Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Newest Vital Sign's Impact On Provider Communication, Adam Drent

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the growing concern over the issues related to low health literacy there has been little research done on the connection between health literacy screening and patient-provider communication. This study thus explores whether or not reporting scores from the health literacy screening tool the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) increases the use of certain techniques recommended for communicating with patients who have low health literacy.

Data was collected at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center at Parkway as part of the Health Literacy Performance Improvement Module by the American Board of Pediatrics. Before pre- and post-conditions began, participating pediatricians were given …

Understanding Novice Users' Help-Seeking Behavior In Getting Started With Digital Libraries: Influence Of Learning Styles, Chunsheng Huang

Theses and Dissertations

Users' information needs have to be fulfilled by providing a well-designed system. However, end users usually encounter various problems when interacting with information retrieval (IR) systems and it is even more so for novice users. The most common problem reported from previous research is that novice users do not know how to get started even though most IR systems contain help mechanisms. There is a deep gap between the system's help function and the user's need. In order to fill the gap and provide a better interacting environment, it is necessary to have a clearer picture of the problem and …

Balancing Work And Life In A Virtual World: The Impact Of Boundary Management, Virtuality, And Climate On Organizational Identification, Kimberly Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Rooted in Boundary theory, this study extends recent research which suggests boundary management is a multi-dimensional process that can be broken into clusters of cross-role interruptions, role identity centrality, and boundary control (Kossek, Ruderman, Braddy, & Hannum, 2012). In addition, the study identifies relationships between these boundary management clusters, virtuality, organizational climate supporting work-home boundary customization, and organizational identification. This research also considers how the modern-day challenge of virtual work arrangements influences boundary control and perceptions of a supportive organizational climate. Finally, the study examines the relationships of boundary control and climate to employees' organizational identification. Findings indicate that Kossek …

Autism Spectrum Disorder Symptomatology In Verbal Children With Williams Syndrome, Faye Van Der Fluit

Theses and Dissertations

Many genetic disorders of known etiology share behavioral characteristic with the autism spectrum disorders (ASD), including language delays, social difficulties, and unusual patterns of behavior. There exist tendencies to either over- or under-pathologize these similarities, resulting in both false diagnoses and diagnostic overshadowing. Recent findings in Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic disorder often contrasted with ASDs, have demonstrated a significant overlap between these two phenotypes in young children with limited language. Using a gold-standard autism diagnostic tool, the ADOS, the present study aimed to further characterize the nature of socio-communicative behaviors in verbal children with WS, both within WS and …

Equity Of Social Support And Its Relationship With Depression, Anxiety, And Antiretroviral Medication Adherence Among Seroconcordant Dyads Of Hiv-Positive African Americans And Their Informal Supporters, Angela Roethel Wendorf

Theses and Dissertations

Social support may be an important resource for those coping with stigmatized chronic illnesses, such as HIV/AIDS, as social support may buffer the deleterious impact of HIV-related distress (Derlega, Winstread, Oldfield, & Barbee, 2003; Stutterheim, Bos, Pryor, Brands, Liebregts, & Schaalma, 2011; Ueno & Adams, 2001). Yet little is known about characteristics of social support among HIV-positive patients in relationships with other HIV-positive individuals and whether there is an equivalent perception and provision of support between each patient in the relationship. To examine how equity of support within the dyad may contribute to nuances in social support, mental health outcomes, …

Not Getting Out While There Is Still Time? Behavioral Response To Threat As A Possible Mechanism Of Sexual Revictimization, Raeann Elizabeth Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

Sexual violence affects approximately one in four college women. Feminist sexual assault risk reduction programs attempt to empower women to cope with threats of sexual assault, yet there is no standardized way to assess behavioral responses to threat, the key behavior targeted in these interventions. In this study, we sought to compare the behavioral responses of two groups of college women, those without a history of any sexual victimization, n = 12 and those with a history of repeated sexual victimization, n = 45 in a standardized analog task in order to investigate possible group differences which may lead to …

Attitudes Of Canadian Pig Producers Toward Animal Welfare, Jeffrey M. Spooner, Catherine A. Schuppli, David Fraser

