The purpose of this study was to determine employees' attitudes and perceptions toward the effectiveness of workplace violence prevention training within a U.S. Government service agency with 50 offices located in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the phenomenon of workplace violence, the movement toward prevention programs and policies and the implementation of prescreening processes during hiring and violence prevention training. Chapter 2 contains a thorough review of pertinent literature related to violence prevention training and the impact of occupational violence on organizations. This topic was worthy of research in an effort to make a significant contribution to training literature involving organizational effectiveness due to the limited amount of research literature covering the area of corporate violence prevention training and its effect on modifying attitudes and behaviors of its customers. The primary methodology involved the assessment of 1000 employees concerning their attitudes and perceptions toward the effectiveness of workplace violence prevention training. The research population were administered a 62 item online assessment with responses being measured, assessed, and compared. Significant differences were found calling for the rejection of the three study hypotheses. Chapter 4 described the findings of the population surveyed and recommendations were identified in Chapter …

This study examined the relationship between success of small businesses and the educational backgrounds of their owners. A survey composed of questions concerning demographics, educational backgrounds, and business success was mailed to 1100 businesses in Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant counties in Texas. There were 228 usable responses which were analyzed by using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS12). Data were sorted so that educational level, sales volume, number of employees, and longevity, were identified on a 5-point ordinal scale. Educational major was identified on a 5-point nominal scale. Pearson's correlation was used to determine whether relationships existed between founders' educational background and small business success. Spearman's correlation was used to determine the direction and strength of the relationships. Then educational level and major were combined with age, gender, ethnicity, and industry, to determine the relationships between founders' educational background, and business success. For this purpose a canonical correlation was used. Five opinion questions concerned influence of college education on business success among college graduates and non-college graduates were identified on a 5-point Likert scale and tested using one-way ANOVA, and independent sample t-test. When educational level and major were the only predictors of business success, a statistically significant relationship …

The purpose of this study was to develop an effective formal instrument to assess the Adlerian personality priorities. The development of the Allen Assessment for Adlerian Personality Priorities, AAAPP, seeks to provide a strong comparability to assessing the Adlerian construct of personality priorities as the counselor interview. One hundred and seven participants were given the 1st administration of the AAAPP, Social Interest Scale and a demographic survey. Sixty-four participants completed a 2nd administration of the AAAPP two weeks later. Twenty participants experienced a counseling interview following the 2nd administration. The methods used to evaluate the validity and effectiveness of the AAAPP included: face validity, predictive validity, construct validity, test-retest reliability, multiple regression, Guttman split-half reliability and the Spearman Brown reliability.

This study was concerned with reducing children's anticipatory anxiety when entering mental health services for the first time. The purpose of this study was to determine whether combining two effective modalities, play therapy and animal-assisted therapy, would be effective in decreasing children's biobehavioral measurements of anxiety. Specifically, this study examined the effects of the presence of a trained therapy dog during one individual 30-minute play therapy session. The experimental group consisted of 26 children who received one individual 30-minute play therapy session with the presence of a trained therapy dog. The comparison group consisted of 25 children who received one individual 30-minute play therapy session without the presence of a trained therapy dog. The SenseWear® PRO 2 armband monitor measured children's biobehavioral measurements such as galvanic skin response, temperature, and activity level (BodyMedia, Inc., Pittsburgh , PA , www.bodymedia.com). The Tanita 6102 Cardio® digital heart rate monitor measured children's pre-treatment and post-treatment heart rates (Tanita Corporation of America, Inc., Arlington Heights , IL , www.tanita.com). Five hypotheses were tested using repeated measures ANOVA with mixed factors and eta squared. All five hypotheses in this study were retained based on statistical significance at the .05 level. The combination of child-centered play …

