Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Persecution Of Coptic Christians In Modern Egypt, Alla Rubinstein

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Christian community of Egypt dates back to the seventeenth century and comprises 12 per cent of the population today. As one of the oldest churches of the world, the Coptic Christian Church, first formed in Alexandria, has stood resilient and faithful to its traditions against intolerance, siege and persecutions. Having been present in most institutions of the state among the overwhelmingly Sunni-Muslim population, Copts are not new to the slow process of Islamization that Egypt has been undergoing for the last twenty years. What has been unique to the recent Coptic experience is the forced integration of Shari’a law …

Dying For Love: Homosexuality In The Middle East, Heather Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Today in the United States, the most frequent references to the Middle East are concerned with the War on Terrorism. However, there is another, hidden battle being waged: the war for human rights on the basis of sexuality. Homosexuality is a crime in many of the Middle Eastern states and is punishable by death in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iran (Ungar 2002). Chronic abuses and horrific incidences such as the 2009 systematic murders of hundreds of “gay” men in Iraq are seldom reported in the international media. Speculation as to why this population is hidden includes the …

Bedouin Women In The Naqab, Israel: Ongoing Transformation, Marcy M. Wells

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since its inception in 1948, the state of Israel has based development plans on an agenda of nation-building that has systematically excluded Palestinian Arab citizens such as the indigenous Bedouin. Policies of relocation, resettlement, and restructuring have been imposed on the Bedouin, forcing them from their ancestral lands and lifestyle in the Naqab (or Negev, as it is called in Hebrew) desert of southern Israel. The rapid and involuntary transition from self-sufficient, semi-nomadic, pastoral life to sedentarization and modernization has resulted in dependency on a state that treats the Bedouin as minority outsiders through unjust social, political, and economic structures. …

Finding A Voice: Using The Internet For Free Speech And Expression In Iran, Chelsea Zimmerman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In July 2009, many Iranians took to the streets to protest the results of the presidential election in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won with a reported 62% of the vote. The protests, stemming from allegations of electoral fraud, quickly exposed the government's limited tolerance for dissent. In addition to street demonstrations, protestors utilized social networking websites to express their opposition to the election results. The world, following Internet feeds, witnessed the restrictive mechanisms Iran’s government placed on expression and speech. People throughout the world admonished Iran for the government's interference with cell phone and Internet networks. Iran’s free speech and expression …

Human Rights Education In Peace-Building: A Look At Where The Practice Has Come From, And Where It Needs To Head, Tracey Holland

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The world’s peace-building and development organizations increasingly are incorporating human-rights frameworks into the myriad of activities now under their purview. Slower to develop, however, are the capacity-building programs designed to impart knowledge about human rights to citizens and communities. Field-workers throughout the world indicate that the lack of such guidance-giving education hinders them when it comes to monitoring activities, helping to rebuild public institutions, setting up and organizing electoral politics, building an unfettered media, protecting human security, setting up transitional justice mechanisms, and the myriad of other peace-building activities and democratization challenges they face in post-conflict situations. This paper not …

Beyond The Brink: Somalia’S Health Crisis, Bryson Brown

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Somalia is approaching a daunting anniversary: in 2011, the country will begin its twentieth consecutive year without an effective centralized government. The fall of the Soviet supported Siad Barre government in 1991 created a power vacuum that was filled by warlords, clans and, most recently, Islamists. Fourteen interim governments have failed to supplant those forces. Health infrastructure and the general health of the population have been devastated as a result. Precious few organizations are still providing health-related services. Unfortunately, recent events suggest that this crisis is going to get worse before it gets better.

On Visibly Dangerous Silliness, Anthony Chase

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“Silly” is what Ramadan calls the Swiss minaret referendum. He urges, in response to its passage, that Swiss Muslims be more rather than less visible. Each point is worth reflection. How and why does silliness transform itself into danger? And how and why is visibility the correct response to such danger—even if it leads in directions Ramadan may not suspect?

