Drug use poses a serious threat to the quality of life for many Kentuckians and their families. Recent statistics indicate drug offenders account for a significant portion (in one year, 52,597 arrests were made for drug violations statewide) of individuals within thecriminal justice system, directly affecting the economic vitality within our state (Bunn & Slavova, 2012; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2012). These statistics signify an overwhelming need for effective prevention efforts and innovative treatment alternatives. This study provides an innovative alternative treatment for drug offenders that infuses social and emotional coping strategies using percussion as a context. During the innovative program participants were able to express, recognize, articulate and evaluate themselves and their peers’ emotional coping strategies while developing peer camaraderie. They did so while being introduced to rudimentary drumming skills, fusing emotional intelligence with the art of drumming. The hypothesis is that this innovative program will enhance participant emotional intelligence to express, learn an effective coping skill, and establish camaraderie with their peers.

Through in-depth interviews with 12 regular contributors to the Lexington-Herald Leader’s website, www.Kentucky.com, this study attempts to examine how online citizen journalists view the definitions of citizen and professional journalism, as compared to Singer’s three dimensions of professionalism (i.e., cognitive, normative, and evaluative dimensions) as well as their perceived role conceptions of professional and citizen journalists, using Weaver and Wilhoit’s four roles of journalists. Analyses reveal that the main difference in the definitions of the two types of journalists revolved around the cognitive dimension, specifically the education and training that professionals receive. The role conceptions of professional and citizen journalists were similar, with the both groups being described as serving the interpretive/investigative and disseminator roles. The roles of citizen journalists also included the adversarial and populist mobilizer roles.

Family support, both financial and social, can impact the educational aspirations of youth. Studies have shown gender also plays a role in those educational aspirations. While there has been some research done on the educational aspirations of youth in Appalachia, the research on female youth Appalachia is less explored. This study looks at the educational aspirations of female youth in Appalachia by surveying a group of young women who belong to the Robinson Scholars at the University of Kentucky. Participants completed a brief, one time survey answering questions about the types of social support received and the providers of that support. Preliminarily data supports the literature; in the absence of financial capital, social capital may be used to empower young women. The data also supports the idea that most females are impacted by their mothers’ influence more than other members of their family or community. Conclusions and discussions will include a plan for further research, as well as the implications for educators and students throughout Appalachia.

School staff are continuously asked to adapt to changes that are set forth by various governmental and community agencies. These changes are set in motion to improve schools, however, with change brings conflict. Organizational learning has gained attention as a way to adjust to change. Because conflict can be a taxing, disruptive occurrence in organizations, the purpose of this study was to examine how leaders of schools with high teacher empowerment levels use conflict as a positive force to move their schools forward, despite constant change. Research suggests a connection between organizational learning and teacher empowerment. Additional research was necessary to explore this link. This study described and analyzed how school leaders use conflict constructively to promote individual growth and organizational learning. Review of district Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) Kentucky survey data informed the selection of six schools which evidenced high teacher empowerment. Data were collected through individual interviews with principals, an online teacher survey, as well as focus group interviews with teachers to gain their perspectives about how their school leaders manage conflict. Analysis of data identified themes for how teacher empowerment and organizational learning are connected, and perceptions of conflict. The findings suggest that a risk-safe environment is essential for ensuring that conflict can be a constructive force in schools. Conflict is also affected by the level teacher leadership, engagement and decision-making. Constructive conflict is evidenced in school that have high levels of trust among school staff. Schools leaders can use constructive conflict to promote individual growth and organizational learning.

The purpose of this study was to examine principal behaviors, identified by teachers and principals, which foster collective efficacy among teachers. As instructional leaders of a school, principals are expected to lead their schools. Behaviors exhibited by the principal can either help or hinder the success of the school and teachers and students in that school. This study will assist principals, aspiring principals, and instructors of principal preparation programs in knowing what behaviors are necessary to foster collective efficacy in their schools, leading to greater success for that school. Collective efficacy is a shared belief that by working together, “we can make a difference.” This belief is of great importance in education because through collaboration, educators can influence the lives of children, while positively impacting the success of their school. In a world where testing accountability determines individual and school success, it is imperative to know how to meet those demands. Schools were chosen to participate in this study based on self-reported Collective Efficacy survey results. Principals of grades 9-12 in high-performing rural high schools in Kentucky were surveyed. Following the survey, three schools were chosen as focus sites for this study. The three schools chosen demonstrated high performance on state accountability assessments and had the highest self-efficacy scores on the self-reported survey. Principals and teachers from those schools were interviewed and/or participated in focus groups. This study identifies behaviors of the school principal in building collective efficacy among the teachers in his or her school. These behaviors can lead to a positive school environment and even greater success for students and teachers.