Knowledge management is a major concern for organizations today, and in spite of investments in technology, knowledge transfer remains problematic. This study sought to determine whether a relationship exists among participant group demographics (experience), implementation of an integrated knowledge transfer system (best practices model), knowledge transfer barriers, and knowledge transfer project (Web-based training) outcome in a virtual organization. The participant organization was a network of individuals and groups who practice patient advocacy in the research and treatment of cancer. These advocates volunteer in various capacities and are not collocated nor do they report to any single organizational entity. Volunteer participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition. The treatment participants received a training supplement based upon a best practices knowledge transfer model. All participants reviewed a Web-based communications training module scheduled for deployment by the participant organization. Upon completion of the training program, participants were instructed to practice specific techniques from the program. At the end of this period, participants completed an online survey that measured demographics, perceived barriers to the knowledge transfer, and project outcome. Knowledge transfer barriers were defined as knowledge, source, recipient, and organizational context characteristics that inhibit the expected transfer. Project outcome was a …

Mid-level leaders are often expected to implement employee empowerment initiatives, yet many do not have a clear understanding of how to empower employees. To address this issue, a model of empowering leadership was developed. The model presents specific, actionable behaviors that a leader should perform in order to empower employees. The model comprises 13 factors built around the areas of ability, accountability, and authority. First, leaders must ensure employees have the ability to be empowered. To do so, they must (a) build employee organizational knowledge, (b) provide access to pertinent information, (c) assure employees have the necessary skill set, and (d) identify and provide needed resources. Second, leaders must create systems of accountability for employee outcomes by (e) setting a standard of continuous improvement, (f) recognizing and rewarding good work, (g) regularly evaluating employee efforts, and (h) providing continuous feedback on employee efforts. Third, leaders should provide employees with the authority to be empowered by (i) serving as advocates of employee efforts, (j) providing an environment that is conducive to empowerment, (k) setting a clear and consistent direction to guide employee efforts, and (l) building systems and structures to support employee empowerment. The thirteenth factor of the model is a …

The influence of charge heterogeneity in nanoparticles such as montmorillonite layered silicates (MLS) and hybrid systems of MLS + carbon nanotubes was investigated in cured and uncured epoxy. Epoxy nanocomposites made with cation-exchanged montmorillonite clay were found to form agglomerates near a critical concentration. Using differential scanning calorimetry it was determined that the mixing temperature of the epoxy + MLS mixture prior to the addition of the curing agent critically influenced the formation of the agglomerate. Cured epoxy samples showed evidence of the agglomerate being residual charge driven by maxima and minima in the concentration profiles of thermal conductivity and dielectric permittivity respectively. A hybrid nanocomposite of MLS and aniline functionalized multi walled nanotubes indicated no agglomerates. The influence of environmentally and process driven properties on the nanocomposites was investigated by examination of moisture, ultrasound, microwaves and mechanical fatigue on the properties of the hybrid systems. The results point to the importance of charge screening by adsorbed or reacted water and on nanoparticulates.

Peniston and Kulkosky (1989, 1990) demonstrated the effectiveness of alpha-theta EEG-Biofeedback (EEG-BFB) in treating inpatient alcoholics noting significant improvements in depression, psychopathology, serum β-endorphin levels, and abstinence rates. The present study is an extension of a previously unpublished replication of the Peniston EEG-BFB protocol with 20 chemically dependent outpatients (Bodenhamer-Davis, Callaway, & DeBeus, 2002). Fifteen subjects were "high risk for re-arrest" probationers. Data for the EEG-BFB group was collected from archival records. Subjects completed an average of 39 sessions (SD = 6.096), with 33 of those being EEG-BFB. Pre/post-treatment MMPI-2s™ (University of Minnesota) were collected and follow-up (4-11 years) data obtained (abstinence rates, re-arrests in some cases). Treatment effects were evaluated by comparing assessment data (pre/post) and documenting abstinence rates. Post-treatment MMPI-2 results were within normal limits, with several scales significantly reduced from baseline suggesting less psychopathology. Results were then compared to 20 subjects receiving standard addiction treatment (OT-CD group), but not EEG-BFB. OT-CD subjects completed a 2-week inpatient program followed by 18 outpatient sessions. Pre/post assessment and follow-up data was collected on the OT-CD group. The OT-CD group's post-assessment results showed three elevations (MMPI-2 scales 4/6/8), suggestive of characteriological problems. Post-MMPI-2 results of the two groups were compared via …

