are challenged to find safer and more efficient ways to renew deteriorating roadways in urban areas. To better address the work zone issues, the Federal Highway Administration published updates to the Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule. All state and local governments receiving federal aid funding were required to comply with the provisions of the rule no later than October 12, 2007. One of the rule’s major elements is to develop and implement Transportation Management Plans (TMPs). …

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Love And Money By Parental Match-Making: Evidence From Urban Couples In China, Fali Huang, Ginger Jin, Lixin Collin Xu May 2012

Love And Money By Parental Match-Making: Evidence From Urban Couples In China, Fali Huang, Ginger Jin, Lixin Collin Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Parental involvement in marriage matchmaking may distort the optimal spouse choice because parents are willing to substitute love for money. The rationale is that the joint income of married children can be shared among extended family members more easily than mutual attraction felt by the couple themselves, and as a result, the best spouse candidate in the parents' eyes can differ from what is optimal to the individual, even though parents are altruistic and care dearly about their children's welfare. We find supporting evidence for this prediction using a unique sample of urban couples in China in the early 1990s.

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Organizing The Global Value Chain, Pol Antras, Davin Chor May 2012

Organizing The Global Value Chain, Pol Antras, Davin Chor

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a property-rights model of the firm in which production entails a continuum of uniquely sequenced stages. In each stage, a final-good producer contracts with a distinct supplier for the procurement of a customized stage-specific component. Our model yields a sharp characterization for the optimal allocation of ownership rights along the value chain. We show that the incentive to integrate suppliers varies systematically with the relative position (upstream versus downstream) at which the supplier enters the production line. Furthermore, the nature of the relationship between integration and “downstreamness” depends crucially on the elasticity of demand faced by the final-good …

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Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability And Corruption: Evidence From Us States, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do May 2012

Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability And Corruption: Evidence From Us States, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do

Research Collection School Of Economics

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states. In particular, this is the case when we use the variation induced by the exogenous location of a state’s centroid to instrument for the concentration of population around the capital city. We then show that different mechanisms for holding state politicians accountable are also affected by the spatial distribution of population: newspapers provide greater coverage of state politics when their audiences are more concentrated around the capital, and voter turnout in state elections is greater in places that are closer to the capital. …

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A Framework For Developing And Integrating Effective Routing Strategies Within The Emergency Management Decision-Support System, Research Report 11-12, Anurag Pande, Frances Edwards, Joseph Yu May 2012

A Framework For Developing And Integrating Effective Routing Strategies Within The Emergency Management Decision-Support System, Research Report 11-12, Anurag Pande, Frances Edwards, Joseph Yu

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report describes the modeling, calibration, and validation of a VISSIM traffic-flow simulation of the San José, California, downtown network and examines various evacuation scenarios and first-responder routings to assess strategies that would be effective in the event of a no-notice disaster. The modeled network required a large amount of data on network geometry, signal timings, signal coordination schemes, and turning-movement volumes. Turning-movement counts at intersections were used to validate the network with the empirical formula-based measure known as the GEH statistic. Once the base network was tested and validated, various scenarios were modeled to estimate evacuation and emergency vehicle …

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Proactive Assessment Of Accident Risk To Improve Safety On A System Of Freeways, Research Report 11-15, Anurag Pande, Cornelius Nuworsoo, Cameron Shew May 2012

Proactive Assessment Of Accident Risk To Improve Safety On A System Of Freeways, Research Report 11-15, Anurag Pande, Cornelius Nuworsoo, Cameron Shew

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report describes the development and evaluation of real-time crash risk-assessment models for four freeway corridors: U.S. Route 101 NB (northbound) and SB (southbound) and Interstate 880 NB and SB. Crash data for these freeway segments for the 16-month period from January 2010 through April 2011 are used to link historical crash occurrences with real-time traffic patterns observed through loop-detector data. 'The crash risk-assessment models are based on a binary classification approach (crash and non-crash outcomes), with traffic parameters measured at surrounding vehicle detection station (VDS) locations as the independent variables. The analysis techniques used in this study are logistic …

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A Decision-Support Framework For Using Value Capture To Fund Public Transit: Lessons From Project-Specific Analyses, Research Report 11-14, Shishir Mathur, Adam Smith May 2012

A Decision-Support Framework For Using Value Capture To Fund Public Transit: Lessons From Project-Specific Analyses, Research Report 11-14, Shishir Mathur, Adam Smith

Mineta Transportation Institute

Local and state governments provide 75 percent of transit funds in the United States. With all levels of governments under significant fiscal stress, any new transit funding mechanism is welcome. Value capture (VC) is one such mechanism. Based on the “benefits received” principle, VC involves the identification and capture of public infrastructure-led increase in land value. While the literature has extensively demonstrated the property-value impacts of transit investments and has empirically simulated the potential magnitude of VC revenues for financing transit facilities, very little research has examined the suitability of VC mechanisms for specific transit projects. This report aims to …

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Low-Stress Bicycling And Network Connectivity, Maaza C. Mekuria, Peter G. Furth, Hilary Nixon May 2012

Low-Stress Bicycling And Network Connectivity, Maaza C. Mekuria, Peter G. Furth, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

For a bicycling network to attract the widest possible segment of the population, its most fundamental attribute should be low-stress connectivity, that is, providing routes between people’s origins and destinations that do not require cyclists to use links that exceed their tolerance for traffic stress, and that do not involve an undue level of detour. The objective of this study is to develop measures of low-stress connectivity that can be used to evaluate and guide bicycle network planning. We propose a set of criteria by which road segments can be classified into four levels of traffic stress (LTS). LTS 1 …

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