May 14, 2010 - Staff Meeting Agenda

ALEC Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

February 12, 2010 - Staff Meeting Agenda

ALEC Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Increasing Institutional Delivery And Access To Emergency Obstetric Care Services In Rural Uttar Pradesh: Implications For Behavior Change Communication, Population Council

Reproductive Health

The Population Council conducted a formative in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP), India to determine the impact of the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) scheme on the current status of institutional delivery in the region, to understand the facilitating factors and barriers in delivering in a health facility, and to identify programmatic and behavior change communication (BCC) initiatives that could accelerate the adoption of institutional delivery. JSY was launched as an intervention to address the barriers to institutional delivery, through the introduction of community-based women volunteers. The study shows that with the introduction of the JSY the rate of institutional delivery jumped …

Referral Mechanism Improves Uptake Of Art Services For Hiv+ Fp Clients, Population Council

Reproductive Health

An operations research intervention by the Population Council in Kenya aimed to design a referral framework for linking HIV‐positive family planning (FP) clients to treatment and care in selected health facilities. The project also assessed the acceptability and effectiveness in increasing the number of eligible HIV‐positive FP clients receiving HIV care and treatment services. This summary details the effort to improve the linkage between FP services and comprehensive care centers that led to a dramatic increase in the proportions of HIV-positive clients in FP clinics who go on to receive HIV/AIDS treatment and care services at the same facility. Recommendations …

Green Building In The Pacific Northwest: Next Steps For An Emerging Trend, Office Of Sustainability, Boise State University, Public Policy Center, Boise State University, Susan Mason, Anthony Marker, Rebecca Mirsky

Research and Reports

This report provides an understanding of why green building is important to our communities, a brief look at the emergence of green building standards, research evidence on the perceived pros and cons of green building, and original research on green building in the Pacific Northwest. The original research is an analysis of perspectives voiced in conversations, focus groups and surveys with both members of the construction industry and local government on the barriers and incentives to green building in their local communities. As nearly 500 construction industry members and just over 300 local governments participated in the research, this report …

The Postville Story, Just Faith Participants, Resurrection Parish, Dubuque, Iowa, February 20, 2010, Mary Mccauley

Postville Project Documents

Mary McCauley shares the experience of the Postville raid and the aftermath at the Just Faith meeting in Dubuque, Iowa February 20, 2010.

Niobrara National Scenic River Condition Assessment, Sunil Narumalani, Gary D. Willson, Christine K. Lockert, Paul B. T. Merani

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

Niobrara National Scenic River spans a 122-km (76-mile) long reach of the Niobrara River in rural, north-central Nebraska. The scenic river encompasses 9,338 ha (23,074 acres) of land and water, all of which is in private ownership, except for about 320 ha (790 acres). Because the scenic river does not own land, it achieves management goals by coordinating and collaborating with federal, state, and local jurisdictions and private landowners.

The central Niobrara River Valley is often referred to as a “biological crossroads” with plant and animal species representative of northern boreal forest, eastern deciduous forest, rocky mountain coniferous …

Coalition For Prisoners' Rights Newsletter, Vol 35-B, No. 1, Coalition For Prisoners' Rights

Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletters

Positive Change Possibilities

In 2009 Execution Numbers Rise But Execution Sentences Fall

Crime of the Month

Demócratas Presentan Proyecto de Reforma Migratoria Integral

Voices From Inside

Ecumenical Advocacy Days 2010, Washington, Dc, March 19-22, 2010, Mary Mccauley

Postville Project Documents

Mary McCauley shares the story of the Postville raid and the aftermath with at the Ecumenical Advocay Days in 2010 in Washington, D.C and how the local Catholic church responded.

Google Analytics: Analyzing The Latest Wave Of Legal Concerns For Google In The U.S. And The E.U., 7 Buff. Intell. Prop. L.J. 135 (2010), Raizel Liebler, Keidra Chaney

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

The next wave of concern regarding Google involves web analytics. Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. The concerns of web analytics use touches on issues of online user privacy, government use of personal information, and information on website user activity. While Google Analytics is not the sole web analytics product on the market, it is widely used by corporate, non-profit, and government organizations. The product has been reported to have a 59% market share among web analytics vendors in a 2008 study.