Farm Animal Welfare Collection

As part of a larger study eliciting Canadian producer and non-producer views about animal welfare, open-ended, semi-structured interviews were used to explore opinions about animal welfare of 20 Canadian pig producers, most of whom were involved in confinement-based systems. With the exception of the one organic producer, who emphasized the importance of a ‘‘natural’’ life, participants attached overriding importance to biological health and functioning. They saw their efforts as providing pigs with dry, thermally regulated, indoor environments where animals received abundant feed, careful monitoring and where prospective disease outbreaks could be minimized and controlled. Emphasis was also placed on low-stress …

Source-Destination Cultural Differences, Immigrants’ Skill Levels, And Immigrant Stocks: Evidence From Six Oecd Member Host Countries, Roger White, Nicole Yamasaki

Economics

Examining data for 79 immigrant source countries and six OECD member destination countries during the years 1975–2000, we find that source-destination cultural differences inhibit international migration. We also report that existing immigrant stocks act to offset, at least in part, the migration-inhibiting effects of cultural differences. Employing educational attainment as a proxy for skill, we find variation across low-, medium-, and high-skilled immigrant cohorts both with respect to the cultural distance-migration relationship and in terms of the extent to which existing immigrant stocks offset the influence of cultural differences. Our results appear robust to econometric techniques, sample composition, and endogeneity …

服務研習通訊第十七期 Office Of Service-Learning Newsletters, Volume 17, Office Of Service-Learning, Lingnan University

SLant 嶺召

走進智慧之門

今期通訊以「走進智慧之門」為主題，介紹「大學社會責任」的概念，並邀請了諸位老師、同學分享他們肩負社會責任的經驗。但願您從這些分享中得到一點啟發，然後把握不同機會，盡一己之力，回饋社會！

Continue to Grow in WISDOM

With the theme of “Continue to Grow in Wisdom”, the concept of “University Social Responsibility” is introduced, while teachers and students share their experiences on taking up their social responsibility in this issue of “SLant”. We hope that you will be inspired to take this direction to a new level.

An Interpretive Plan Guide For Wilderness Park In Lincoln, Nebraska, Rachel J. Ward

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

Wilderness Park, located in Lancaster County, Nebraska, is a public park of unique ecological and historical value to the city of Lincoln and to the surrounding region. The natural and historical features of the park present an opportunity to communicate environmental and historical topics that are relevant on local, national, and global levels, as well as inspire a lively sense of pride in the community. The problem is that many topics relevant to Wilderness Park are not currently being interpreted at the park, and that there are relatively few interpretive resources available to park visitors.

The purpose of this project …

Nebraska Libraries - Volume 2, Number 3 (August 2014)

Nebraska Libraries

No abstract provided.

Generalization Of Fear Effects In Reinstatement To A Discrete Stimulus, Lauren Best

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate generalization of reinstated fear effects to a discrete stimulus. McAllister and McAllister (2006) reported that reinstated fear could generalize over time to similar contexts. The present study aimed to determine if reinstated fear could generalize to similar or different stimuli than conditioning after a long delay between reinstatement and testing. Rat subjects were randomly assigned to six groups (n = 10) which received conditioning and extinction to a 3000 Hz tone. Reinstatement conditioning was then conducted with either the same, similar, or different CS as used in conditioning. Testing for reinstated fear …

Interactions With Horses Is Associated With Higher Mindfulness And Heart Rate Variability And Lower Electrodermal Response In College Students, Sarah Mary Wach

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

A wealth of research has revealed psychological and physiological benefits of interactions with animals. As yet, research is limited to smaller animals such as dogs and cats and has not examined the benefits of human-horse interactions. The present study examined the effects of video-simulated human-horse interactions compared with simulated interactions with a car and a person on state mindfulness and physiological arousal. The relationship between trait mindfulness and horse experience was also examined. Undergraduate students with (n = 16) and without experience with horses (n = 26) were recruited with the exclusion criteria of a fear of horses. …

On The Political Economy Of Economic Integration In North Africa And West Asia, J. G. A. Saviranta

Akseli Saviranta

This study seeks to offer a comprehensive evaluation of the political, economic, and monetary aspects of regional integration efforts in North Africa and West Asia, as well as an assessment of the viability, feasibility, and motivations of such integration in light of the theoretical precepts and related literature, and comparatively to other economic blocs. This work is divided into four main sections: The first two define the concepts of economic integration and identify the main characteristics of the countries present in the area, the third enumerates the integration attempts, and the fourth and last section discusses and analyses these efforts …

