Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Short Notes On The Economy During The Covid-19 Crisis, Asma Hyder (Ed.)

Faculty Research - Books

The coronavirus – COVID-19 – pandemic has had a huge, catastrophic, impact on the global economy and on economies of almost all countries. Even those countries which were posting record-breaking profits just four weeks ago, such as the US and Germany, are now faced with a substantial fall in incomes, earning, employment and profits. From record low unemployment levels, these countries are already projecting a huge spike in unemployment, and all indicators suggest that a global recession is now imminent.

Adverse Childhood Experience Scores Of Social Work Students Vs. Non-Social Work Students At Western Michigan University, Grace Conrad

Honors Theses

This project researched the differences in Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) scores among Social Work students compared to other majors at a Midwest University. The purpose of the study was to research the ACE scores within fields of study and various demographics to target the most at-risk populations on campus. The sample was composed of 185 undergraduate students studying social work and other fields of study. The sample included various grade levels, races, genders, and environments participants were raised. The participants were given a 16 question on-line survey including demographic questions and questions from the ACE score test. The research concluded …

A New Liu Type Of Estimator For The Restricted Sur Estimator, Kristofer Månsson, B. M. Golam Kibria, Ghazi Shukur

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

A new Liu type of estimator for the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) models is proposed that may be used when estimating the parameters vector in the presence of multicollinearity if the it is suspected to belong to a linear subspace. The dispersion matrices and the mean squared error (MSE) are derived. The new estimator may have a lower MSE than the traditional estimators. It was shown using simulation techniques the new shrinkage estimator outperforms the commonly used estimators in the presence of multicollinearity.

Covid-19 Cases Are Clustered In Large Urban Hubs, But Rural Areas Surrounding Those Hubs Are Also Increasingly Affected, Yue Sun

Population Health Research Brief Series

As COVID-19 continues to evolve, we are seeing more cases in urban areas, however, this data slice shows where trends are heading next.

Ouachita Students Earn Nine Finalist Honors In State Nats Competition, Madison Cresswell, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Seven Ouachita Baptist University music students earned nine finalist honors at the 2020 National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition. Over 170 students from colleges throughout Arkansas competed for a place in the final round of auditions, which were held at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., earlier this semester. Of those competing, 25 Ouachita students earned finalist or semifinalist honors.

The competition is judged by member teachers of the Arkansas Chapter of NATS. They evaluate the technical proficiency, interpretive skill and overall artistry of each singer and provide written critiques and feedback. Following the preliminary round, students …

Ohio Workers And The Covid-19 Global Health Emergency, Joseph Andre, Robert Gleeson

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The global economy has never before experienced the scale of sudden economic shock that is now underway. This is unchartered territory. Although the U.S. has many economic policies and worker support programs designed to ease dislocation during recessions, these programs were not designed for the unique circumstances of this global pandemic.

The most important program for workers is Unemployment Insurance. The first chart in this report shows the unprecedented number of new applications for unemployment insurance filed by Ohio workers during the week of March 16th. If all applicants are awarded benefits, the second chart shows that the number of …

Frequency Of Use And Awareness Of Electronic Databases By University Lecturers In South-West, Nigeria, Kennedy Arebamen Eiriemiokhale Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

The introduction of electronic databases by university libraries has presented university lecturers with opportunities of obtaining accurate, timely and up-to-date information with little effort. However, research reports have revealed that there is low level of use of electronic databases by university lecturers. Hence this study investigated the frequency of use and awareness of electronic databases by lecturers in universities in South-west, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to: i. examine the extent of awareness of electronic databases for teaching and research by university lecturers in South-west, Nigeria; ii. identify the means through which awareness of electronic databases are …

Equity Valuation - Seeking An Understanding Through Alternative Approaches, Faisal Awwal

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation involves measuring and testing the empirical performances of equity pricing models.

