This dissertation examines the impact of FDI on peace in civil conflict-experienced states. While economic grievances have often been pointed out as a major cause of civil war within the literature, scholarship on post-conflict peace has focused mainly on political settlements, such as one-sided victories or power sharing, largely ignoring the importance of economic conditions. Thus, this dissertation aims to examine how FDI can affect sustainable peace in conflict-experienced states in terms of prevention of conflict recurrence and regime stability. FDI can be conducive to peace during/after civil conflicts, as it can bring capital which can be used for economic reconstruction and development in conflict-experienced states. Furthermore, this dissertation focuses on the impact of bilateral FDI. When a third party intervenes in a conflict management process and the third party has a great deal of economic interaction with the conflict experienced state, this economic interdependency will affect the third party's motivation to make the conflict-experienced state stable. It also provides third-party with greater leverage over peace efforts. Eventually, this third-party leverage will affect peace during/after civil conflicts. This dissertation is built around three interrelated empirical chapters: (1) determinants of FDI in conflict-experienced states, (2) the impact of FDI on conflict …

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is recognized as a founder of the modern scientific project and a forerunner of the modern era of political thought. He advocated the development of an active science that would enable human beings to control nature in order to relieve man's estate. To accomplish this, Bacon argues that we must reconstruct all arts and sciences upon a more solid foundation. In reconstructing the arts and sciences, Bacon subtly changes the meaning of foundational religious, political, and scientific notions in order to better suit his project of progress. As the inheritors of his vision, turning to Bacon helps recover foundational considerations that have been forgotten as a result of his success. This dissertation approaches Bacon's thought through an analysis of his New Atlantis, a fable that envisions the completion of his project. I also turn to his other political, scientific, and religious works as appropriate to supply what is omitted in the fable. I find that although his revision of religious, scientific, and political foundations is conducted subtly they are nevertheless revolutionary, and essential for preparing the various outlooks that characterize the modern world.

François Couperin (1668-1733) was one of the earliest French Baroque composers to merge the Italian style into the French tradition. He had great influence on the development of French Baroque music from the end of the seventeenth century until his death. Couperin's four Concerts Royaux and the ten Concerts Nouveaux (published in 1722 and 1724) were written for the enjoyment of Louis XIV. Those suites were popular in the court before they were published, as they were requested to be performed every Sunday during the years 1714 and 1715 to give pleasure to the king. Rittrato dell'amore is the ninth suite out of the fourteen suites. The purpose of this study is to provide a performance guide and a practical edition of François Couperin's Neuvième Concert Ritratto dell' amore. It also contrasts Italian style and French tradition in the Baroque period, and how Couperin blended both styles together in his Neuvième Concert. In addition, this dissertation summarizes the general principles of Baroque performance practice that one may encounter in Neuviéme Concert, including notes inégales (unequal notes), ornamentation, over-dotting, and other issues. It is especially important for one to understand the performance style of French Baroque music in order to perform …

In 2018, global gross domestic product (GDP) was US$86.3 trillion, and almost a quarter of that value was due to international trade with a value of US$19.6 trillion. Air cargo accounts for about 35 percent of that trade value (approximately US$6.86 trillion). Moreover, from the perspective of the airport sector, air cargo revenue contributes between 20 to 70 percent of airport revenue. The global airport revenue for freight in 2018 was US$250 billion. Despite the interest and research activities surrounding competition and competitiveness of airports and specifically among airlines and passengers, it appears scholars have overlooked research concerning the competitiveness of airports when it comes to air cargo. This study attempts to fill the gap in the supply chain and logistics literature by putting forward a framework and ultimately operationalizing the framework highlighting the pivotal role of air cargo in the supply chain domain and within the global economy. Specifically, the framework is operationalized within the freight forwarding air cargo supply chain domain – providing insight into this important yet understudied phenomenon. The population of interest is freight forwarders from the Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates. The Middle East represents 18 percent of the world's air cargo volume and …

There are very few significant sonatas for flute and piano written between 1880 and 1918, a period of unusually rich stylistic diversity. Gabriel Pierné composed his Sonata in D Minor, Op. 36 for piano and violin in 1900, and later transcribed it for flute and piano. Unfortunately, the work has not been embraced to a significant extent by either violinists or flutists. The wealth of violin sonatas from this period might explain it not becoming part of the canon for violinists, but this is not the case for the flute repertoire, where it seems that it should hold a place of genuine importance. Since little has been written about Pierné as a composer or about this piece in either of its versions, this project is intended to promote an understanding of the work in its historical and theoretical context and to advocate for more frequent performances. This document also suggests an alternate version of several particular passages so it can better represent the characteristics of today's flute and its modern techniques. This research will help other flutists and flute professors to introduce and spread an awareness of its existence and ideally helping to establish its place in the flute repertoire. …