In this dissertation, we study the dynamics, fractal geometry and the topology of the Julia set of functions in the family H which is a set in the class S, the Speiser class of entire transcendental functions which have only finitely many singular values. One can think of a function from H as a generalized expanding function from the cosh family. We shall build a version of thermodynamic formalism for functions in H and we shall show among others, the existence and uniqueness of a conformal measure. Then we prove a Bowen's type formula, i.e. we show that the Hausdorff dimension of the set of returning points, is the unique zero of the pressure function. We shall also study conjugacies in the family H, perturbation of functions in the family and related dynamical properties. We define Perron-Frobenius operators for some functions naturally associated with functions in the family H and then, using fundamental properties of these operators, we shall prove the important result that the Hausdorff dimension of the subset of returning points depends analytically on the parameter taken from a small open subset of the n-dimensional parameter space.

In March 1942, the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment, 36th Division, surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army on Java in the Dutch East Indies. Shortly after the surrender, the men of the 2nd Battalion were joined as prisoners-of-war by the sailors and Marines who survived the sinking of the heavy cruiser USS Houston. From March 1942 until the end of World War II, these men lived in various Japanese prison camps throughout the Dutch East Indies, Southeast Asia, and in the Japanese home islands. Forced to labor for their captors for the duration of the conflict, they performed extremely difficult tasks, including working in industrial plants and mining coal in Japan, and most notably, constructing the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway. During their three-and-one-half years of captivity, these prisoners experienced brutality at the hands of the Japanese. Enduring prolonged malnutrition and extreme overwork, they suffered from numerous tropical and dietary diseases while receiving almost no medical care. Each day, these men lived in fear of being beaten and tortured, and for months at a time they witnessed the agonizing deaths of their friends and countrymen. In spite of the conditions they faced, most survived to return to the United States …

Presently there are four generational cohorts in the workplace. Born from 1977 to 1997, the youngest cohort group, referred to as Generation Y (or Gen Y) in this study, has 81 million members, of whom over 29 million are already in the workplace. The importance of leader-subordinate relationships in the workplace has been confirmed; in recognizing this, leaders must identify and adapt to the changing era-shaped needs of employees, who cannot fully participate in organizational life if their most urgent needs are not being met. Because Gen Y employees are only now entering the workforce, little is actually known about the workplace needs of this cohort group. This study attempted to determine leadership needs of a Gen Y cohort as a means to enhance workplace relationships in the 21st century organization. A sequential, mixed methods study was employed to explore leadership preferences of a Gen Y cohort. Initially, focus group interviews were used to generate leadership themes. Based on these themes, an instrument was designed, and Gen Y business students from three higher education institutions were surveyed. Confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL software was used to test the themes. The driving force behind this research design was to build a …

During his tenure as the professor of trombone at the Paris Conservatory, Andre Lafosse wrote the Traite de Pedagogie du Trombone a Coulisse addressing trombone pedagogy that was to be studied in conjunction with his method and etude books, Methode Complete de Trombone and Vade Mecum du Tromboniste. The pedagogic philosophy reflects Lafosse's own experiences as an orchestral musician in France in the early 20th century. Lafosse designed and used his treatise to prepare students to be effective teachers after their graduation from the Conservatory. The scope of preparation for Lafosse's trombone class, however, was limited. He did not attempt to provide a text or tutor that would prepare trombonists for any career in music: Lafosse was primarily concerned with orchestral trombone playing, as reflected in musical exercises, instrument designation, and repertoire references. Solo performance skills are also explained at length in his treatise, and Lafosse includes his own solo transcriptions in the curriculum. This emphasis placed on performing as a soloist appears to oppose Lafosse's implied preference for orchestral performance. Throughout his career as a trombone professor Andre Lafosse compiled and wrote music that emphasized elements of trombone technique based on the French solo and orchestral repertoire. His primary …

