Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Collaboration: Paradigm Of The Digital Cultural Content Environment, Anne Cuyler Salsich

Works by Oberlin College Libraries Staff

Government grant-funding agencies have spawned an explosion of images from historical collections on the Internet. They have encouraged collaborative projects in which institutions share resources for capital-intensive digitization projects. These Web ‘exhibits’ are neither publications nor exhibits in the traditional sense, most often without identified authors, curators, designers, or sources. Reviews in journal literature are one mechanism for accountability, but not all humanities journals offer exhibit reviews. In those that do, the space allocated in history and archival studies journals reveals the relative importance they place on peer review of these exhibits, compared with that for book reviews. The type …

Website Usability: A Window Into A Learning Environment, Julia Gross, Lynette Leslie

Research outputs pre 2011

Academic library websites provide a vital online learning environment for students. They should follow sound design principles, provide functionality, and ease of navigation. As part of a strategy to make effective changes to the library website, Edith Cowan University Library wanted to gather evidence to discover how users went about locating information resources accessible from its website. Concerns existed amongst the library staff about how intuitive it was to locate the various information resources provided. This paper will outline the action research process taken to test the website heuristics to determine what improvements were needed in the design. Using Jakob …

Prenatal Care And Infant Mortality In Nevada, Cynthia C. Huth, Phil Nowak, Chuck Duarte

Social Health of Nevada Reports

Prenatal care, also known as antepartum care, refers to the health services that a pregnant woman receives before a baby’s birth. Health care providers know from numerous studies that prenatal care is important because potential problems that may endanger the mother or her baby may be discovered and treated prior to birth. In many cases, potential problems can be prevented altogether. Because of this, it is important that the pregnant woman not only begins prenatal care early, but also receives continuous care throughout her pregnancy. The preconception (before pregnancy) care is also an important factor affecting the future mother’s and …

Diseases Prevalence And Behavioral Choices In Nevada, Mary Guinan, Chad L. Cross, Lawrence Sands

Social Health of Nevada Reports

Determining the health of a state population is a complex task. It involves knowing at least the prevalence of various diseases and conditions as well as the leading causes of death and disability compared to a national mean or median. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Since health is affected by numerous social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors, these factors must also be considered when examining the health status of a population. All attempts to rank states in health are limited …

Income Distribution And Poverty In Nevada, David R. Dickens Jr., Christina Morales

Social Health of Nevada Reports

In his famous visit to the U.S. early in the nineteenth century, the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville was surprised by what he saw as “an equality of condition” in his travels around the country. Although he commented on the existence of wealth in the new nation, he was impressed by what he saw as its relative lack of concentration (de Tocqueville 1969). Recent studies by social historians, however, suggest that de Tocqueville was mistaken. In their examination of tax forms, old census documents, and probate records, these scholars document a high degree of inequality, particularly wealth inequality (Hurst 2004). …

Trademark Searching Tools And Strategies: Questions For The New Millennium, Jon R. Cavicchi

Law Faculty Scholarship

The intent of this discussion is to raise questions about trademark searching which will be discussed in future issues of IDEA. I will lead you through the questions raised by my journey through primarily legal literature in treatises and periodicals on the Lexis and Westlaw platforms.

Keeping Up To Date With Ip News Services And Blogs: Drowning In A Sea Of Sameness?, Jon R. Cavicchi

Law Faculty Scholarship

It seems like so many IP related Websites you visit invite you to join their free email list to keep you up to date. Sources span a wide spectrum including governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, consulting services, law firms, commercial publishers and more. These sources span the spectrum from free, to low fee to premium pricing. With all of this information overload and choices, how do you differentiate and choose news sources?

The goals of this article are twofold. Goal one is to present a survey of types and categories of IP news tools available to IP researchers. Since …

It’S Not About The Money: The Role Of Preferences, Cognitive Biases And Heuristics Among Professional Athletes, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

Professional athletes are often regarded as selfish, greedy, and out-of-touch with regular people. They hire agents who are vilified for negotiating employment contracts that occasionally yield compensation in excess of national gross domestic products. Professional athletes are thus commonly assumed to most value economic remuneration, rather than the love of the game or some other intangible, romanticized inclination.

