OU - Dissertations

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Open Access
ADVANCES TOWARD THE UTILIZATION OF CUCURBIT[7]URIL AND SELECTED VIOLOGENS IN MOLECULAR MACHINES AND DEVICES
(2013-10-18) Ellis, Shawna Beth; Halterman, Ronald; Daniel, Glatzhofer; Kenneth, Nicholas; Ann, West; Lloyd, Bumm
The study of technology at the molecular level is the perhaps the final frontier in materials science, and is fertile ground for the application of supramolecular chemistry. Cucurbit[7]uril is a particularly unique macrocycle that encapsulates smaller molecules and has potential application in enhancing the properties of guest molecules. This study has highlighted the reasons that the application of cucurbit[7]uril should be in the forefront of these emerging fields. The studies herein have gathered sound data supporting the use of cucurbit[7]uril in a variety of molecular scale devices. For example, cyclic voltammetry is used to demonstrate the protective effects provided by cucubit[7]uril to prevent photobleaching of small molecules that are potentially useful in dye-sensitive solar cells. Also, modes of binding, kinetic binding constants, and equilibrium binding constants have been determined for a variety of host-guest complexes which could lead to the strategic incorporation of these molecules into molecular machines and devices. Not only has previously held knowledge about the interactions of this macrocycle been confirmed, but the results here have increased the sphere of knowledge and may also guide future studies in this promising field.
Open Access
Analyzing the Human Sex Ratio at Birth
(2013-12-13) Ferrell, Brandon; Rodgers, Joseph; Terry, Robert; Day, Eric; Devenport, Lynn; Anderson, K.G.
The effect of income, education, employment, marital status, age, race, birth order, and national economic conditions on the sex ratio at birth were analyzed for the N = 21,597 children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 participants. These data were analyzed for individual births using a logistic regression model, treating the sex of each child as the outcome variable, and were analyzed for families using a linear regression model, treating the proportion of male children in each family as the outcome variable. No variable was statistically significantly related to the sex ratio. These findings suggest that the sex ratio at birth may not be affected by the individual- and population-level factors commonly examined in past research.
Open Access
Breeding and migration ecology of bar-headed goose Anser indicus and swan goose Anser cygnoides in Asia
(2013-12) Batbayar, Nyambayar; Xiao, Xiangming; Kelly, Jeffrey F.; Takekawa, John Y.; Yuan, May; Lawson, Paul A.
Most waterfowl that breed in Mongolia, part of the semiarid northern region of East Asia, are long distant migrants. They depend on availability of lake, river, and wetland habitats on their breeding and wintering grounds and need suitable staging and stopover sites along their flight routes to complete their migration. Waterfowl in this region have developed important adaptations and strategies to ensure their survival and reproductive fitness across generations. I studied the ecology of two goose species endemic to this semiarid region, the bar-headed goose (Anser indicus) and swan goose (Anser cygnoides), to examine their use of highly-variable, wetland habitats. I studied the breeding biology of bar-headed geese across three summers (2009-2011) while conducting the first systematic nesting study in the semiarid Khangai Mountains region of west-central Mongolia. Bar-headed geese were found nesting on both islands and cliffs, but their daily nest survival was higher at cliff nests and ranged from 0.94 to 0.98 with average nest survival of 42.6% during the incubation period. Information-theoretic models indicated that nest survival decreased with nest age and varied annually. Waterfowl in this region may be limited by available nest sites, but disturbance and depredation also may play a critical role in their population dynamics. I also tracked the migration of both species via satellite telemetry from their breeding grounds to wintering grounds. Satellite tracking data revealed that swan geese migrated through the Yalu River Delta to a wintering area primarily restricted to Eastern China. In contrast, bar-headed geese had a much greater wintering area ranging from southern China to the southern tip of India. Recently, wintering grounds of both species have had significant land cover and land use changes related to global warming and human activities. For the first time, I was able to document unique and narrow migration corridors for both species that were related to landscape features. The migration corridor of bar-headed geese on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau was restricted to one biogeographic biome, while swan geese moved across biomes in a loop migration, preferred stopover sites in natural landscapes, avoided areas of eastern China with large scale developments and high human densities, and wintered in the Yangtze River Basin. Migration of bar-headed geese was associated with vegetation green-up as indicated by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and geese strategically moved between areas with peak NDVI values extending from their wintering grounds in India, migration stopover areas on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and breeding grounds in Mongolia. The arrival of bar-headed geese at staging areas during the spring migration was correlated with a decline of green vegetation biomass on their wintering grounds in India and advancement of vegetation green-up in northern latitudes. During the autumn migration, snow cover and land surface temperature corresponded well with their southward movement. These results will have important implications to improve understanding of wild bird biology in this region as well as disease ecology -- waterfowl may contribute to gene flow of avian influenza viruses among different geographical populations of wild and domestic birds through their long distance migration. Species distributions are expected to shift in response to climate change, and swan and bar-headed geese likely will alter their distribution and migratory behavior in response but constrained by both natural habitat availability and human effects limiting their habitats.
Open Access
Do As I Say Not As I Do: A Study of Representation in Congress
(2013-08-26) O'Grady, Caitlin; Rosenthal, Cindy; Tyler, Johnson; Peters, Ron; Krutz, Glen; Irvine, Jill
This dissertation examines the behavior of members of the House of Representatives on economic issues in order to ascertain how economic characteristics of their constituencies affect their actions. Specifically, this paper examines their activity with respect to what these representatives are saying directly to constituents, what they are saying to their colleagues and those who closely monitor their behavior, and the ways in which representatives are actually acting with respect to legislation. By utilizing the notion of anticipatory representation and focusing on the potential voters representatives are trying to win over, the research I present here attempts to use economic issues as a means of understanding the relationship between a representative and his or her constituents. Constituents’ economic needs are easy for representatives to gauge given the accessibility of economic indicators, such as the unemployment rate. Therefore, as a result of the recent economic downturn and the fact that economic indicators are readily available, representatives are assumed to be fairly aware of their constituent’s economic desires. Thus, the research presented here is an attempt to determine whether representatives are merely indicating to their constituents a concern for their economic well-being, or if they are in fact pursuing what is in their district’s best economic interests. More often than not, findings indicate that the primary driver of representative behavior is party affiliation. Representatives may occasionally pay attention to their district’s economic needs, such as when they directly address the public, but overall their biggest concern appears to be towing the party line.
Open Access
EL EROTISMO COMO VARIABLE QUEER EN ESCRITOS DE SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ, MADRE CASTILLO, GERTRUDIS GÓMEZ DE AVELLANEDA, CRISTINA PERI ROSSI Y MAYRA MONTERO
(2015-05-08) Galvan-Mandujano, Martha C.; Wray, Grady C.; Rodriguez, Clemencia; LaGreca, Nancy; Boggs, Bruce A.; Colín, José Juan
This dissertation uses contemporary queer theory to analyze women's writings from the XVIIth to the XXIst century. Queer theory opens a space for analysis that covers a variety of genres, characters, and topics. Women writers from these distinct periods were able to find a space in the literary field and present atypical topics; they went against the established norms and criticized restrictive practices. Although some of them suffered negative criticism, abuse by their confessors, estrangement, rejection and exile, they were able to leave a legacy for other women and male writers as well. They manifested their discontent and dissidence and confronted questions of sexuality, gender, and desire. Thus the main goal in this work is to analyze specific Latin-American women writers from the XVIIth to the XXIst century who broke with the paradigms of the heteronormative societies of their respective eras.
Open Access
Embedding regional input-output and econometric models: A dynamic integration approach (DIA).