The concept of privacy has proven difficult to analyze because of its subjective nature and susceptibility to psychological and contextual influences. This study challenges the concept of privacy as a valid construct for addressing individuals' concerns regarding online disclosure of personal information, based on the premise that underlying behavioral traits offer a more reliable and temporally stable measure of privacy-oriented behavior than do snapshots of environmentally induced emotional states typically measured by opinion polls. This study investigated the relationship of personality characteristics associated with individuals' general privacy-related behavior to their online privacy behaviors and concerns. Two latent constructs, Functional Privacy Orientation and Online Privacy Orientation, were formulated. Functional Privacy Orientation is defined as a general measure of individuals' perception of control over their privacy. It was measured using the factors General Disclosiveness, Locus of Control, Generalized Trust, Risk Orientation, and Risk Propensity as indicator variables. Online Privacy Orientation is defined as a measure of individuals' perception of control over their privacy in an online environment. It was measured using the factors Willingness to Disclose Online, Level of Privacy Concern, Information Management Privacy Concerns, and Reported Online Disclosure as indicator variables. A survey questionnaire that included two new instruments to measure …

The purpose of this study was to determine if character education programs impact the suspension rates of students from regular instructional public elementary schools in Texas. The data was also examined to determine if the number of years since a school's implementation of a character education program has an impact on the effectiveness of the programs as measured by the suspension rates of students from school. Finally, the study sought to determine if the socio-economic status of the schools has an impact on the effectiveness of character education programs as measured by the student suspension rates. A random sample of 135 regular instructional public elementary schools in Texas was collected. The principal of each school completed a questionnaire that was used to sort schools into three groups: schools with "direct" character education programs, schools with "indirect" character education programs, and schools that have implemented no type of character education program. A two-year history of suspensions was obtained for each school. The data was analyzed using one-way and two-way ANOVAs. The results of the analyses indicated that the implementation of character education programs, no matter what type, did not produce statistically significant differences in student suspension rates from school. Furthermore, the …

The special relationship of patrons, librettists, and composers, in the Accademia degli'Arcadia in Rome from 1700-1710 appears in Alessandro Scarlatti's settings of Antonio Ottoboni's cantata librettos in the anthology GB Lbm. Add. 34056. An examination of Arcadian cantatas and their texts reveals the nature of their audience, function, and their place within the historical development of the genre. The conversazione cantata did not exist outside of Rome and was popular for only a brief period in the early eighteenth century. Critical examination of primary sources, including minutes from the Arcadian Academy meetings as well as household documents regarding the Cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphili, Prince Ruspoli, and other noble families, sheds light on the culture of the Arcadian Academy and the cantata within it, broader study clarifies the individuality of the conversazione cantata within Rome, and closer study of the contribution of the greatest cantata composer 1700-1710, Alessandro Scarlatti.

This study had two primary purposes. The first goal was to bring the 1993/1996 Katsinas-Lacey two-year college classification system into the 21st century using data from the 2000 United States Census and the National Center for Education Statistics' Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS) surveys for the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 academic years. The second goal was to create a descriptive portrait of the universe of two-year, publicly controlled institutions that primarily offer the associate's degree mapped against the updated classification system and to describe and discern similarities and differences within this particular population by class and subclass in terms of multiple measurable characteristics for which IPEDS data were available. The study, based upon classification theory utilized in social science and management sciences - particularly the work of Bailey and McKelvey - assessed the efficacy of a number of other recent proposed community college classification systems, the original Katsinas-Lacey system and the revised version of Katsinas-Lacey created through the current research. It found both the original Katsinas-Lacey system and the revised version to meet the criteria for a well-made classification model. The study includes directories of all colleges and universities in the United States that offer the associate's degree with geographic, …

