Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

The Costs And Impacts Of Rising Food Prices Among Low-Income Households, Elaine Waxman

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The pressure of rising food prices on low-income households is often assumed to be primarily an issue for developing economies, where fluctuations in food staple prices can have dramatic consequences for food security and social and political stability. Observers often note that Americans benefit from relatively low food prices and spend far less to feed their families than their counterparts in many other parts of the world. Indeed, the average American household spent 7.6% of their household expenditures on food purchases at home in 2009, while the comparable percentage exceeded 40% of household expenditures in diverse countries such as Mexico, …

A Lagrange Multiplier Test For Cross-Sectional Dependence In A Fixed Effects Panel Data Model, Badi Baltagi, Qu Feng, Chihwa Kao

Center for Policy Research

It is well known that the standard Breusch and Pagan (1980) LM test for cross-equation correlation in a SUR model is not appropriate for testing cross-sectional dependence in panel data models when the number of cross-sectional units (n) is large and the number of time periods (T) is small. In fact, a scaled version of this LM test was proposed by Pesaran (2004) and its finite sample bias was corrected by Pesaran, Ullah and Yamagata (2008). This was done in the context of a heterogeneous panel data model. This paper derives the asymptotic bias of this scaled version of the …

Governance And Executive Compensation In Nonprofits, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Corporate governance has attracted much attention lately, justifiably many would argue. In the past couple decades, important legislative changes and public pressure have driven rapid changes in board governance and reporting, much focused on executive compensation, in particular. Still, there seems to be less focus on these issues in nonprofit organizations. This despite the fact that more than one-quarter of Americans volunteered through or for an organization last year, with the likely majority of these organizations being nonprofits. Adjusting for organization size, however, cash pay is not that different in for-profits and nonprofits. Resources exist for helping nonprofit boards govern …

Improving Nursing Home Patient Safety In Maine: A Review Of The Ahrq Patient Safety Culture Survey Implementation Process, Andrea Fenner-Koepp

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

An organization’s patient safety culture has a powerful influence on the behaviors, strategies, and clinical outcomes of healthcare organizations. The Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Culture Survey has been deemed an effective tool for assessing patient safety culture and driving improvement initiatives. There has been little done to assess the quality of patient safety culture in long-term care facilities and, specifically, Maine has not collectively established baseline measures of patient safety culture in nursing home. This capstone reviews the implementation process of the AHRQ Patient Safety Culture Survey in five rural nursing facility pilot sites.

Approaches To Capacity Building And Knowledge Sharing In The Hud Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program, Natalie Mcwilliams

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

This paper investigates the early response to the capacity building and knowledge sharing requirement as part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant (SCRPG) program. Drawing from the work of a subset of ten grantees across the United States, this analysis investigates the innovative ways planning organizations are working to fulfill this unique requirement. An overview of the grant program is discussed followed by a discussion of how the knowledge sharing requirement reflects the new regionalism movement. The approach of each of the example grantees is examined in terms of what activities …

Economic Aid And Conflict Transformation In Northern Ireland And The Border Area: Respondents’ Perceptions Of Awareness, Fairness, Trust Building, And Sustainability, Peter Karari, Sean Byrne, Olga Skarlato, Kawser Ahmed

Peace and Conflict Studies

Intractable ethnopolitical conflicts emanate from the social, political, cultural, and economic marginalization of some community groups. To address these conflicts, the affected groups are often provided with life changing opportunities to enhance justice, equality, dignity and freedom. In the past, Northern Ireland has been a turbulent sea of violent conflict between Unionists and Nationalists. To address the underlying root causes of the conflict, economic aid through the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the European Union (EU) Peace II Fund is aimed at facilitating sustainable peacebuilding, reconciliation and community development. In this study, 95 community group leaders, civil servants, and …

Redefining Sovereignty: An Analysis Of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’S Rhetoric On The Responsibility To Protect Doctrine, Jason Edwards

Peace and Conflict Studies

This essay examines United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s rhetoric concerning the responsibility to protect doctrine (R2P). This essay seeks to rhetorically map the arguments concerning the nature of R2P and what its specific components are. Specifically, I argue that Ban Ki-Moon’s rhetoric serves to redefine and update sovereignty and the responsibilities of statehood for a twenty-first century world. The rhetoric of R2P has important implications for the debates surrounding military intervention on “humanitarian” grounds.

Faith-Based Peacebuilding: A Case Study Of The National Council Of Churches Of Kenya, John Mwangi Githigaro

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article explores the peacebuilding contribution of the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), following the post-2007 election violence in Kenya. Faith-based organizations are increasingly taking an active role in peacebuilding in conflict prone and affected societies. The paper presents research findings that the NCCK perceived that it was positively involved in areas of humanitarian assistance and building of bridges among communities divided by the violence. The paper contextualizes the triggers or the causes of the post-election violence in Kenya after the December 2007 elections and offers suggestions for peaceful co-existence.

The Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Process: A Prenegotiation Perspective, Amira Schiff

Peace and Conflict Studies

In this paper, I explore the prenegotiation process between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which extended over eight months in 1993 and ended with the signing of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) in September of that year. During this period, the parties committed to recognize each other and conduct future negotiations with the aim of ending a century of conflict. The DOP was considered a significant breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Scholars of Conflict Resolution typically view the discussions that led to the DOP as a positive example of how antagonists in ethno-national conflicts begin a course of constructive …

Front Matter, Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.

Challenges To Policy Implementation: An Examination Of An Integrated Health Care Delivery System Demonstration Project, Kaitlin A. Roh

Political Science Honors Projects

US health care costs are among the highest of all industrialized nations. In an effort to reduce costs and improve health outcomes, new delivery models – including accountable care organizations – have been developed. Yet, as revealed through interviews with key participants in Hennepin County's delivery project, significant challenges to implementing them exist. They include obstacles that inherently arise from implementing a means-tested health care policy within a competitive, federalized governing structure. Because these challenges are not unique to Hennepin County, this project can help similar projects and may push policy towards the integration of the health care and social …

Bike Easy: Bicycle Share Feasibility Study, New Orleans, Uno Transportation Institute

UNOTI Publications

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Gate Keepers: A Mixed Method Study Of Early Career Librarians In The Tenure Process, Judith Wolfe

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The “gate keepers” oversee the enforcement of the rules, set by the university, for those seeking tenure. This elite club decides what counts, how it is completed and evaluated, and where to set the equity bar. The pre-tenured librarian expects to be treated with openness and fairness but may be met with bias and secrecy. Without a network or mentoring system many early-career librarians are not reappointed, are denied tenure, and become dropouts in the last year of the tenure process.

This study explores mentoring functions as they relate to joining the “club” within an academic library. This study also …

Studies On Critical Thinking For Environmental Ethics, Courtney Quinn

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examined the role of critical thinking in regards to environmental ethical issues. First, an instrument was developed and validated to quantitatively measure students’ ability to apply critical thinking skills to various environmental ethical issues. Next, the instrument and a qualitative assessment were used to examine critical thinking capabilities of freshmen upon entry to a large introductory course. Last, the Environmental Ethics Critical Thinking Assessment, in conjunction with the qualitative assessment, were used to examine the change in critical thinking ability of all students in a large introductory course from pre to post-semester. In both studies, numerous antecedents to …

Seattle's Orchards: A Historic Legacy Meets Modern Sustainability, Audrey L. Lieberworth

Scripps Senior Theses

European immigrants introduced orchards to the U.S. in the early 1600s. As they began to establish settlements and migrate west, they brought orchard cultivation with them, creating an extensive network of orchards spread across the U.S. However, over time many of these orchards were lost due to urban development, which is what makes Seattle’s historic orchards significant. Early Seattle settlers planted orchards in the 1800s and early 1900s, and their remnants still exist today, despite urban development. Over the years, many of the orchards have been incorporated onto City Department-owned land, but they have not been maintained to the extent …

A Failing Correctional System: State Prison Overcrowding In The United States, Susan M. Campers

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

State prison overcrowding has grown into a detrimental problem within our American penal system, such that after decades of being ignored by politicians, media outlets, and the lower court system, it has resulted in an ineffective and overcrowded correctional system that craves reformation.

Exploratory Methods For Truck Re-Identification In A Statewide Network Based On Axle Weight And Axle Spacing Data To Enhance Freight Metrics: Phase Ii, Mecit Cetin, Christopher M. Monsere

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Vehicle re-identification methods can be used to anonymously match vehicles crossing two different locations based on vehicle attribute data. This research builds upon a previous study and investigates different methods for solving the re-identification problem and explores some of the factors that impact the accuracy of the results. To support this work, archived data from weigh-in-motion (WIM) stations in Oregon are used for developing, calibrating, and testing vehicle re-identification algorithms. In addition to the Bayesian approach developed by the researchers in the previous study, a neural network model is developed for solving the re-identification problem. The results from the testing …

Understanding Urban Sustainability And Quality Of Life: A System Dynamics Approach, Abby Elizabeth Beck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

For an urban area to be sustainable, its resources cannot be depleted faster than they can replenish. If an urban area is to provide a high quality of life (QOL), it must offer and maintain an amenity package that satisfies its resident's preferences. Past studies on these topics all have a common thread: sustainability and QOL both pertain to people's relationship to capital. Capital is something that can accumulate and add value to a person or society. If sustainability and QOL are a function of people's relationship with capital, how they use it, deplete it, replenish it and transform it …