(1998) Motii, Bahman.; Kondonassis, Alex J.,
Embedding input-output characteristics into an econometric specification at regional level has recently gained popularity. The focus of attention has been directed toward the methodology with which the input-output characteristics can be incorporated into an econometric specification.
Open Access
Endogenous growth and developing countries: Time series analysis of the role of trade with special reference to Korea.
(1997) Jung, Dongchul.
This dissertation tests the endogenous growth theories for the developing country (S.Korea) using time series analysis: especially, the role of trade for economic development. To overcome several potential problem of the previous studies, this paper adopts two cointegration tests such as Engle-Granger (1987) test and Johansen (1988) test, applying them to a special form of production function Y = A(X, M)$\cdot$f(K, L), which treats export(X) and import(M) as a kind of production factor. Trade is hypothesized to exert externalities through international knowledge spillover etc.
Open Access
Escaping From Quixotic Cultural Expectations: The Consequences of Failing to Live Up To Honor-Culture Ideals
(2015-05) Imura, Mikiko; Brown, Ryan; Showers, Carolin; Carvallo, Mauricio; Song, Hairong; Damphousse, Kelly
Past research showed the heightened suicide and depression rates in the U.S. culture of honor regions compared to non-honor regions. The present research investigated the psychological processes by which men in honor cultures might reach suicidal inclinations by applying the framework of self-discrepancy theories and the escape theory of suicide. Study 1 showed that participants who strongly endorsed honor ideology but believed they did not live up to such ideals (i.e., those who experienced a gap between the cultural ideals and their current selves) showed a heightened sense of burdensomeness – one of the most powerful predictors of suicidality. Study 2 manipulated the salience of this gap by priming the honor ideals while inducing a state of heightened self-awareness. Those who were reminded of the honor standards and strongly endorsed such standards showed a modest tendency toward heightened suicide-related thought activation when they were forced to compare themselves to the standards via the self-awareness manipulation.
Open Access
Exploration of the Other-Race Recognition Deficit
(2015-05) Wetmore, Stacy A.; Gronlund, Dr. Scott; Devenport, Dr. Lynn; Mendoza, Dr. Jorge; Song, Dr. Hairong; Damphousse, Dr. Kelly
Existing research regarding the Other-Race Bias (ORB), a phenomenon in which faces of the same race are more accurately recognized than of another race, primarily focuses on when the recognition deficit occurs and not why it occurs. The current research was designed to investigate what processing components are responsible for the ORB through the use of a sequential sampling model, the EZ diffusion model. Accuracy and reaction time were jointly considered, in addition to traditional measures of performance, to evaluate recognition decisions made about same race and other race faces. Emotion and face orientation were also manipulated to differentiate what type of processing, configural or featural, is recruited. The results indicated that recognition differences occur because of the quality of information available in memory and not a response bias. Furthermore, the use of configural or featural processing may not be able to explain the differences in processing for SR and OR faces. Research needs to continue to seek explanations of the ORB.
Open Access
Group Threat in the News: a Comparative Study of the Expression of Group Threat and Media Framing in European Union Immigration News Stories.
(2013-12) Cannon, Allen; Hansen, Glenn; Damphousse, Kelly; Davidson, Jeanette; Meirick, Patrick; Sharp, Susan
The member nations of the Europe Union (EU) faced a dilemma born of troubling economic times during the years between 2000 and 2012. The political turmoil currently plaguing the continent created an environment rife with nationalism and rejection of EU sovereignty over national affairs, specifically immigration. Ironically, The EU needed immigration to grow its stagnant populations and to contribute to its national and supranational economies. Fueled by these dilemmas, the citizens of member–nations increasingly expressed anti-immigrant sentiment. As media is reflective of public sentiment, this dissertation examines whether media coverage of immigration news reflected group-threat sentiment expressed by citizens and consequently, anti-immigrant sentiment, through the theoretical lens of group-threat theory. The data reveled that media expressed and reported expressions of group threat sentiment, operationalized as ethnocentrism and nationalism, with some concurrence of reports of economic downturn and migrant population growth. This research also revealed that expressions of group threat also concurred with established immigration news frames and with particular news topics such as terrorism and references to Islam. Expressions of group-threat sentiment did not increase in conjunction with coverage of events significant in European Union history. Future research should be directed towards the examination of group threat as expressed in ethnic minority media and via the usage of new media.
