Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Hybrid Stochastic Local Unit Roots, Offer Lieberman, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Two approaches have dominated formulations designed to capture small departures from unit root autoregressions. The first involves deterministic departures that include local-to-unity (LUR) and mildly (or moderately) integrated (MI) specifications where departures shrink to zero as the sample size n→∞. The second approach allows for stochastic departures from unity, leading to stochastic unit root (STUR) specifications. This paper introduces a hybrid local stochastic unit root (LSTUR) specification that has both LUR and STUR components and allows for endogeneity in the time varying coefficient that introduces structural elements to the autoregression. This hybrid model generates trajectories that, upon normalization, have non-linear …

Finite-Sample Optimal Estimation And Inference On Average Treatment Effects Under Unconfoundedness, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We consider estimation and inference on average treatment effects under unconfoundedness conditional on the realizations of the treatment variable and covariates. We derive finite-sample optimal estimators and confidence intervals (CIs) under the assumption of normal errors when the conditional mean of the outcome variable is constrained only by nonparametric smoothness and/or shape restrictions. When the conditional mean is restricted to be Lipschitz with a large enough bound on the Lipschitz constant, we show that the optimal estimator reduces to a matching estimator with the number of matches set to one. In contrast to conventional CIs, our CIs use a larger …

Using Photovoice To Understand The Meaning Of Social Participation As It Impacts Transitions For Student Veterans, Caitlin Gene Dobson

Theses and Dissertations

Student veterans encounter a variety of social pressures that civilian students do not, making the transition from military life to student civilian challenging. The issue of military personnel transitioning to roles as student veterans is one that is relevant to occupational therapy, as the profession promotes social participation as a meaningful occupation. It has been found that veterans find social relationships to be a critical challenge in the process of transitioning to the university and the civilian world (Plach & Haertlein Sells, 2013).

Additionally, this issue is important to occupational therapy as a factor in promoting mental health. Mental health …

Global Kidney Exchange: Analysis And Background Papers From The Perspective Of Medical Anthropology, Alejandro Cerón, Kylie Dillinger, Madison Eitniear, Sophia Ernstrom, Walid Hedidar, Christiana Hellinga, Travis Himebaugh, Aaron J. Landau, Julian Nilsson, Lindsey Penn, Madison Redman, Cimmaron Retzik-Stahr, Laurel Schwartz, Isabelle Seeto, Madeline Sweet, Angelina M. R. Thomson, Margaret Wolf, Natalie Wuertz

Anthropology: Undergraduate Student Scholarship

Global Kidney Exchange (GKE) is a program aimed at facilitating trans-national kidney donation. Although its proponents aim at reducing the unmet demand of kidneys in the United States through the trans-nationalization of kidney exchange programs, the World Health Organization (WHO) and The Transplantation Society (TTS) have expressed concerns about its potential effect on black markets of organs and transnational organ trafficking, as well as on low- or middle-income countries health systems. For GKE to be implemented, it would need to be permitted to operate in at least some low- or middle-income countries. Should a low- or middle-income country allow GKE’s …

Oil Price Shocks And American Depositary Receipt Stock Returns, Shahil Sharma

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper we examine the impact of oil price shocks on twelve countries American Depositary Receipt (ADR) returns using monthly data from 1999.01 to 2014.12. The results show that oil price shocks have a positive and statistically significant impact on ADR return in all twelve countries. These results are robust to the inclusion of other explanatory variables such as oil price volatility and the spillover of the United States stock market. Further analysis shows that this effect is stronger in the post financial crisis time period compared to the pre-financial crisis time period.

Are All Fraternity Men The Same? Differences In Privilege And Perceptions Of Women And Rape, Kathryn Rogers

Human Development and Family Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The current study examined the presence of privilege in fraternity men on a college campus to assess their differences in privilege and how that affects their perceptions of women and rape. The current study focused on men (n = 179) who claimed to be a current member of a social fraternity (n = 69) and assessed whether they were privileged or not based off of their parental household income. While there was a strong presence of privilege among fraternity men, they showed no differences in their perceptions of women and rape. However, they were more likely to have …

Emigrants' Stories Of Foreign Aid And Their Reasons For Emigration: Guatemalans On The Move, Monica Spohn

History and Political Science | Student Professional Publications

This single instrumental case study was designed to learn about emigrants’ reasons for emigrating, situated within the challenges and available opportunities in their home country of Guatemala. Eight emigrants (two women and six men) were interviewed to better understand their personal experiences and to examine the role of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) investments, Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and Guatemala’s domestic conditions and development in participants’ decisions to emigrate to the U.S. The study was guided by the following central questions: (1) How do emigrants explain their reasons for leaving? (2) What motivates emigration in …

The Effects Of Culture On International Advertising Appeals: A Cross-Cultural Content Analysis Of U.S. And Japanese Global Brands, Dan Zhao

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

An international advertising campaign can be standardized in creative strategy, but localized in execution. As an integral part of the execution, advertising appeals should be tailored to local culture to maximize the effectiveness of international advertising campaigns while minimizing cost. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether advertising appeals mirror predicable differences in cultural values.