Preventing Corruption By Eradicating Academic Corruption, Riccardo Pelizzo

riccardo pelizzo

building on a rich empirical literature on academic corruption and its consequences, this note discusses why the eradication of academic corruption may be instrumental in preventing corruption

The 2014 American State Litter Scorecard Final: Includes Scores, Charts, Stephen [Steve] Spacek

Stephen [Steve] L Spacek

A NEW State Litter "Scorecard" is released for the 2014 American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Conference. Every three years, the Scorecard approximates each state’s overall public spaces environmental quality through tried-and-true, hard-to-publicly obtain objective and subjective measures, resulting in a total overall jurisdictional score. Readers gain a realistic "picture" of "what's going on" within one or all of the 50 states. Illegal littering and dumping, found frequently on or near transportation paths, creates danger to public safety and health, with 800+ Americans dying each year by vehicle collisions with unmoved roadway debris. Because policy makers, public administrators and citizens …

Government Versus Market Regulation: The Nanny State Or The Liberal State, Warren Coats

Warren Coats

The nanny state world is characterized by a growing list of regulations and government supervision of business in an effort to fix the most recently observed problems. The price of such protection is the increased cost of doing business, which tends to crowd out small businesses and favor large ones, which can more easily absorb the compliance costs. The benefit is often difficult to detect. Has Dodd-Frank really made it feasible to fail our largest banks (now larger than they were just before the Great Recession), i.e. are they no longer too big to fail?

The self-governing, liberal state—"Liberalism unrelinquished"—is …

Short-Circuiting Contract Law: The Federal Circuit's Contract Law Jurisprudence And Intellectual Property Federalism, Shubha Ghosh

Shubha Ghosh

The Federal Circuit was established in 1982 as an appellate court with limited jurisdiction over patent claims. However, the Federal Circuit has used this limited jurisdiction to expand its reach into contract law, developing a federal common law of contract. Given the growing importance of patent litigation in the past three decades, this creation of an independent body of contract law creates uncertainty in transactions involving patents. This troublesome development received attention in Stanford v Roche, a 2011 Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal Circuit's invalidation of a patent assignment to Stanford University. This Article documents the development of …

Use Of Imported Inputs And The Cost Of Importing: Evidence Form Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

For a representative sample of manufacturing firms in 26 countries, the paper shows that changes in the cost of importing over time is significantly and negatively correlated with changes in the percentage of firm’s material inputs that are of foreign origin. Furthermore, we show that there may be a non-linear relationship between import costs and imports. These findings are important as recent studies point towards a significant positive effect of imported inputs on productivity and growth. We hope that the present paper inspires more work on the determinants of imported inputs usage especially in developing countries.

Managers, Training, And Internal Labor Markets, Michael Raith, Guido Friebel

Michael Raith

We propose a theory that emphasizes the role of managers for the production and allocation of human capital in firms. Managers invest time to train junior employees, and acquire information about the juniors' abilities that is valuable for job assignments. This dual role of managers matters especially in the modern, multidivisional firm, whose internal labor market can be structured in two distinct ways. In a "silo" or traditional job ladder, junior workers remain in the same division; in a "lattice," they can also be assigned to another division. The prospect of losing a good worker to another division undermines a …

The Role And Growth Of New-Car Leasing: Theory And Evidence, Justin Johnson, Henry S. Schneider, Michael Waldman

Henry S Schneider

An important change in the automobile market over the last few decades has been the substantial growth in new-car leasing. Building on recent theoretical research, we construct a model of the leasing decision in which leasing mitigates adverse selection and reduces transaction costs, but moral hazard limits its use. Also, in our model the prevalence of leasing is related to new-car reliability, so it suggests that the growth in leasing over time is at least partly due to improvements over time in new-car reliability. We use this model to derive a number of testable implications and then conduct an empirical …

Gravity Of Arms, Florian Johannsen, Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso

Inma Martinez-Zarzoso

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the political determinants of international arms transfers. We distinguish between the decision to export arms (extensive margin) and the value of the arms exported (intensive margin). A theoretically-justified gravity model of trade augmented with political factors is estimated using a two-stage panel data approach for 104 exporting countries over the period of 1950 to 2007. For main political factors, we consider the level of democracy as well as the political orientation of the ruling governments in both of the trading partners. Furthermore, we account for political differences between trading partners, the …

Changing The Faces Of Leadership: Executive Advancement For Professionals Of Color, Hannah Roth

Hannah Roth

There is a need for leadership development in companies to help prepare the next generation of leaders and to promote growth for employees. Additionally, the lack of diversity within the top ranks of leadership needs to be addressed. There is a need for more development programs that increase diversity in top leadership so that leadership at the highest levels of these organizations better reflect the demographics of the United States. There are numerous studies that demonstrate many professionals of color do not advance in their careers as quickly as their counterparts. This paper discusses how leadership development strategies tailored for …

Globalization And Governance: Impact On Environmental Sustainability In Nigeria’S Niger-Delta Region, Fanan Ujoh Ph.D, Olarewaju Oluseyi Ifatimehin Ph.D

Dr. Fanan Ujoh

With the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 1958 in the Niger-Delta region came intense oil exploration within the region. Consequently, various Multi-National Oil Companies (MNOCs) commenced oil exploitation in the region. Steadily, cases of pollution, resulting from oil spillages, increased as the quantities of oil production increased over time. Almost 50 years of exploration has resulted in widespread environmental degradation in the form of land, surface and ground water pollution. This has affected the region’s livelihood capacity from farming to fishing, which reflects in endemic and systemic poverty among the communities within the region. This study focuses on …

Mid-Term Report, July 2014: Shu Internationalization Task Force, Carrie Wojenski

Carrie Wojenski

The Internationalization Task Force is poised to develop the University’s internationalization plan and support global learning opportunities for its faculty and students.

Gadaa As The Fountain Of Oromummaa And The Theoretical Base Of Oromo Liberation, Asafa Jalata, Harwood Schaffer

Asafa Jalata

Every society has its unique central organizing and ruling ideology and theoretical models in a given historical epoch that it uses as its lenses to look at and interpret the world and to survive freely and advance its civilization or ways of life without disruption from within and without. Ideology plays many roles in a society, and its essential function is to define and promote the political, material, and cultural interests pf a group, a nation, a social class, a state, or other entities; it also "offers an explanation and an evaluation of political, economic, and social condition, provides its …

The Rise Of The Gen Y Workforce In India, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Technology, education, and demographics make the Indian Gen Y a force to be reckoned with

Buildings And Spaces: Are They Relevant In The Virtual Environment?, Gulcin Cribb

Research Collection Library

This presentation covers library buildings, spaces and users in the current environment. It highlights how Singapore libraries have evolved and their approaches to library spaces. A case study of Singapore Management University Libraries is presented. Other libraries covered are National Library Board (Early Literacy Library), National University of Singapore (Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library), Nanyang Technological University, Temasek Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechnic.

This presentation is part of the Executive Library Management Programme (ELMP) course by the Library Association of Singapore in August 2014.

Integrating Il Skills Into The Curriculum: The Smu Experience With Academic Writing, Priyanka Sharma

Research Collection Library

The Li Ka Shing Library at SMU has been collaborating with SMU’s Centre for English Communication (CEC) to deliver a 1.5 hour long hands-on training for students enrolled in the Academic Writing course.

The programme has evolved from a somewhat generic library skills training programme to one that addresses the specific research and library skills needs of Academic Writing students. The programme curriculum has been gradually enhanced based primarily on an analysis of the feedback received from the students themselves, as well as from Academic Writing instructors at the CEC and the research librarians involved in the library training programme. …

Creating Value Through Prizes For Undergraduate Research In Sustainability, Lynette Overby, Roger Jr. Strong, Mark Christel, Rebecca Pappert Maniates

Research Collection Library

Gale-Cengage Learning, a leading e-research and educational publisher, has established a successful prize program recognizing undergraduate interdisciplinary research into sustainability issues, in collaboration with several universities. The research awards offered by this program support institutional faculty and student needs in teaching and learning, particularly regarding the growing need to recognize interdisciplinary research. Collaborations involve Temple University, the University of Delaware, the College of Wooster, and, most recently, Pennsylvania State University.