Open Access
Gumbo Banaha Stories: Louisiana Indigeneities and the Transnational South
(2014-05-09) Cranford-Gomez, Letha Rain; Hobson, Geary; Roppolo, Kimberly; Jolivette, Andrew; Nelson, Joshua; Taylor, Rhonda Harris
Abstract Post devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louisiana has again become a popular exoticized presence in the American entertainment machine. As a result, scholarly studies have renewed interest in the historic ethnic diversity of Louisiana’s complex chronicles and the Southern gothic tropes associated with the state. However, few have sought to connect the Indigenous diasporas of Louisiana’s Native and Creole peoples with its textual productions, unveiling, or unsilencing our own narratives about ourselves as Indigenous peoples: Native, Creole, and/or Cajun. Partly in response to renewed sensationalism surrounding the Pelican State, yet mostly driven from Indigenous ties to land and preservation of culture in the face of continued erasure— this project focuses on issues of reinserting Louisiana Indigenous presence into texts of Southern literary expression in the modern era. In the broadest sense, it addresses issues of Indigenous (Choctaw/Caddo/ Houma/Chitimacha/Tunica-Biloxi) tribal peoples, within the Southern diaspora and their relationships with Louisiana Creole (primarily) and Cajun (secondarily) Indigeneity as manifested through textual representations. This research locates Louisiana Creoles as mestiza/os whose culture rises out of an Indigenous experience through a similar history of dominance as Mexican/Chicana/o culture, and other mestiza/o peoples of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico Latinidad through applying a lens of Indigenous cultural theory, regional studies, history, and critical mixed race studies. Starting with uncovering the emblematic problem of assumptive Indigenous absence in popular Southern fiction, highlighting Gone with the Wind as a seminal text which assumes Indigenous narratives of absence. In response to assumptions of absence I offer a counter narrative examining issues of survivance through physics definition of friction and theoretical applications of place-centered story, applying this analysis through self-reflexivity and highlighting established and emerging poets within Louisiana. The text continues to explore complexities of survivance and place-centered story in the face of Indigenous marginalization and federal erasure for Louisiana Indians in Geary Hobson’s The Last of the Ofos and within the material culture of baskets and beadwork within Louisiana landbase. Next, a historiography of Red/Black rhetorics offers an overview of key African American and Native American texts, Red/Black authors, and publications. This establishes the complex history of African/Native cooperation, contestation, and co-authorship needed when negotiating the history of Louisiana Creoles; people who are members of both the African and Native diaspora. Next, the text moves to modern literary and cultural Red/Black rhetorical repercussions of trauma, Choctawan landbase, and violence evidenced in LeAnne Howe’s Miko Kings and Jeremy Love’s Bayou. Lastly, tracing the ways in which tribe, nation, Peoplehood, race, and travel have impacted both land and literary migrations, the final section ends with contemporary transnational or trans-Peoplehood Indigenous intertextualities, dialoguing works by Carolyn Dunn, LeAnne Howe, Sybil Kein, MonaLisa Saloy, Coco Robicheaux, and Roger Stouff. This allows an overall examination of Indian identity in the face of racial law, tribal/federal recognition within the state of Louisiana, and the complex histories of mestizo/métis Indigenous descended communities in the state through racial segregation as resulting from Jim Crow, which is at odds with the history of Louisiana pre-statehood. These works illustrate the geographic space called Louisiana, as Gulf, Caribbean, Southern, Indigenous, Mexican, French, Spanish and American. In doing so, it highlights both the historic complexities of Louisiana’s Indigenous diaspora as well as the ways that Louisiana’s Indigenous literatures are transracial and transnational in their dialogues. Finally, I assert that by challenging notions of Indigenous absence and Indigeneity, addressing complex transnational and transracial Indigenous histories and land ties, and asserting more traditional ways of connectivity such as the Peoplehood matrix, allows for clearer possibilities of kin-ties and community negotiation between sovereign nations and Indigenous descended communities fostering (Native and Creole) voices in the Southern literary canon. In this way, the very present and real community voices of Indigenous, Indigenous-descended peoples, including Creoles, are unsilenced as viable voices and Indigenous/mestiz@ presences in the American South, vibrant alive, still struggling for recognition while continuing cultural continuity.