State Juvenile Justice Spending Decisions: The Effects Of Federal Aid, Race, Politics, And Other Socioeconomic Factors, Willie B. Coleman Smith

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Historically, juvenile justice in the United States has been the responsibility of state governments with limited federal support. There is a notable gap in the empirical literature on factors that affect funding policies for state juvenile justice programs. In this dissertation research, I used two theoretical perspectives to examine determinants of juvenile justice spending: economic theory on intergovernmental aid and tenets of the Politics of Social Order Framework, developed by Stucky, Heimer, and Lang (2007) to investigate corrections spending. Two research questions were considered: 1) What impact does federal aid have on state spending on juvenile justice programs? and 2) …

Public Corruption For Gain In America: The Costly Consequences Of Violating Public Trust, Yvonne Atkinson Gates

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Several empirical analyses have explored corruption in government to determine the factors that contribute to corrupt behavior of elected officials.

This study will focus, explore, and enhance the research on the causes of public corruption among elected county commissioners by examining four domains of corruption causality: individual characteristics of elected officials, county government characteristics, county government fiscal performance, and community characteristics. This study will attempt to determine if General Strain Theory can provide a theoretical framework for understanding the causes of public corruption and, to what degree it can predict whether elected county officials will engage in corrupt behavior.

Retrospective Evaluation Of Oral Health Services For Underserved Children In Clark County, Nevada, Earl Taylor Spader

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Disparities in utilization of oral health services have been shown to exist through epidemiological investigations and data analysis. Specifically, disparities exist for utilization of preventative dental care (PDC) and unmet dental need (UDN). The disparities in utilization of PDC and UDN are associated with demographic and insurance variables.

To address the oral health disparities, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas-School of Dental Medicine (UNLV-SDM) was created to improve the health of the citizens of Nevada through innovative programs of oral healthcare services to the community. More recently, UNLV-SDM opened a pediatric dental residency training program to provide care directly to …

Efficiency Of Fiscal Expenditures In Nevada Elementary Schools Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Todd Patrick Yocum

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

For decades educational researchers have attempted to find links between school funding and student achievement. These attempts have generated many contradictory viewpoints and have produced many unanswered questions. Ever increasing accountability on states, districts and schools combined with severe financial strain has made measuring school fiscal efficiency a valuable tool for school leaders looking to get more student achievement with fewer resources.

The methodology for this study was comprised of two phases. Phase I analyzed the per pupil expenditures of Nevada elementary schools over a three-year period and developed descriptive statistics that revealed the expenditure patterns by category. Phase II …

New Deal Cowboy: Gene Autry And Public Diplomacy, Michael Dean Duchemin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation explains how Gene Autry used his mastery of multiplatform entertainment and the techniques of transmedia storytelling to make the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the 32nd President of the United States, more attractive to the American public. Making a case for cultural significance, the work shows how Autry developed a singing cowboy persona to exploit the western genre as his modus operandi, because it appealed to rural, small town and newly-urban Americans in the Midwest, South and Southwest. Examining Autry's oeuvre within a context created by Roosevelt administration policies, the dissertation exposes a process of public diplomacy …

Four Flaws In New York State’S Property Taxes And How To Fix Them: Star, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

John Carroll University Economic Impact, Ziona Austrian, Candice Clouse, Merissa Piazza, Tyler Thompson, Matthew Hrubey

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

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). …

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 …

2012 May, Office Of Communications & Marketing, Morehead State University.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for May of 2012.

Nature-Based Recreationists' Perceptions Of Climate Change And Attitudes Towards Climate Change Mitigation In Natural Environments, Matthew Brownlee

All Dissertations

Novel biophysical impacts from a rapidly changing climate are influencing resources in many parks and protected areas that host nature-based recreation. In addition to climate impacts, renewable energy initiatives (e.g., wind farms) aimed to mitigate climate change are increasingly converging with nature-based recreation areas. Climate impacts and climate change mitigation efforts in nature-based recreation areas have the capacity to influence individual and collective experiences, attitudes, and potentially behaviors. However, little is known about nature-based recreationists' interactions with climate-influenced resources, and how these interactions may influence perceptions of climate change and attitudes towards mitigation efforts. This dissertation addresses this lack of …

Serious Tourism And Consumer Preference For Sustainable Tourism Certifications, Richard Lacher

All Dissertations

Demand for sustainability oriented vacation options is on the rise as consumers become more aware of the negative effects that their travel may have on various destinations. Certifying tourism businesses as sustainable (much in the way organic food or fair trade coffee is certified) has been proposed as a means to ensure that ecotourism operations actually follow the principles of sustainable development. This study uses a serious tourism framework and a stated preference choice modeling approach to evaluate consumers' preferences for different types of sustainable tourism certifications. Additionally, willingness to pay (WTP) for different types for certifications is important so …