The first paper extends the constant discount factor model with intrinsic bubbles developed in Froot and Obstfeld (1991) to account for autocorrelation in dividend growth rates. We derive an analytical expression for both the present value stock price and an intrinsic bubble component when dividend growth rates evolve as a Gaussian AR(1) process. Hypotheses tests favor an AR(1) process for dividend growth rates and an AR(1)-based model developed here for price-dividends ratios over a benchmark case. Hypotheses tests also reject the absence of a bubble component in …

Adoption, Stringency And Impact Of Performance Management Systems: The Case Of U.S. Public Higher Education, Lilia Silverio Minaya

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of performance management systems (PMS) by examining adoption, stringency, and impact of performance-based funding (PBF) in public institutions of higher education within the United States. The public sector has been under increasing pressure to be more accountable to stakeholders—that is, to perform better at lower cost. Yet, tracking the effectiveness of performance systems has been challenging, given the host of factors that affect results. Because of the growing use of performance systems, it is important to understand what factors affect the adoption and stringency of such systems, as well as their effectiveness.

Currently, …

Cognitive Ability Tests, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are cognitive ability tests?

In an employment context, cognitive ability (also known as general intelligence or general mental ability) tests are hiring tools that assess candidates’ ability to learn and solve problems (Hunter & Schmidt, 1996). There are many commercially available cognitive ability tests, and they typically involve multiple-choice questions that measure abilities such as vocabulary, verbal comprehension, and verbal, numerical, and spatial reasoning. Some tests measure a combination of these abilities, whereas some focus only on specific abilities. Because the questions have right and wrong answers, the tests must often be proctored. Tests vary in terms of length, …

Nebraska Women In Agriculture Celebrating 35 Years, Jessica Groskopf

Cornhusker Economics

A crowd of almost 300 gathered together February 20 and 21 in Kearney, Nebraska for the Nebraska Women in Agriculture conference, with the theme — Celebrating 35 Years! The conference is one of the longest-running women's conferences of its kind in the country. The goal of the Nebraska Women in Agriculture Conference is for women to build relationships with each other while gaining valuable knowledge about managing risk on their farms and ranches. The event featured 5 general session speakers and 35 workshop sessions.

"It Does N'T Seem Like A Big Deal": A Media Ecology Analysis Of Digital Teen Sexuality And Sexting Education, Allison Marie Metz

Theses and Dissertations

In the state of Illinois, any person in possession of sexually explicit photos of a minor, even if the subject is oneself, can be prosecuted as a felon for possession of child pornography and be required to registered as a sex-offender (705 ILCS § 405). Concurrently, the recent trend of ‘send nudes’ depicts humorous ways to request the transmission of sexually explicit photos, increasing this act as a normative practice for young people (Bradford, 2018; Thomas, 2017). This trend is incongruent with Illinois statue (705 ILCS § 405) and school administrative policy about transmitting sexually explicit photos of a minor. …

No “Me ” Before The Nation: Portrayal Of Nationalism And Religious Identities In Bollywood Movies Created During Modi-Era, Misha Khan

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed three Bollywood films, Raazi, PM Narendra Modi, and Gully Boy, that were released during the administration of the current Prime Minister of India, PM Narendra Modi. The research questions focused on the portrayal of nationalism and religious identities in the analyzed films. The recurring theme in all three films remained to be nationalism However, drawing on the past research, this study found an existing intertwined relationship between the portrayed nationalism and religious identities. Other central themes in the films included patriarchy, the notion of Othering, and class hegemony. This study draws added implications through its results and …

New York State’S Older Adults In Assisted Living Facilities Need All Of Us To Help Them Avoid The Coronavirus, Mary Helander, Claire Pendergrast

Population Health Research Brief Series

Older adults in assisted living facilities are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus because of how quickly it can spread in close-knit settings. This data slice aims to advocate for the health and safety of older adults and features an interactive map showing the saturation of assisted living facilities in New York State.

A Tutorial On Acoustic Phonetic Feature Extraction For Automatic Speech Recognition (Asr) And Text-To-Speech (Tts) Applications In African Languages, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

At present, Siri, Dragon Dictate, Google Voice, and Alexa-like functionalities are not available in any indigenous African language. Yet, a 2015 Pew Research found that between 2002 to 2014, mobile phone usage increased tenfold in Africa, from 8% to 83%.[1] The Acoustic Phonetic Approach (APA) discussed in this paper lays the foundation that will make Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) applications possible in African languages. The paper is written as a tutorial so that others can use the information therein to help digitalize many of the continent’s indigenous languages.

[1] http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/04/15/cell-phones-in-africa-communication-lifeline/. Retrieved on November 10, 2017.