Considering the high reproductive investment of the social male and the cost to the female of losing this benefit by soliciting copulations outside the social pair bond, it is expected that most raptor populations would exhibit low to no occurrence of extra-pair paternity (EPP). This holds true for the majority of raptor species studied to date with only one exception of an urban Cooper's hawk (Accipiter cooperii) study which reported an unexpectedly high extra-pair young frequency of 19.29%. In our study we examined the frequency of EPP within a red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) population residing in the suburban/urban matrix of southwest Ohio. During the breeding seasons of 2018 and 2019, 181 breeding age and nestling individuals were color-banded and sampled for genetic analysis using nine microsatellite loci. After genotyping a total of 40 broods (with at least two nestlings per brood) and both presumptive parents of each brood, no clear evidence of EPP was detected. However, at one nest site, the entire brood of four chicks was not sired by the adult male observed during the courtship period, nor another adult male observed tending the chicks later in the season. We suspect that this particular nest represented two instances of …

Fundamental understanding of high strain rate deformation behavior of materials is critical in designing new alloys for wide-ranging applications including military, automobile, spacecraft, and industrial applications. High entropy alloys, consisting of multiple elements in (near) equimolar proportions, represent a new paradigm in structural alloy design providing ample opportunity for achieving excellent performance in high strain rate applications by proper selection of constituent elements and/or thermomechanical processing. This dissertation is focused on fundamental understanding of high strain-rate deformation behavior of several high entropy alloy systems with widely varying microstructures. Ballistic impact testing of face centered cubic Al0.1CoCrFeNi high entropy alloy showed failure by ductile hole growth. The deformed microstructure showed extensive micro-banding and micro-twinning at low velocities while adiabatic shear bands and dynamic recrystallization were seen at higher velocities. The Al0.7CoCrFeNi and AlCoCrFeNi2.1 eutectic high entropy alloys, with BCC and FCC phases in lamellar morphology, showed failure by discing. A network of cracks coupled with small and inhomogeneous plastic deformation led to the brittle mode of failure in these eutectic alloys. Phase-specific mechanical behavior using small-scale techniques revealed higher strength and strain rate sensitivity for the B2 phase compared to the L12 phase. The interphase boundary demonstrated good stability without any …

Prompt and efficient intervention is vital in reducing casualty figures during epidemic outbreaks, disasters, sudden civil strife or terrorism attacks. This can only be achieved if there is a fit-for-purpose and location-specific emergency response plan in place, incorporating geographical, time and vehicular capacity constraints. In this research, a comprehensive emergency response model for situations of uncertainties (in locations' demand and available resources), typically obtainable in low-resource countries, is designed. It involves the development of algorithms for optimizing pre-and post-disaster activities. The studies result in the development of four models: (1) an adaptation of a machine learning clustering algorithm, for pre-positioning depots and emergency operation centers, which optimizes the placement of these depots, such that the largest geographical location is covered, and the maximum number of individuals reached, with minimal facility cost; (2) an optimization algorithm for routing relief distribution, using heterogenous fleets of vehicle, with considerations for uncertainties in humanitarian supplies; (3) a genetic algorithm-based route improvement model; and (4) a model for integrating possible new locations into the routing network, in real-time, using emergency severity ranking, with a high priority on the most-vulnerable population. The clustering approach to solving dept location-allocation problem produces a better time complexity, and the …

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the impact of a long-term, 5E inquiry-based professional development on content and pedagogical knowledge in eighth-grade science teachers in Texas. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected via university designed reflective prompts, science content pretests and post-tests, and a classroom observation instrument. Results showed the professional development had a statistically significant impact on teachers' content knowledge in earth science, less significant impact in content knowledge in physical science and that teachers' levels of inquiry-based practice were in the early stages. The teachers' reflections of the professional development's impact indicated self-identified growth in their content knowledge and an impact on their understanding of inquiry-based classroom instructional practice. The findings suggest inquiry-based professional development has an impact on teachers' content and pedagogical knowledge, specifically regarding conveying content effectively, concept interconnection, lesson design, and teachers' opportunities to experience inquiry-based learning themselves before implementing it in their classrooms. The study's implications for further research include examinations of professional learning opportunities at local district and campus levels to identify and incorporate science teachers' existing levels of content and inquiry-based pedagogical knowledge and provide opportunities for practice to incorporate the pedagogy in classrooms.