Lending credibility to this intuition is the rational actor model, a law and economic precept which presupposes that when individuals are presented with a set of choices, they rationally weigh costs and benefits, and select the course of action that maximizes their …

The Reckless Pursuit Of Dominion: A Situational Analysis Of The Nba And Diminishing Player Autonomy, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines required genetic testing of NBA players from a situational vantage point, integrating socio-psychological, legal, and ethical analyses. The core argument may be expressed as follows: required genetic testing of NBA players appears consistent with a broader and largely deleterious agenda by the NBA to control players. Since implementation of the rookie wage scale in 1995 through the recent imposition of a paternalistic player dress code, the NBA has increasingly usurped player autonomy. The NBA's capacity to do so largely rests in its adroit manipulation of the situational influences that influence fans and media. For instance, because of …

Social Psychology, Calamities, And Sports Law, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the role of situational pressures, fundamental attribution errors, and legal frameworks in how professional sports actors respond to the threat and occurrence of calamities. Both natural and manmade threats to American health are likely to rise over the next decade. Such threats may include catastrophic weather, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and communicable disease pandemics. In response to these threats, professional sports leagues, professional athletes, fans, and media might engage in unprecedented behavior. Consider, for instance, increasingly-devastating weather patterns, and how they might animate leagues to relocate franchises to cities with more favorable forecasts. The same outcome might …

Media Influence On Young Adults Sexual Attitudes And Behaviors, Heather Hackbarth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that sexual content is prevalent in television programming and that this content can have an effect on the viewer's attitudes about sex. This study examined this relationship within the theoretical framework of cultivation and social cognitive theories. This study used a survey to examine these relationships in young students at a large southeastern university. The researchers targeted freshmen, many in their first semester, for this study to get the best measure of attitudes, before they were influenced by college life. In addition to examining the effects of television viewing, the researcher looked at the effects of exposure …

Initial Testing Of The Continuous Employee Development Model: Outcome Expectations And Work-Related Implicit Theory, Christina Garofano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Understanding and promoting lifelong learning in employees is important for employees' future marketability (Robinson & Rousseau, 1994) and for creating learning organizations (Senge, 1990). To further this understanding, components of a model of the motivation to engage in continuous employee development (Garofano & Salas, 2005) were tested. New scales were created for work-related implicit theory and outcome expectations and the validity of these scales and these variables in the model were investigated. Alternate models were also contrasted with the Garofano and Salas model (2005). The study used self-report surveys administered to staff and faculty recruited from training classes in higher …

Predicting Anxiety From Parent And Childhood Variables, Brian Fisak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The high prevalence rate, significant distress and impairment, and persistence of childhood anxiety disorders highlight the need for continued theoretical conceptualization and research into the developmental pathways associated these disorders. In response to this need, one goal this project was to examination and identify variables associated with the development and/or maintenance of child anxiety disorders. A second goal of this project was to examine the potential role of learning from parents as a risk factor in the development of child anxiety, with a particular emphasis on three learning mechanisms: modeling, information transfer, and reinforcement of anxious behaviors. The third goal …

The Relation Between Optimism And Job Performance: An Applied Setting, Mary Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research on cognitive ability measures consistently concludes that they are predictive of employee performance. While accounting for only about 9% of the variance in performance, however, cognitive ability measures are not sufficient. Alternative measures, such as measures of personality constructs, must be included to fully predict employee performance. The research on personality measures suggests that they are marginally predictive of employee performance. Research also suggests that predicative accuracy of personality measures can be enhanced when the measure is specific to the situation (i.e., stress measure are more predictive of performance in high stress situations compared to moderate or low stress …

Transferring Juveniles To The Adult Court: A Factorial Survey Of Florida Prosecutors, Robin King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prosecutors have enormous discretion in the criminal justice system. Their decisions can ultimately impact and shape the course of the lives of the offenders whom they prosecute. This is certainly true for juvenile offenders considered for transfer to the adult court. Previous research indicates that serious, violent offenders are the most likely to be transferred to the adult court. However, very little is known on prosecutors' views of the role of the juvenile court, the process of transfer or the facts that influence their decision to transfer a juvenile to the adult court. A statewide survey of 800 Florida prosecutors …

Holy Books Or Pocket Books? Class And Values In American Politics, Matthew Keaton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There has been much speculation recently as to the political effect that "moral values" have on Americans and much research has shown inconclusive results as far as the effect of class. This paper aims to study how class and values, including moral values and postmaterialist values, interact with politics in the United States. The analyses performed to determine these effects include crosstabulation and logistical regressions and will include data from the National Election Studies (NES). It is found that postmaterialist values have little effect on political behavior but in separate analyses, class and moral values have increasing influences on vote …

The Taino Are Still Alive, Taino Cuan Yahabo: An Example Of The Social Construction Of Race And Ethnicity, David Cintron

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Definitions and boundaries of race and ethnicity are socially constructed. They are malleable inventions created by the negotiation of ascribed ideas from outside groups and asserted notions from the inside group's membership. The revitalization of Taíno identity and culture within the Puerto Rican and related communities is a classic case example of this negotiation. Although objective conditions exist to recognize the descendants of these Caribbean aboriginals as an identifiable group, their identities are contested and sometimes ridiculed. Even though Taíno heritage is accepted as an essential root of Puerto Rico's cultural and biological make-up, this group has been classified as …

Early Ontogenetic Diet In Gray Wolves, Canis Lupus, Of Coastal British Columbia, Heather M. Bryan, Chris T. Darimont, Thomas E. Reimchen, Paul C. Paquet