The Acoustic Phonetic Correlates Of Lexical Stress In Japanese-Accented English, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

According to existing suprasegmental typologies, languages fall into three broad categories: accent, tone, and pitch-accent. Japanese has long been viewed as the poster child of the latter. The fact that Japanese and English (accent language) belong to two different prosodic systems raises three important questions:

1. Since Japanese is suprasegmentally different from English, can L2 speakers produce English lexical stress intelligibly?
2. Which acoustic correlate do they rely on to encode lexical stress in English?
3. Does the prosodic strategy used interfere with intelligibility?

The current study examines these issues by measuring the stress bearing units in produced by 10 Japanese L2 speakers …

A Sociophonetic Account Of The Similarities Between Northern Minnesota English And Winnipeg Canadian English, Michel Lopez-Backstrom, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

The Minnesota dialect of American English is often confused with some vague “Canadian English” (Bartholdi 2015).[1] The current study aims to identify precisely which Canadian dialect of English. In so doing, we extract F1 and F2 measurements of 11 monophthong vowels of English ([i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, ɑ, ɔ, o, ʊ, u, ʌ]) produced by 20 Northern Minnesota speakers (10 males and 10 females) and compare and contrast the same set of vowels produced by 10 speakers (5 males and 5 females) of Winnipeg Canadian English whose vowels were measured by Hagiwara (2006). Our findings confirm the impressionistic …

English Education In Japan From The Perspective Of A Japanese Student, Firas Ismail, Ettien Koffi, Moeka Uchikawa

Linguistic Portfolios

According English Proficiency Index (EPI) of 2019, p. 24, English proficiency in Japan is low, i.e., 53^rd in the world. In this paper, we attempt to understand why this is so despite Japan’s excellent political, economic, and military relationship with the USA. The experiences of the third author, a native speaker of Japanese, who studied English in Japan serves as a launching pad for our investigation. We interface her experience with pedagogical practices, cultural norms surrounding pronunciation feedback, and English proficiency expectations and delve deeper into our inquiry. We also examine the third author’s current proficiency level …

Transparency And Headedness In Processing Compound Words: A Lexical Decision Study, Sarah Steinke, Weiyi Zhai

Linguistic Portfolios

In this study, we investigate the effects of lexical transparency and headedness on English compound word processing. Previous research involving semantic priming of compounds suggests that individual constituents of at least partially transparent compound words are activated during processing (e.g. Jarema, Busson, Nikolova, Tsapkini, & Libben, 1999; Sandra, 1990). We hypothesized that in a lexical decision task, subjects would show faster average response times to compound words when primed by a word related to one constituent, especially a transparent or head constituent. Our results are generally consistent with previous studies in that response times are faster for transparent compounds paired …

Speech Style Variation Of Vowels In Citation Form Vs. Running Speech: Intelligibility Implications For Ai-Enabled Devices, Ettien Koffi, Jessica Krause

Linguistic Portfolios

Does the speech style used in producing vowels affect intelligibility? The question is worth asking because, in running speech, vowels have been found to play a greater role in intelligibility than consonants (Kewly-Port et al. 2007:2374 and Fogerty and Humes 2012:1500). Yaeger, a former member of Labov’s research team (1975), claimed that the acoustic correlates of vowels vary greatly according to speech style. Ladefoged et al. (1976) disagreed and noted that the core acoustic correlates of vowels remain pretty much invariable, regardless of speech style. Evidence, either pro or con, has implications for how humans ought to interact with AI-enabled …

Adjectival Complements And Resolution Rule Errors In The Composition Of Hispanic L2 Learners Of English, Claudia Membreno, Diana Lowry

Linguistic Portfolios

The syntactic distribution of adjectives in Spanish and in English is different but share some commonalities. Besides the syntactic distribution, Spanish adjectives differ from English adjectives in that they usually carry out the morphological information of gender and always agree in number with the noun they refer to. The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to shed light onto similarities and differences between syntactic distribution patterns of Spanish and English adjectives and 2) to differentiate the morphological transformations that Spanish adjectives undergo in order to agree in number and gender with their referent. Spanish is one of the top …

English Proficiency Profile Study Of An L2 Speaker From The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Mahdi Duris, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