Open Access
IN SILICO STUDIES OF AMYLOID FORMATION AND AMYLOID STABILITY
(2020-07) Wang, Wenhua; Hansmann, Ulrich; Kibbey, Tohren; Wu, Si; Rajan, Rakhi
The term “Amyloid” describes the precursor proteins misfolded and aggregated into fibril-like structures that are built by cross β-sheet subunit. The disease caused by depositing amyloid fibril in tissues and organs is called amyloidosis. Amyloidosis can not only damage tissues and organs but also could lead to death. More than thirty amyloidoses have been observed in human body, these amyloidoses can be classified to mainly two types, local and systemic amyloidoses. One well-known local amyloidosis, amyloid β amyloidosis (Aβ amyloidosis) is caused by its precursor protein amyloid β (Aβ) misfolding and aggregation, and Aβ amyloidosis leads to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Patients who developed AD suffer from the neurodegenerative disorder and losing memory. On the other hand, precursor protein serum amyloid A (SAA) can cause so-called systemic amyloidosis, specifically amyloid A amyloidosis (AA amyloidosis). AA amyloidosis can cause damage in tissues and organs non-localized in the human body, such as heart, spleen, kidney, and liver. The mechanisms for amyloid fibril formation and the difference in toxicity among species for both Aβ and SAA remain unclear, especially missing is the atomic detail of structural and dynamic information. In this thesis, molecular dynamics (MD) and other enhanced sampling methods are applied to probe the structural dynamics for Aβ and SAA systems. Specifically, the study in chapter 3 for Aβ derives 1) the critical size, 2) the important role of last two hydrophobic residues on C-terminus to stabilize structures and 3) potential packing patterns to form two-fold structures, for the newly found S-shaped Aβ fibril structure. As for SAA, our study of the N-terminal fragments revealed that the key salt-bridge interaction between residues 1R and 9E controls the misfolding and aggregation of the amyloidogenic region, the dissolving of the salt-bridge can initialize the amyloid formation process, see details in chapter 4. Furthermore, our simulations of hexamer and monomer fragments and full-sized SAA protein suggested that SAA amyloid formation happens after the failure of a downregulation mechanism. The downregulation mechanism is proposed based on the following two observations. First, the difference in stability between full-sized hexamer and the hexamer built from shorter fragments, second, different structural properties between variant monomer motifs, third, different pH conditions, details can be seen in chapter 5. Recently, a high resolution SAA fibril structure has been resolved via Cryo-EM. In order to understand of SAA fibril formation better, we study the thermodynamic stability of the fibril via molecular dynamics simulations. Our preliminary results in chapter 6 reveal that SAA fibril formation starts from monomers stacking into meta-stable one-fold subunit and then packing into stable fibril with two-fold symmetry. The two-fold two-layers system is the minimum size to maintain the fibril stable. The meta-stable structure can be stabilized under acidic conditions, it is consisted with our previous observation that low pH is critical to initialize SAA mis-folding and aggregation. We also discussed the roles of N-terminal amyloidogenic region and C-terminal disordered region play in SAA fibril formation. The data and results generated from our studies (chapters 3 - 6) reveal the posterities of amyloids and provide physical explanations at the atomic level, also this information of precursor protein downregulation, amyloid formation, and toxicity can be generalized to understand different type of amyloidoses and provide insights into future studies.