This study analyzed test scores of economically disadvantaged students who attended two elementary schools implementing different types of Title I models from 1999-2001. Test scores from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT-9) were analyzed. One school implemented the targeted assistance model (less than 50% poverty), which focused resources on students were identified as failing or at risk of failing. The other a schoolwide model (95% poverty), which used resources to help all students in a school regardless of whether they ware failing, at risk of failing, or economically disadvantaged. The quantitative approach was used with a causal comparative design. A cohort of continuously enrolled students was identified for the TAAS (n=169 and 189) and the ITBS/SAT-9 (n=49 and 87). Descriptive statistics such as the frequency, mean, and standard deviation, were used to measure differences on the Texas Learning Index (TLI) for the TAAS, and Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) on the ITBS/SAT-9. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to partially adjust for preexisting differences among the groups and because randomization was not possible. The independent variable was type of Title I model, targeted assistance or schoolwide. The …

This study is a follow-up to a study completed by Dr. Thomas Barker in 1994 entitled The Status of the Implementation of International Education in Texas Four-year Colleges and Universities: A Comprehensive Study. A survey of 35 Texas universities and 6 out-of-state benchmark universities revealed information regarding the international programs at these universities in four areas. The four areas surveyed include: (a) administrative, (b) instructional, (c) international student support services, and (d) outreach. A summary of the survey results includes 34 tables detailing the university responses for the 2004 survey compared with the responses obtained from the original, Barker (1994). The results from the 2004 participating benchmark institutions were also reviewed. Texas universities continue to work toward the internationalization of the curriculum with increased numbers supporting an international focus in their mission statements and staffing patterns. Benchmark institutions continue to lead Texas institutions in a majority of areas surveyed. Funding for international education continues to be an issue for both the benchmark and Texas institutions. Changes in attitudes and immigration policies continue to affect the implementation of international programs on the university level. While universities continue to provide support to community and businesses in the area of international education, the …

This dissertation focuses on the chemistry, detection, and control of metals and metal contaminants during manufacturing of integrated circuits (ICs) on silicon wafers. Chapter 1 begins with an overview of IC manufacturing, including discussion of the common aqueous cleaning solutions, metallization processes, and analytical techniques that will be investigated in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 covers initial investigations into the chemistry of the SC2 clean - a mixture of HCl, H2O2, and DI water - especially on the behavior of H2O2 in this solution and the impact of HCl concentration on metal removal from particle addition to silicon oxide surfaces. Chapter 3 includes a more generalized investigation of the chemistry of metal ions in solution and how they react with the silicon oxide surfaces they are brought into contact with, concluding with illumination of the fundamental chemical principles that govern their behavior. Chapter 4 shows how metal contaminants behave on silicon wafers when subjected to the high temperature (≥ 800 °C) thermal cycles that are encountered in IC manufacturing. It demonstrates that knowledge of some fundamental thermodynamic properties of the metals allow accurate prediction of what will happen to a metal during these processes. Chapter 5 covers a very different but …

Museums are service-oriented information systems that provide access to information bearing materials contained in the museum's collections. Within museum environments, the primary vehicle for quality assurance and public accountability is the accreditation process of the American Association of Museums (AAM). Norbert Wiener founded the field of cybernetics, employing concepts of information feedback as a mechanism for system modification and control. W. Edwards Deming applied Wiener's principles to management theory, initiating the wave of change in manufacturing industries from production-driven to quality-driven systems. Today, the principles are embodied in the ISO 9000 International Standards for quality management systems (QMS), a globally-recognized set of standards, widely employed as a vehicle of quality management in manufacturing and service industries. The International Organization for Standardization defined a process for QMS registration against ISO 9001 that is similar in purpose to accreditation. This study's goals were to determine the degree of correspondence between elements of ISO 9001 and quality-related activities within museum environments, and to ascertain the relevance of ISO 9001-2000 as a technique of museum evaluation, parallel to accreditation. A content analysis compared museum activities to requirements specified in the ISO 9001-2000 International Standard. The study examined museum environment surrogates which consisted of (a) …