Biogeography and Ecological Opportunity Collection

Within populations, different age classes often consume dissimilar resources, and provisioning of juveniles by adults is one mechanism by which this can occur. Although the diet of Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) has been studied extensively, the diet of pups is largely unknown. We examined faeces deposited by altricial pups and adult providers during the first two months following birth at two den sites over two years on the central coast of British Columbia, Canada. Pups and adult wolves consumed similar species, and Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) constituted most of the diet for both age groups. Pup and adult diet, however, …

Animals In Disasters: Issues For Animal Liberation Activism And Policy, Leslie Irvine

Animal Liberation Movement Collection

Non-human animals face significant risks in meteorological, geological, technological, and terrorist disasters. A large network of rescue organizations and policies has developed in response to the needs of animals. This paper examines the animal response system through four case studies, revealing issues and conflicts that can inform animal rights policy and activism. The first case examines the response to Hurricane Katrina, pointing out that emergency response plans reflect speciesist assumptions that give human lives priority, in all circumstances. The media highlighted accusations of racism during the Katrina response, but activists need to educate the public about the connections between these …

Animal Welfare Assurance Programs In Food Production: A Framework For Assessing The Options, D. Fraser

Farm Animal Welfare Collection

Various animal welfare assurance programs are being used to encourage or require the adoption of animal welfare standards in food production, and to assure the public that such standards are followed. The programs involve five main formats. Non-mandatory codes/guidelines are relatively easy to institute and appear well-supported by the industry, but provide only minimal assurance to the public unless measures are taken to ensure compliance. Programs based on government regulations and inter-governmental agreements are more challenging to institute; they are likely to generate less industry acceptance, but may provide more public confidence if enforcement is adequate. Product differentiation programs, and …

The Ethics Of Wildlife Control In Humanized Landscapes, John Hadidian, Camilla H. Fox, William S. Lynn

Ecology Collection

The 21st century is witness to an unprecedented and rapid growth of human settlements, from urban centers to wilderness vacation resorts. Concurrent with this has been the growing tolerance and acceptance of many wild animals and humans for one another. This has created an expanding ‘zone’ of human-animal contacts, some number of which invariably result in conflicts. While the vast majority of our interactions with wild animals are undoubtedly benign, it is the conflict between wildlife and people that draws particularly close attention from the public. Animals viewed as vertebrate “pests” range from the small to the large, the timid …

Signs Of Faith, January 2006

Signs of Faith

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Paterson, NJ

Signs of Faith Finding Aid

Newsletter Catholic Deaf Of Detroit, January 2006

Newsletter Catholic Deaf of Detroit

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Detroit, MI

Newsletter Catholic Deaf of Detroit Finding Aid

St. Mark’S Catholic Community Of The Deaf, January 1, 2006

Saint Mark's Catholic Community of the Deaf

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Edmonton, CAN

Outreach, January 2006

Outreach

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland

Outreach Finding Aid

Book Review: Neither Kin Nor Kind: The Peculiar Ties That Bond Organ Donors, Their Families And Transplant Recipients, Bradley T. Miller

Journal of Law and Health

Reviewing Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self by Leslie A. Sharp, Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press, 2006.

No Quick Fix: Foreign Aid And State Performance In Yemen, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

few of the world's poorest countries better exemplify American interests in government performance than Yemen. Long overshadowed by its oilrich Persian Gulf neighbors, Yemen gained attention as both an occasional target and a natural haven for militant regional paramilitary groups (including but not limited to al Qaeda). Headlines were made at a time when development analysts were already worried about ecological and economic stresses exacerbated by the strains of structural adjustment and critical water scarcity. In view of these circumstances, analysts began wondering if Yemen is an example of the combustible mix of poor governance and economic stagnation that could …

Hiv/Aids In Africa, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

The response of the United States to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa is an example of the redefined nature of security threats that characterizes the post-September 11 period. Even the most ardent realists now accept that serious threats exist to US security apart from those brewing in organized states. Scholars and governments have been forced to adopt a greater sensitivity to the issues that underlie international violence and terrorism, such as a lack of political freedom, state failure, poverty, and HIV/AIDS, the topic addressed in this chapter as an indirect threat to US security interests in Africa.¹

Organizational Change At The Service Delivery Level: An Investigation Into The Perceived Reaction To Change Initiatives In Moral, Larry Cochran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the speed of change increases, federal agencies are challenged more often to develop and implement improvements to existing programs, new programs to meet new needs, or adjustments to programs based on changed circumstances of delivery. Built on the foundation of systems theory, expectancy theory, and field theory, this research seeks to explain why some managers do not propose changes in their organizations---even when the very survival of the organization is at risk. By measuring the fields of influence encountered by managers, we find that the chain of command is supportive of change initiatives. Other organizational elements--human resources and legal …

St. Dominic Deaf Center, January-February 2006

Saint Dominic Deaf Center

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Houston, TX

Saint Dominic Deaf Center Finding Aid