Open Access
Location, Location, Location: What Factors Drive Where U.S.-Based NGOs Go?
(2016-05-13) Dragseth, Meghann Rother; Fryar, Alisa Hicklin; Carlson, Deven; Hertzke, Allen; Robinson, Scott; Bass, Loretta
This dissertation advances our understanding of how U.S.-based transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs) with international scopes of work navigate decision-making related to country-level location choices. It accomplishes this by conducting a comparative cross-sector and multinational examination of 554 organizations across 194 countries between 2008 and 2012. It proposes that location selection is a more complex process than existing theories allow and hypothesizes that organizations are influenced by both internal and external factors beyond resources. By examining the political, economic, and organizational factors that influence location decisions, it systematically tests existing theoretical explanations for nonprofit location while also expanding the scope cases in public administration and nonprofit studies. It finds evidence that 1) country characteristics make a location more or less attractive, particularly the political and operating environments; 2) U.S. government attention to a country differentially impacts the presence of U.S. based TNGOs in that country if they already receive government support; 3) the type of work in which an TNGO engages influences how it sets and communicates location priorities.
Open Access
Nation and Compilation in England, 1270-1500
(2016-05-13) Ainsworth, Breeman; Hodges, Kenneth; Whalen, Logan; Ng, Su Fang; Ransom, Daniel; Saltzstein, Jennifer
Scholarship has frequently explored how people in medieval England engaged the concept of nation. Scholarship has also investigated the manners in which book production participated in and enacted cultural phenomena. Hitherto, there has been limited consideration of these two concerns together. This is problematic because the manuscripts which carry medieval texts to modern scholars offer the best evidence of contemporary reception of these texts. This dissertation fills this void. It unites questions of compilation and nation in the study of medieval England from 1270 to 1500. It explores the manner in which the collection of works in one manuscript—the manuscript matrix—engages, shapes, denies, or ignores the discourses of the English nation. The dissertation opens with consideration of the textual network of those manuscripts containing one or two tales of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It further argues that such study reveals a political interpretation at the heart of the Clerk's Tale. This dissertation's attention to the manuscript matrix also challenges longstanding proto-nationalist readings of Layamon's Brut and Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur and replaces these with more complicated interpretations of their engagement with nation. Ultimately, the manuscript matrix proves a powerful tool for demonstrating the pluralistic and paradoxical engagements with concepts of nation within late medieval England.
Open Access
National Symbols and Social Change: A Case Study of Poland
(2014-05-09) Igiel, Magdalena; Kramer, Eric; Foster, Lisa; Cionea, Ioana; Meirick, Patrick; Beliveau, Ralph
This study focuses on national symbols and the communicative role they play in social change as it manifests itself in social movements and revolutions. Symbols in social movements and revolutions play a crucial role in binding people and groups together, allowing them to focus and form a collective consciousness. In order to contextualize such symbols within a specific national community and provide examples, the author chose her native Poland as a case study. The Polish national symbols included in this study are the cross, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, and the contested landscape of the National Stadium in Warsaw. The framework used in this study to analyze the selected national symbols is Kramer’s theory of dimensional accrual of disassociation and the method is a semiotic analysis. Based on the discussion of national symbols in Poland, the study offers guidelines for how to recognize what national symbols are and to understand how they can affect social change.
Open Access
Observations on the empirical capital asset pricing model in estimating a public utility's cost of equity capital.