Exclusionary discipline is a consequence of behavior for students who break the student code of conduct. Extensive research about the effects that exclusionary discipline can have on secondary students, as evidenced by reduced graduation rates, has been conducted; but, research studies investigating the potential impact that exclusionary discipline can have on the academic outcomes of students at the elementary level have yet to be conducted. The use of exclusionary discipline is overrepresented in students with low socio-economic (SES) backgrounds; large populations of low-SES students are educated at Title I schools that receive federal funding to support academic growth. The purpose of this causal-comparative, non-experimental study was to investigate the impact that exclusionary discipline consequences had on fifth-grade students who attended all of the elementary schools within one north Texas school district during the 2018-2019 school year. In conjunction with the examination of the effect that the assignment of exclusionary discipline consequences can have on the academic outcomes of fifth-grade students, student-specific variables such as attendance at a Title I or non-Title I campus, student race, timing of exclusionary discipline assignment, and students in various educational programs were investigated to determine the potential impact of exclusionary discipline on fifth-grade students by …

Value-added models (VAMs) have become widely used in evaluating teacher accountability. The use of these models for high-stakes decisions making has been very controversial due to lack of consistency in classifying teachers as high performing or low performing. There is an abundance of research on the impact of various student level covariates on teacher value-added scores; however, less is known about the impact of teacher-level and school-level covariates. This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the impact of including teacher characteristics, school characteristics, and student demographics aggregated at the school level on elementary mathematics and reading teacher value-added scores. Data for this study was collected from a large school district in north Texas. This study found that across all VAMs fitted, 32% of mathematics teachers and 37% of reading teachers changed quintile ranking for their value-added score at least once across all VAMs, while 55% and 65% of schools changed their quintile ranking of value-added scores based on mathematics and reading achievement, respectively. The results show that failing to control for aggregated student demographics has a large impact on both teacher level and school level value-added scores. Policymakers and administrators using VAM estimates in high-stakes decision-making should include teacher- …

The American composer Charles Ives is well known for musical quotation/borrowing: composing music with or from pre-existing musical sources, such as folk tunes, hymns, chants, or other composers' works. His Third Violin Sonata is one of few works that used his unique technique of cumulative setting with only hymn tunes. For analysis of his instrumental music, the text of the hymn tunes is generally disregarded, as the compositions are for instruments. Ives' Third Violin Sonata is challenging to understand in comparison with other violin sonatas, because it lacks information such as titles and subtitles. Even though Ives never mentioned the piece's meanings or extramusical meanings, almost all the elements of the piece indicate hope as a common theme. This dissertation examines which hymn tunes were quoted in the piece, gives the meanings of the hymn tunes, and discusses how Ives uses these tunes as themes with textual meanings. The study includes a brief life of Ives and his historical circumstances and presents a brief musical analysis. The research should give a better understanding of the piece to performers and others curious about it.

Youth in the United States are experiencing a steep increase in mental health issues. Concurrently, unique political, economic and social dynamics in the U.S. make the circumstances of nonwhite children's mental health partially contingent on experiences of racism. In this study, I examine the relationship between racial minority children's mental health and perceived racism, while also examining the moderating effects of gender on this relationship. I first review prior research which suggest that racism is a salient determinant of several health outcomes among racial minorities and racial minority children, including depression and anxiety. I then review research on both gender and racial socialization and posit possible implications of these differentials on mental health. Considering both the racialized and gendered factors contributing to youth's mental health outcomes, this study fills a gap in previous research by exploring the differences by gender and race in the effect of perceived racism on children's mental health. I use data from the National Survey of Children's Health from 2016 to 2019. Using average marginal effects, calculated from a series of logistic regression models predicting depression, anxiety, behavioral and emotional problems, I find support for previous research which suggests that perceived racism predicts poor mental health …

Violin repertoire composed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries placed new demands on performers. While numerous pedagogues have written etudes and treatises analyzing traditional techniques, far fewer have thoroughly examined contemporary techniques. Many of the existing etudes and exercises inspired by contemporary violin repertoire are of a very high difficulty level and may seem unapproachable to students with little to no experience performing the music of recent decades. As a result, many violin students are unacquainted with the language of new music. This dissertation is intended to help fill a gap in the pedagogical literature by serving as a resource that familiarizes advanced students with the notation and proper execution of the non-traditional techniques commonly found in contemporary violin music. This document includes a survey of violin repertoire written since 1970, an analysis of the non-traditional techniques used most often in the works examined, methods for approaching specific technical problems that arise in them, and nine etudes originally composed by this author. The etudes focus on nine contemporary techniques, ranging from contact point variations to changing subdivisions, and are intended for study by advanced violinists interested in performing contemporary music.