This study is based on the influential Hofstede model (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede & Mooij, 2010), which distinguishes cultures according to six dimensions. While individualism and collectivism have been widely discussed in published studies, other dimensions that are also important indicators of advertising appeals …

End-Of-Life Care And Opioid Use In India: Challenges And Opportunities, Aasems Jacob, Aju Mathew

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Influence Of Dietary Salt Knowledge, Perceptions, And Beliefs On Consumption Choices After Stroke In Uganda, Martin N. Kaddumukasa, Elly Katabira, Martha Sajatovic, Svetlana Pundik, Mark Kaddumukasa, Larry B. Goldstein

Neurology Faculty Publications

Background

Previous research on Uganda's poststroke population revealed that their level of dietary salt knowledge did not lead to healthier consumption choices.

Purpose

Identify barriers and motivators for healthy dietary behaviors and evaluate the understanding of widely accepted salt regulation mechanisms among poststroke patients in Uganda.

Methods

Convergent parallel mixed methods triangulation design comprised a cross-sectional survey (n = 81) and 8 focus group discussions with 7-10 poststroke participants in each group. We assessed participant characteristics and obtained insights into their salt consumption attitudes, perceptions, and knowledge. Qualitative responses were analyzed using an inductive approach with thematic analytic procedures. Relationships …

Mediation And Moderation Of Intergenerational Epigenetic Effects Of Trauma, Stefanie Renee Pilkay

Doctoral Dissertations

Trauma and early-life stress have been linked to poor mental and physical health outcomes. In fact, research has identified trauma and stress can influence epigenetic marks on genes that can alter gene activity. It is suspected that epigenetically altered gene activity is involved in behavior and mental health. This may help explain why some individuals don’t experience great benefit from treatment for the effects of stress, and severe mental health symptoms can be chronic for decades or a lifetime. Moreover, some trauma-related mental health symptoms have shown generational patterns that appear linked to epigenetic marks. Therefore, this study sought to …

Experimental Design And Data Analysis In Computer Simulation Studies In The Behavioral Sciences, Michael Harwell, Nidhi Kohli, Yadira Peralta

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Treating computer simulation studies as statistical sampling experiments subject to established principles of experimental design and data analysis should further enhance their ability to inform statistical practice and a program of statistical research. Latin hypercube designs to enhance generalizability and meta-analytic methods to analyze simulation results are presented.

Nebraska Snaps Back, Eric Thompson

Business in Nebraska

Nebraska will fully participate in stronger U.S. economic growth. While the farming sector will continue to face challenges, farm income will rise slightly during the forecast period, and consequently, will no longer detract from Nebraska economic growth. Nebraska will match U.S. job growth, with job growth particularly strong in services, construction, and retail trade. The agricultural processing sector also will expand employment. Projected growth rates for 2018 through 2020 are presented in Table 1.

Employment will grow by 1.1% to 1.2% per year, matching the national job growth rate in 2019 and 2020. Non-farm income will grow between 3.9% and …

Establishing The Theoretical Components Of Alexithymia Via Factor Analysis: Introduction And Validation Of The Attention-Appraisal Model Of Alexithymia, David Preece, Rodrigo Becerra, Alfred Allan, Ken Robinson, Justine Dandy

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Alexithymia is an important mental health construct, but there is continuing debate regarding its definition and measurement. We attempt to resolve this definitional uncertainty in two ways. Firstly, we trace the development of the alexithymia construct, focusing particularly on what we call the Toronto and Amsterdam models, and examine a body of empirical research that shows strong support for the hypothesis that alexithymia consists of three components (difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally orientated thinking). Based on these components, we formulate an alternate theoretical model of alexithymia, the attention-appraisal model of alexithymia, that aligns alexithymia theory with …

Does The Stress Inherent To Laboratory Life And Experimentation On Animals Adversely Affect Research Data?, Jarrod Bailey

Validation of Animal Experimentation Collection

Stress and distress in laboratory animals is often inherent and unavoidable. The effect of these factors on the reliability and relevance of experimental data is not sufficiently appreciated. Greater awareness, debate and discussion of this issue are urgently required.