(1998) Knapp, Michael Kent.; Murry, Donald A.,
The literature of the Capital Asset Pricing Model describes a fundamental bias in its empirical application. The most notable problem is that the Empirical Capital Asset Pricing Model produces betas which overestimate the returns of high-beta stocks and underestimate the returns of low-beta stocks. This has proven problematic in estimating public utilities' stocks expected returns in regulatory proceedings. The literature prescribes the use of a shift parameter, alpha, to correct for this bias. This dissertation aims to find the value of alpha and its statistical significance. In contrast to the literature, the following empirical analysis discovers that alpha is statistically insignificant. Diagnostics of this paradox conclude that alpha is not significant in a variety of applications. The probable cause of the literature's error is autocorrelation and data choice.
Open Access
Order in a Chaotic Subsystem: A Comparative Analysis of Nuclear Facility Siting Using Coalition Opportunity Structures and the Advocacy Coalition Framework
(2013-11) Gupta, Kuhika; Jenkins-Smith, Hank; Silva, Carol; Carlson, Deven; Weible, Christopher; Irvine, Jill
This dissertation attempts to highlight existing patterns surrounding locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) and explain how institutional features of a country influence the likelihood those LULUs become operational. Focusing on cases of nuclear facility siting from around the world, the primary empirical research question is: does variation in coalition opportunity structures influence the siting of nuclear facilities? If so, how? Using Coalition Opportunity Structures (COS) to answer this question, the dissertation also contributes to the theoretical advancement of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and its applicability to varying political systems. To this end, the primary theoretical question explored in the dissertation is: what are the mechanisms through which coalition opportunity structures influence the policy process? Using both quantitative and qualitative methodology, I test the influence of COS on three separate but interrelated elements of the siting process—coalition formation, coalition strategies, and policy change. Findings indicate that both openness of a political system and norms of consensus affect policy outcomes. Additionally, I find that opportunity structures influence the emergence of organized opposition against the project as well as the nature of the strategies adopted by policy opponents.
Open Access
Price reform of the food and agricultural markets in China: 1978-1993.
(1997) Zhu, Xiangyuan.; Kondonassis, Alexander,
This work examines price reforms in both food and agricultural markets within China from 1978 to 1993. This work then found that pragmatic economic reforms in agriculture generally became successful in that they raised the overall income of those peasants comprising more than eighty percent of the total Chinese population. These reforms also increased savings in the rural sector and tax revenues for the presiding governmental infrastructure. Concomitantly, the reforms also stimulated demand for industrial products, which in turn provided new opportunities for more-competitive enterprises.
Open Access
Privatization of the electric utility industry in India: A case study.
(1998) Narayanan, Yamini.; Kondonassis, Alex,; Murry, Don,
Since electricity is a sector that provides maximum linkages to other sectors of the economy it is sound developmental policy to expand this sector in India. The expansion of the private sector in generation will create the much needed resources, and this analysis has proven that this is economically viable. The privatization of the electric power sector in India will be the first step the country would take toward becoming a developed nation.
Open Access
PROMOTING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT:MOTIVATIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE PARTICIPATIONIN EMERGENCY SERVICE DELIVERY
(2020-08-18) Choi, Junghwa; Robinson, Scott; Franklin, Aimee; Fryar, Alisa; Ripberger, Joseph; Reedy, Justin
This dissertation seeks to understand the determinants and motivations of citizens' individual and collective participation in the process of public service delivery through the lens of citizen co-production. While citizen participation has been highlighted particularly in the administrative decision-making process, citizen co-production literature emphasizes the role of citizens in the public service delivery process. This body of literature argues that citizens may contribute to public service outcomes by providing time, efforts, knowledge, and by cooperating with professional public service providers. Utilizing both a relatively uncommon machine learning technique in public administration, random forest regression, and traditional statistical approaches, I examine various factors shaping citizens' individual and collective participation in the process of emergency service delivery before, during, and after tornadoes. Three empirical chapters suggest that public trust in issue-specific agencies and social capital play significant roles in structuring citizens' individual and collective co-production of emergency service. The analyses of two methods utilized in this dissertation also suggest further investigation in quantitative methodology for a better understanding of citizen participation in public service delivery.