William Mason (1829–1908) was a well-known American composer, pianist, and pedagogue. Researchers have mainly focused on Mason's career as a pedagogue in the United States and his pedagogical treatises, which are widely considered and used as the conceptual core of teaching materials on the nineteenth century. However, there has been only an annotated catalogue of Mason's music works, and no performance guide to his piano compositions. This dissertation is designed to be the first performance guide to his solo piano repertoire and act as an introduction to his music through an examination of selected works suitable for the intermediate student. This study provides instruction for students on how to practice these works through the analysis of the elements of practice – pedaling, phrasing, technique practice, touch, and musical expression – which were all considered as essential by Mason himself for a good performance. The five piano works selected are: Three Preludes, Op. 8, No. 1; Ballade et Barcarole, Op. 15; Valse Caprice, Op.17; Spring-Dawn, Mazurka–Caprice, Op. 20; and Spring Flower–Impromptu, Op. 21.

This study investigates the effects of sketchnoting, a visualized approach of notetaking, on learning strategies. The main questions asked were: What are the effects of sketchnoting on learners' learning strategies, including cognitive strategies (rehearsal, elaboration, organizational) and metacognitive strategies? Forty-eight undergraduate participants were divided into two groups, an experimental group, and a control group. Findings demonstrated a significant increase in cognitive learning strategies and metacognitive strategies in the experimental group. Other findings revealed that the aesthetic appeal of sketchnoting is the major reason motivating participants' sketchnoting behavior and the corresponding connection between design strategies and the learning strategies is the key of positive impacts of sketchnoting on learning strategies. Additional insights and implications are discussed.

The design and fabrication of porous ceramic materials with anisotropic properties has, in recent years, gained popularity due to their potential application in various areas that include medical, energy, defense, space, and aerospace. Freeze-casting is an effective, low-cost, and safe method as a wet shaping technique to create these structures. To control the morphology of these materials, many critical factors were found to play an important role. In this dissertation, the processing parameters of the magnetic field-assisted freeze-casting method were optimized with a focus on comparing the structure obtained using vertical and horizontal magnetic fields and understanding the mechanisms that occur under different freezing modes. More specifically, this processing method was used to produce Al2O3 and B4C porous ceramics materials with unidirectionally-aligned pore channels. The effect of the vertical and horizontal magnetic field strength and direction, concentration of magnetic material (Fe3O4), cooling rate, and freezing time were examined. The resulting ceramics with highly aligned pore channels were infiltrated with molten metal to create metal matrix composites. The mechanical properties of these structures were measured and were subsequently correlated to their morphology and composition.

In this work, we have utilized an ion beam process known as gettering to migrate implanted Ni ions much deeper into the bulk substrate than their initial projected end of the range. The projected mean depth is known as Rp. The gettering effect is the most crucial part of the fabrication and we have found that for an H fluence of 3x 1016 cm-2 there is a threshold fluence of approximately 7.5 x 1015 cm-2 that cannot be surpassed if the gettering process is to be completed along with the substrate recovered to the high crystalline quality. This hard threshold is due to the gettering process relaxation induced mechanism that is responsible for migrating the Ni to the Rp/2 location while the H is vacating during the thermal annealing process. If the total number of vacancies produced by the H dissociation is not substantially larger than the total number of implanted Ni atoms the Ni will migrate to the Rp location of the Ni implantation at the amorphous and crystalline interface and toward the surface. When the gettering condition is not met the resulting magnetic responses vary from an exceptionally weak ferromagnetic response to not exhibiting a magnetic response. Additionally, …