Web analytics technology …

Towards A Center For Modeling And Simulation: The Case For Jordan, Ghaith Rabadi, Hazem Kaylani, Joseph Barjis (Ed.), Murali Mohan Narasipuram (Ed.), Ghaith Rabadi (Ed.), Jolita Ralyt (Ed.), Pierluigi Plebani (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Modeling and Simulation (M&S) has recently become an important area that is pursued by many researchers and practitioners due to the role it plays in understanding complex systems and problems. We have therefore witnessed the establishment of many M&S organizations in the last two decades especially in the more developed world. Less developed countries are starting to recognize the need for such capability especially that the problems they face are not less complex. In this paper, we present a preliminary study towards a business plan for establishing a scientific center for Modeling, Analysis, Simulation and Animation in Jordan (JoSAMA) and …

Aircraft Leasing With Contracts, Qiong Zuo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

We study a problem of rental rate pricing and rental contract designing in aircraft leasing industry. In a framework of Stackelberg game, the system is composed of an airline company (carrier) and an aircraft leasing company (lessor). Acting as the leader, the lessor announces daily rental rates and/or provides long-term contracts on a finite horizon with multiple periods. For each period, the carrier determines the aircraft leasing number to adjust the flight capacity, and applies a dynamic pricing policy for air-tickets based on a seasonally stochastic demand and some economic factor, such as oil price. We find the optimal policies …

Cost, Quality And Access: An Analysis Of Health Care In The United States, Canada And The United Kingdom, Katherine Elizabeth Reidy

Honors Program Theses

Comparing international health care systems assists in identifying effective reforms to address three constant problems within health care around the globe: cost, quality and access. Until recently, the United States health care scheme has been administered through private enterprise while Canada and the United Kingdom have implemented national forms of health care. In order to determine which system more effectively deals issues related to cost, quality, and access, statistical information was gathered to compare each system based on cost, quality and access. Such statistics include but are not limited to waiting times for specialized care, financial expenditures for each country …

Habitat For Humanity - Interlocking Bricks, Lien Centre For Social Innovation

Social Space

Conscientious housing projects have to perpetually choose between expensive eco-friendly building materials and existing low-cost options that dominate the market. Habitat For Humanity Singapore’s team hopes to set up a research centre to contribute to low-cost, eco-friendly construction and to implement a financially self-sustaining model that provides employment to the local population.

Moral Agency And Advancements In Artificial Intelligence, Arielle L. Zuckerberg

CMC Senior Theses

The main trends underlying advancements in AI technology are increased autonomy, increased functionality, higher level social interaction and integration, and, many suggest, hard-wired ethical codes of conduct. These trends, along with the promises of engineers and scientists, give us ample reason to evaluate the agency of future AI machines.

The Emerging Civil Society In China And Its Impact On Democratization, Haolu Wang

Honors Theses

Recent years have seen an emerging civil society in an authoritarian China. The authoritarian embrace of civil society challenges the conventional wisdom that civil society is closely linked to democracy. In Beijing, the rhetoric of civil society linked less to democracy than to modernization. However, does civil society development have any impact on democratization in authoritarian regimes? The thesis tries to provide a tentative answer by studying civil society and democratization in post-Mao China. As a result of economic development and political reforms, gradual political liberalization has marked a shift of state-society relations that gives rise to a certain degree …

The “Lunatic Fringe” -- Barry Goldwater And The Conservative Revolution Of The 1960s --, Nicholas L. Bromley

Honors Theses

How did conservatives, who had become effectively ostracized by their party following the Great Depression and the societal reforms of the New Deal, regain leverage within the GOP during the 1960s? My hypothesis is two-fold. First, I contend that a small group of conservative activists led by F. Clifton White, in spite of a dearth of resources and manpower, managed to infiltrate Republican infrastructure and “hijack” the delegate- selection process. The distinctly conservative and recalcitrant disposition of the Goldwater delegates demonstrates that these activists succeeded. Second, I argue that in addition to temporarily overpowering the national convention in 1964, conservatives …