Vowel-Length Contrasts And Phonetic Cues To Stress: An Investigation Of Their Relation, Anya Hogoboom, Jessica Campbell, Mark Hutchens, Nick Kalivoda

Arts & Sciences Articles

The functional load hypothesis of Berinstein (1979) put forward the idea that languages which use a suprasegmental property (duration, F0) contrastively will not use it to realise stress. The functional load hypothesis is often cited when stress correlates are discussed, both when it is observed that the language under discussion follows the hypothesis and when it fails to follow it. In the absence of a more wide-ranging assessment of how frequently languages do or do not conform to the functional load hypothesis, it is unknown whether it is an absolute, a strong tendency, a weak tendency or unsupported. The results …

Media, Family, And Friends: Normative Environment And Global Citizenship Identification, Stephen Reysen Ph.D., Iva Katzarska-Miller Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Prior research has shown that Bulgarian participants report greater global normative environment and identification with global citizens than U.S. participants; it has also shown that the relationship between country sample (U.S. vs. Bulgaria) and global citizenship identification is mediated by the perception that one’s normative environment promotes a global citizen identity. In Study 1 of the present research, we examined the number of global (vs. domestic stories) in U.S. and Bulgarian print media to find a greater number of global stories in Bulgarian media. In Study 2, Bulgarians’ frequency of media consumption was associated with self-reported global citizenship identification, and …

Office Of Ministry With The Deaf Newsletter, December 2017

Office of Ministry with the Deaf Newsletter

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Springfield, MA

Office of Ministry with the Deaf Newsletter Finding Aid

Genomic Signature Of Adaptive Divergence Despite Strong Nonadaptive Forces On Edaphic Islands: A Case Study Of Primulina Juliae, Jing Wang, Chao Feng, Tenglong Jiao, Eric Bishop Von Wettberg, Ming Kang

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Both genetic drift and divergent selection are expected to be strong evolutionary forces driving population differentiation on edaphic habitat islands. However, the relative contribution of genetic drift and divergent selection to population divergence has rarely been tested simultaneously. In this study, restriction-site associated DNA-based population genomic analyses were applied to assess the relative importance of drift and divergent selection on population divergence of Primulina juliae, an edaphic specialist fromsouthern China. All populations were found with low standing genetic variation, small effective population size (NE), and signatures of bottlenecks. Populations with the lowest genetic variation were most genetically differentiated from other …

Efficient Gate System Operations For A Multipurpose Port Using Simulation Optimization, Ketki Kulkarni, Trong Khiem Tran, Hai Wang, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Port capacity is determined by three major infrastructural resources namely, berths, yards and gates. Theadvertised capacity is constrained by the least of the capacities of the three resources. While a lot ofattention has been paid to optimizing berth and yard capacities, not much attention has been given toanalyzing the gate capacity. The gates are a key node between the land-side and sea-side operations in anocean-to-cities value chain. The gate system under consideration, located at an important port in an Asiancity, is a multi-class parallel queuing system with non-homogeneous Poisson arrivals. It is hard to obtaina closed form analytic approach for …

Policy Implications: An Analysis Of Intercountry Adoption In Relation To Nationalism, Victoria Szczechowski

Honors Theses

This research seeks to answer the question: Does level of nationalist sentiment expressed within a country affect the restrictiveness of the country’s intercountry adoption policy? Current literature has examined the influence of the level of nationalism expressed in a country on adoptive parents in choosing from which country to adopt; however, no study has examined the link between nationalism and country-specific intercountry adoption policy. The variable of nationalist sentiment warrants study, for the Hague Convention posits that intercountry adoption is a valid option only if “a suitable family cannot be found in his or her [the adoptable child’s] State of …

Cedarville Family Nurse Practitioner Program Ranked Among Most Affordable, Mark D. Weinstein

News Releases

According to the Nurse Practitioner Schools website, Cedarville University’s family nurse practitioner (FNP) program is one of the most affordable in the United States.