Assessment is a foundational part of counseling practice, which includes the process of providing assessment feedback to those tested. Millions of children are assessed across the United States through the public-school system, hospital, agency, and private practice settings. Though millions of children are assessed yearly, there has been little research surrounding providing assessment feedback with children. In this study, the author qualitatively explored children's experiences with a developmentally appropriate feedback model, the young children's assessment feedback (YCAF). Participants included ten 6 to 10-year old children, who had not previously gone through psychoeducational testing within the last year. Participants completed a battery of psychoeducational assessments and the YCAF feedback process. Data sources included session transcriptions, session observation notes, child interviews, parent interviews, and expressive arts observation notes. In order to explore the perceptions regarding the YCAF, the author utilized interpretative phenomenological analysis to understand the children's feedback experiences. Findings included the following themes: freedom for self-direction, self-concept, therapeutic relationship, affective responses of child, systemic shifts, and developmental considerations. The themes show that the children in this study saw a variety of benefits and experiences surrounding receiving their own personalized, developmentally appropriate assessment feedback.

This research proposes Stress-Lysis, iLog and SaYoPillow to automatically detect and monitor the stress levels of a person. To self manage psychological stress in the framework of smart healthcare, a deep learning based novel system (Stress-Lysis) is proposed in this dissertation. The learning system is trained such that it monitors stress levels in a person through human body temperature, rate of motion and sweat during physical activity. The proposed deep learning system has been trained with a total of 26,000 samples per dataset and demonstrates accuracy as high as 99.7%. The collected data are transmitted and stored in the cloud, which can help in real time monitoring of a person's stress levels, thereby reducing the risk of death and expensive treatments. The proposed system has the ability to produce results with an overall accuracy of 98.3% to 99.7%, is simple to implement and its cost is moderate. Chronic stress, uncontrolled or unmonitored food consumption, and obesity are intricately connected, even involving certain neurological adaptations. In iLog we propose a system which can not only monitor but also create awareness for the user of how much food is too much. iLog provides information on the emotional state of a person along …

Where people go between evacuation and recovery remains an understudied aspect of disaster research. Whether experiencing multiple displacements, permanent displacement, or undergoing recovery in a damaged dwelling, the spatial and temporal dimensions of disaster displacement can have direct impacts on the recovery experiences of survivors. Pulling from focus group data gathered in 2017 from Hurricane Sandy survivors in New Jersey, this qualitative research focuses on the experiences of those who recovered in-situ, or within their damaged dwelling following the storm, and the various ways this non-displacement impacted their recovery. A content analysis following a grounded theory approach produced the emergent themes of the in-situ experience, including: a lack of suitable shelter, an exposure to secondary hazards, and an inability to achieve satisfactory emotional recovery. This study contributes to the growing body of literature surrounding recovery experiences, and it introduces valuable insights into the challenges that survivors face while recovering in-situ.

The Godzilla media franchise is one of the longest running media franchises, which means the character himself has gone through many changes throughout the years. However, in American pop culture, the characters of Godzilla is perceived as a hero, a friend of humanity and defender of Earth. This reputation comes from the Showa Era, where Godzilla often fought on the side of humanity, rather than trying to destroy them as depicted in the original Gojira. In recent years, Toho, Godzilla's corporate owners, have been steering the King of the Monsters back into the villain role. Despite this tone shift by Godzilla's owners, American Godzilla paratexts still generally depict Godzilla as a hero. These depictions of Godzilla are used to maintain his status as a family friendly heritage brand and keep a door open for parents to introduce their children to the brand. Such a strategy allows Godzilla to survive into the modern day as an international powerhouse franchise.

Interest and concern about penitential labor practices has been growing among scholars recently. The relationship of these practices to the principles of American liberalism, and in particular its Lockean roots, have not been thoroughly studied. The present investigation traces contemporary practices to features of Lockean liberalism, and offers suggestions for how to respond to widely acknowledged deficiencies while remaining within the broadly accepted principles laid out by Locke. The advantages of such an approach include political stability.

Making Sense of Things is a piece composed through consideration of the relationship between music, meaning, and materiality. The piece, written for voice, flute, percussion, and live electronics, explores topics of the "sensible" and "nonsensical" in music, moving through a variety of sonic episodes that feature different notational approaches, electronic textures, technical instrumental practice, and theatrical elements in order to explore a variety of expressive possibilities while unified around the central musical ideas of scratching sounds and metal bars. The critical essay examines the relationship between the piece and the theoretical writings which inspired it. Reading through the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, I examine the relationship between Making Sense of Things and new materialist discourses, affect theory, and semiotics.