English is the main foreign language in schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Even though the Kingdom has made considerable budgetary sacrifices to raise English proficiency in the country, the results do not yet match expectations. According to English First (EF), in 2019, Saudi Arabia ranked “very low” on the English Proficiency Index (EPI). We dig deeper to understand why a few succeed where most fail. In so doing, we examine the learning opportunities and practices of (KSA-F1), a female Saudi teacher of English, to understand the secrets of her success. We also study her pronunciation of English vowels …

The Acquisition Of Semantic Relations In English Nominal Compounds: A Pilot Study, Anna Grove

Linguistic Portfolios

Children acquire different linguistic constructions in approximately the same order and near the same time. Nominal (noun + noun) compounds, like “football,” are more complex than simple nominals, like “ball,” and are produced and comprehended later. Previous literature (Berko 1958, Berman 1987, Clark 1981, Clark et al 1985, Krott et al 2009, Nicoladis 2003) investigated how children understand the complexity of compounds, yet questions remain regarding children’s early abilities to produce novel compounds. The present study focused on the ability of one English acquisitionist, “Sam,” to form novel compounds encoding four types of semantic relations (HAS, MADE OF, LOCATED ON, …

A Comprehensive Review Of Intensity And Its Linguistic Applications, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

Every speech sound that human beings produce or perceive is a composite of three independent, yet interdependent correlates, i.e., F0/pitch, intensity, and duration. Koffi (2019) provided a comprehensive review of F0 and its various correlations. In this paper, the focus is on intensity and its linguistic applications. Various terms related to intensity are first examined and explained. Thereafter, its psychoacoustic properties are highlighted and discussed from the standpoint of the Critical Band Theory (CBT) and Just Noticeable Difference (JND) thresholds. Intensity measurements from 55 speakers of Central Minnesota English (CMNE) are used to illustrate the aforementioned concepts. Later in the …

Editor's Prologue: Welcome To The 9th Volume, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

No abstract provided.

The Choreo-Story Workshops: Devising Body Narratives, Montana J. Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This multi-methodological project analyzes the utility of the proposed performance method, the Choreo-Story, within the field of Performance Studies. The Choreo-Story is a movement-based performance method, mode of devising, and performance product. It is a performance tool that can be used to understand how embodiment and dance help individuals make sense of the many identities they perform. This method highlights the body as both a text and tool for storytelling. To analyze the Choreo-Story method, I use Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Approach to examine three performance acts that occurred in the HopKins Black Box theatre between 2016 and 2018: my …

Factors Associated With Restricted, Repetitive Behaviors And Interests And Diagnostic Severity Level In Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Esther Hong

LSU Master's Theses

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interactions and the presence of restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior (RRBIs). The presence of RRBIs can be detrimental to a child’s development, as RRBIs can lead to impairments in other areas of functioning, impede learning, and contribute to parental stress. Previous studies have identified several factors that are associated with RRBI severity and topography. The current study aims to assess whether impairments in adaptive functioning predict RRBI severity, using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Third Edition (VABS-3) and Baby and Infant Screen for Children …

Space And Defense – Volume One – Number One – Fall 2006, Space And Defense Journal

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

A Storm’S A Brewin’, Olivia Tsamparlis, Gina Tarantino

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

This article analyzes the effects of human coffee consumption on three different levels: globally, nationally in the United States, and locally on Bryant University’s campus. This article follows the process of coffee production from the first planting of the bean, to the coffee being poured into the consumer’s cup. The paper dives deep into an analysis of how Bryant University students consume coffee and view global coffee consumption. Not only does this paper explore how Bryant University students view the presence of coffee in their daily life, but it also finds out through a qualitative and quantitative survey if students …

Measuring The Size Of Bryant’S Ecological Footprint, Benjamin Martin, Gianny Pires

Bryant University Undergraduate Journal

Since the beginning of the industrial age, people have been leaving a significant footprint on the Earth's environment. Currently, the environment has become a notable issue all over the world. Many countries, institutions, and people, in general, have taken steps toward slowing down the effect we are leaving on Earth. In this research paper, we are researching national trends of sustainability and a specific institution, Bryant University, overtime Bryant University has developed many integrated methods of sustainability. Various methods of sustainability are explored throughout the text. Bryant's sustainability efforts can be reviewed and monitored, with methods such as Life-Cycle Assessments, …