Effects Of Dialogic Reading In A Special Day Class, Donna Senn

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Early Childhood Special Education provides services to children aged three to five years. A predominant identifier is very low communication skills (Shevell, et al, 2003; Kaiser & Roberts, 2011; Robertson & Ohi, 2016). Dialogic Reading techniques have demonstrated successes in various settings (Hargrave & Senechal, 2000; Whitehurst et al., 1988; Trivette & Dunst, 2009). The rationale for this study was grounded in Rogoff’s, “apprenticeship in thinking” (1990, p. 7) theory. The research literature reviewed centered on three primary lines of inquiry namely, 1) The social aspect of language learning; 2) Speech and language interventions; and 3) Dialogic reading strategies. This …

Deflection, Disassociation, & Acknowledgement: A Content Analysis Of The 2011-2014 Media Framing Of Hydraulic Fracturing And Oklahoma Earthquakes, Alicia Mason, Catherine Hooey, James Triplett

Faculty Submissions

In June of 2014, geologists reported that, for the first time, more earthquakes greater than magnitude 3.0 occurred in Oklahoma than in California [Terry-Cobo, 2014]. In Oklahoma, the frequency of earthquakes that are strong enough to be felt has increased 44 times in recent years and this has been correlated to a dramatic increase in high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF) operations [Hume, 2014]. The aims of this study are: (1) to determine how hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, and Oklahoma earthquakes are framed by print-based media at the local, national, and international levels; (2) to understand how the association between …

Understanding And Finding Solutions To The Problem Of Sedimentation In The National Wildlife Refuge System, Max Post Van Der Burg, Karen E. Jenni, Timothy L. Nieman, Josh D. Eash, Gregory A. Knutsen

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

The National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) is a collection of public lands maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for migratory birds and other wildlife. Wetlands on individual National Wildlife Refuges (Refuges) may be at risk of increased sedimentation because of land use and water management practices. Increased sedimentation can reduce wetland habitat quality by altering hydrologic function, degrading water quality, and inhibiting growth of vegetation and invertebrates. On Refuges negatively affected by increased sedimentation, managers have to address complex questions about how to best remediate and mitigate the negative effects. The best way to account for these …

Managing Herbicide Resistance: Listening To The Perspectives Of The Practitioners, Jill Schroeder, David Shaw, Michael Barrett, Harold Coble, Amy Asmus, Raymond Jussaume, David E. Ervin

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Dementia Friendly Communities From The Perspective Of Persons Living With Dementia, Catherine Hebert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growing global prevalence of dementia coupled with a shift in public perception from a hopeless disease to the possibility of living well with dementia has led to the formation of dementia friendly communities (DFC). DFCs are a new phenomenon in the United States, with a gap in knowledge on input from people living with dementia (PLWD). This study investigated DFCs from the perspective of PLWD in Western North Carolina, with the following research questions:

1. How are interactions and relationships experienced by persons living with dementia in the community?
2. How is community engagement experienced by PLWD?
3. To what extent and …

The Diffusion Of Veterans Treatment Courts: An Examination Of Political, Social, And Economic Determinants At The County Level, Eric D. Button

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2008, leading U.S. counties adopted innovative treatment courts specializing in the unique needs of veterans with substance abuse and other legal issues. Since then, pro-veteran advocacy has aided in the continued diffusion of additional veterans treatment courts (VTCs), with more than 300 county and state-level VTCs currently operating in 46 states across the country. Though the lens through which veterans are viewed may be positive in the public eye, institutional support for these wayward veterans appears to vary across levels of government; therefore, while some posit the increased social utility of budget-friendly VTCs, others suggest that VTCs offer favorable …

Economic Contribution Of The Agricultural Sector To The Arkansas Economy In 2015, Leah English, Jennie Popp, Wayne Miller

Research Reports and Research Bulletins

Agriculture and associated agricultural activities are major contributors to the Arkansas economy. Agriculture is defined as the sum of agricultural production and processing activities, unless otherwise specified, and includes crop and animal production and processing, agricultural support industries, forestry and forest products, and textile goods. Agriculture contributes to the economy through direct agricultural production and value-added processing, and also leads to economic activity in other parts of the economy. This report is the tenth in a series of reports examining agriculture’s economic contribution to the Arkansas economy. The total economic contribution of agriculture (direct, indirect, and induced effects) on value …

Using Pratt's Importance Measures In Confirmatory Factor Analyses, Amrey D. Wu, Bruno D. Zumbo

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

When running a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), users specify and interpret the pattern (loading) matrix. It has been recommended that the structure coefficients, indicating the factors’ correlation with the observed indicators, should also be reported when the factors are correlated (Graham, Guthrie, & Thompson, 2003; Thompson, 1997). The aims of this article are: (1) to note the structure coefficient should be interpreted with caution if the factors are specified to correlate. Because the structure coefficient is a zero-order correlation, it may be partially or entirely a reflection of factor correlations. This is elucidated by the matrix algebra of the structure …