Person-environment (PE) fit has been considered one of the most pervasive concepts in psychology. This study presents an integrative investigation of three levels of PE fit: person-vocation (PV) fit, person-organization (PO) fit, and person-job (PJ) fit, using multiple conceptualizations (e.g., value congruence, needs-supplies fit) of each fit level. While a trend in the PE fit literature has been the inclusion of only one fit level with a single conceptualization, researchers call for the addition of multiple conceptualizations of multiple fit levels in a single study. Traditionally, PO fit has been conceptualized as value congruence, whereas PV fit has remained untouched in the literature investigating the direct measurement of fit perceptions. Therefore, new fit perceptions scales assessing PO fit using a needs-supplies fit conceptualization and PV fit using a variety of conceptualizations were introduced. To address the limitation of employing direct measures, common method variance was modeled with a positive affect factor. The study accomplished two objectives. First, a previously supported three-factor model of fit perceptions consisting of PO value congruence (PO-VC), PJ needs-supplies (PJ-NS), and PJ demands-abilities (PJ-DA) fit was strongly replicated. Second, this model was expanded by examining additional conceptualizations (needs-supplies, demands-abilities fit, value, personality, and interest congruence) of …

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the style of a user interface (i.e., its look and feel) has an effect on the usability of a synchronous computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) environment for delivering Internet-based collaborative content. The problem motivating this study is that people who are located in different places need to be able to communicate with one another. One way to do this is by using complex computer tools that allow users to share information, documents, programs, etc. As an increasing number of business organizations require workers to use these types of complex communication tools, it is important to determine how users regard these types of tools and whether they are perceived to be useful. If a tool, or interface, is not perceived to be useful then it is often not used, or used ineffectively. As organizations strive to improve communication with and among users by providing more Internet-based collaborative environments, the users' experience in this form of delivery may be tied to a style of user interface look and feel that could negatively affect their overall acceptance and satisfaction of the collaborative environment. The significance of this study is that it applies the technology …

Though counselor education has always acknowledged the importance of work in the lives of individuals, there is a dearth of information concerning the worklives of counselor education faculty. The purpose of this study was to explore work and life variables that impact the work experiences of faculty members in counselor education. This study examined demographic or life variables including gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship status, and parenting status; and work-related variables including rank, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, salary equity, mentoring, teaching activities, service activities, publication for collaboration, and decision-making representation. Three hundred and twenty-eight counselor education faculty members across the United States participated in the study. Participants completed a mailed questionnaire including demographic information, quantitative survey questions, and related qualitative items designed to investigate work and life factors impacting the subjective work experiences of counselor educators. Chi-square analyses and analysis of qualitative responses related to four research hypotheses indicated that experience of the work environment for counselor educators is impacted by gender, tenure rank, age, and relationship status. Post-hoc analysis indicated that work experiences are also impacted by ethnicity, sexual orientation, and parenting status. Results also indicated a need for continuing attention to the effects of rank, salary equity, …

This research examines the coping processes of African American women with breast cancer and how those processes relate to low usage of cancer support groups by these women. Prior coping research has utilized predominantly White samples. The limited research on African American coping responses is conflicting and characterized by small samples and non-probability sampling techniques. In this study, 26 respondents from Central and North Texas metropolitan areas were interviewed, including 9 key informants, 9 African American breast cancer survivors, and 8 White survivors. The data suggest that African American and White women cope with breast cancer in significantly different ways. Culture appears to account for the differences. All African American breast cancer survivors identified faith as their primary coping strategy. In contrast, only half of the White survivors claimed faith as their primary coping strategy, but like the other White survivors, tended to rely on multiple coping strategies. The African American survivors conceptualized God as an active member of their support network. Most prayed for healing, and several attributed examples of healing to God's intervention. The White survivors found God's presence in the actions of other people. They prayed for strength, peace, and courage to endure the illness. The use …