Solving The Childcare And Flexibility Puzzle: How Working Parents Make The Best Feasible Choices And What That Means For Public Policy, Arthur C. Emlen

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

This monograph’s contribution to knowledge was two-fold: 1) reliable measures of the quality of childcare as perceived and assessed by the parents themselves; and 2) discovery that the quality of the care chosen by working parents depends upon the amount of flexibility they can muster from their immediate environment at work, at home, or from accommodating childcare providers. It doesn’t matter which source of flexibility works best for them. It’s the flexibility that allows optimum choice. The findings suggest that public policy should recognize the vast diversity of parental choices and the flexibility needed to improve their choices. That means …

Clinton Max Station Visioning, Adam Bartini, Annie Bergelin, Ben Weber, Dan Englund, Frank Tigges, Hagen Hammons, Jenny Glass, Jon Vetsch, Kellen Smith, Kyle Gallacher-Turner, Marcy Landolfo, Michelle Van Tijen, Nayana Nayak, Nicholas Falbo

Urban Design Workshop

This is the second part of the three-phase study of the Proposed Milwaukie Light Rail (PMLR) Project that was initiated by the Portland State University Urban Design Workshop in 2009. This report builds upon the initial findings that provided urban design analysis and proposals for the area surrounding the Clinton MAX Station. Aiming to achieve a larger vision to revitalize and harmoniously integrate the areas surrounding the Clinton Station, this report expands the 2009 study area to include the following:

• Hosford-Abernethy and Brooklyn neighborhoods;
• Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID);
• Willamette Riverfront; and
• Rhine Street Station area.

This report is intended …

A Brief Portrait Of Multimodal Transportation Planning In Oregon And The Path To Achieving It, 1890-1974, Carl Abbott, Sam Lowry

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This project was designed to outline transportation chapters of a planned written history of Oregon land use planning, written in ways that would make the transportation planning profession relevant to a popular audience. The writing would focus on stories from the profession, and on historical facts and events in Oregon transportation planning history that would surprise or enlighten popular reading audiences. Technology transfer would occur through publication of one or more written pieces of work.

The result is a topical and historical tale entitled "A Brief Portrait of Multimodal Transportation Planning in Oregon and the Path to Achieving It, 1890-1974." …

Monitoring To Reduce Agency Costs: Examining The Behavior Of Independent And Non-Independent Boards, Anita Anand, Frank Milne, Lynnette Purda

Seattle University Law Review

Berle and Means’s analysis of the corporation—in particular, their view that those in control are not the owners of the corporation—raises questions about actions that corporations take to counter concerns regarding management’s influence. What mechanisms, if any, do corporations implement to balance the distribution of power in the corporation? To address this question, we analyze boards of directors’ propensity to voluntarily adopt recommended corporate governance practices. Because board independence is one way to enhance shareholders’ ability to monitor management, we probe whether firms with independent boards of directors (which we define as boards with either an independent chair or a …

Emergency Response In Large-Scale Disasters: Lessons Learned And Implications For National Security, Ashton Rohmer

Government and International Relations Honors Papers

This work analyzes the domestic emergency management policy of the United States and the extent to which it reflects an imbalance in U.S. national security policy. It tests the thesis that despite the rhetoric of enhanced emergency management capabilities in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the U.S. still remains vulnerable to largescale domestic emergencies due to a lack of adequate planning and resources. This vulnerability stems from a failure to implement lessons learned from large-scale domestic incidents such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Northeast Blackout of 2003. Since U.S. security policy is heavily focused …

A Biblical-Covenantal Perspective On Organizational Behavior & Leadership, Kahlib Fischer

Faculty Publications and Presentations

WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW? For starters, it’s important to recognize that our view on organizational behavior, and indeed on life itself, is influenced by our worldview. A worldview is an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual framework by which every person views reality, makes sense of life, and applies meaning to every area of life. Everyone has a worldview, but the sad fact is that most people don’t really know that they have one, or how their unspoken assumptions about truth, meaning, values, and humanity influence every decision they make and every perception they have. As a result, most people’s worldviews are …