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The investigation of interacting multi-agent models is a new field of mathematical research with application to the study of behavior in groups of animals or community of people. One interesting feature of multi-agent systems is collective behavior. From the mathematical point of view, one of the challenging issues considering with these dynamical models is development of control mechanisms that are able to influence the time evolution of these systems. In this thesis, we focus on the study of controllability, stabilization and optimal control problems for multi-agent systems considering three models as follows: The first one is the Hegselmann Krause opinion formation (HK) model. The HK dynamics describes how individuals' opinions are changed by the interaction with others taking place in a bounded domain of confidence. The study of this model focuses on determining feedback controls in order to drive the agents' opinions to reach a desired agreement. The second model is the Heider social balance (HB) model. The HB dynamics explains the evolution of relationships in a social network. One purpose of studying this system is the construction of control function in oder to steer the relationship to reach a friendship state. The third model that we discuss is a flocking model describing collective motion observed in biological systems. The flocking model under consideration includes self-propelling, friction, attraction, repulsion, and alignment features. We investigate a control for steering the flocking system to track a desired trajectory. Common to all these systems is our strategy to add a leader agent that interacts with all other members of the system and includes the control mechanism. Our control through leadership approach is developed using classical theoretical control methods and a model predictive control (MPC) scheme. To apply the former method, for each model the stability of the corresponding linearized system near consensus is investigated. Further, local controllability is examined. However, only in the Hegselmann-Krause opinion formation model, the feedback control is determined in order to steer agents' opinions to globally converge to a desired agreement. The MPC approach is an optimal control strategy based on numerical optimization. To apply the MPC scheme, optimal control problems for each model are formulated where the objective functions are different depending on the desired objective of the problem. The first-oder necessary optimality conditions for each problem are presented. Moreover for the numerical treatment, a sequence of open-loop discrete optimality systems is solved by accurate Runge-Kutta schemes, and in the optimization procedure, a nonlinear conjugate gradient solver is implemented. Finally, numerical experiments are performed to investigate the properties of the multi-agent models and demonstrate the ability of the proposed control strategies to drive multi-agent systems to attain a desired consensus and to track a given trajectory. / Die Untersuchung von interagierende Multiagent-Modellen ist ein neues mathematisches Forschungsfeld, das sich mit dem Gruppenverhalten von Tieren beziehungsweise Sozialverhalten von Menschen. Eine interessante Eigenschaft der Multiagentensysteme ist kollektives Verhalten. Eine der herausfordernden Themen, die sich mit diesen dynamischen Modellen befassen, ist in der mathematischen Sicht eine Entwicklung der Regelungsmechanismen, die die Zeitevolution dieser Systemen beeinflussen können. In der Doktorarbeit fokussieren wir uns hauptsächlich auf die Studie von Problemen der Steuerbarkeit, Stabilität und optimalen Regelung für Multiagentensysteme anhand drei Modellen wie folgt: Das erste ist die Hegselmann- Krause opinion formation Modell. Die HK-Dynamik beschreibt die Änderung der Meinungen von einzelnen Personen aufgrund der Interaktionen mit den Anderen. Die Studie dieses Model fokussiert auf bestimmte Regelungen, um die Meinungen der Agenten zu betreiben, damit eine gewünschte Zustimmung erreicht wird. Das zweite Model ist das Heider social balance (HB) Modell. Die HB-Dynamik beschreibt die Evolution von Beziehungen in einem sozialen Netzwerk. Ein Ziel der Untersuchung dieses Systems ist die Konstruktion der Regelungsfunktion um die Beziehungen zu steuern, damit eine Freundschaft erreicht wird. Das dritte Modell ist ein Schar-Modell, das in biologischen Systemen beobachteten kollektive Bewegung beschreibt. Das Schar-Model unter Berücksichtigung beinhaltet Selbstantrieb, Friktion, Attraktion Repulsion und Anpassungsfähigkeiten. Wir untersuchen einen Regler für die Steuerung des Schar-Systems, um eine gewünschte Trajektorie zu verfolgen. Üblich wie alle dieser Systeme soll laut unsere Strategie ein Hauptagent, der sich mit alle anderen Mitgliedern des Systems interagieren, hinzugefügt werden und das Regelungsmechanismus inkludiert werden. Unserer Regelung anhand dem Vorgehen mit Führungsverhalten ist unter Verwendung von klassischen theoretischen Regelungsmethode und ein Schema der modellpr ädiktiven Regelung entwickelt. Zur Ausführung der genannten Methode wird für jedes Modell die Stabilität der korrespondierenden Linearsystem in der Nähe von Konsensus untersucht. Ferner wird die lokale Regelbarkeit geprüft. Nur in dem Hegselmann-Krause opinion formation Modell. Der Regler wird so bestimmt, dass die Meinungen der Agenten gesteuert werden können. Dadurch konvergiert es global zu eine gewünschten Zustimmung. Die MPC-Vorgehensweise ist eine optimale Regelung Strategie, die auf numerische Optimierung basiert. Zu Verwendung des MPC-Shema werden die optimalen Regelungsproblemen für jedes Modell formuliert, wo sich die objektive Funktionen in Abhängigkeit von den gewünschten objective des Problems unterscheidet. Die erforderliche Optimalitätsbedingungen erster Ordnung für jedes Problem sind präsentiert. Auÿerdem für die numerische Prozess, eine Sequenz von offenen diskreten Optimalitätssystemen ist nach dem expliziten Runge-Kutta Schema gelöst. In dem Optimierungsverfahren ist ein nicht linear konjugierter Gradientlöser umgesetzt. Schlieÿlich sind numerische Experimenten in der Lage, die Eigenschaften der Multiagent-Modellen zu untersuchen und die Fähigkeiten der gezielten Regelstrategie zu beweisen. Die Strategie nutzt zu betreiben Multiagentensysteme, um einen gewünschten Konsensus zu erreichen und eine gegebene Trajektorie zu verfolgen.

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Zugl.: Bern, Univ., Diss., 2008