Foreign direct investment (FDI) has since Dunning in the academic literature, by international organisations and countries been viewed as an important precursor to determine the level of economic growth. FDI is suggested to have a positive effect on long-run economic growth in the host country. Previous studies show evidence that the positive effect of FDI on economic growth should not be taken for granted. The extent to which FDI promotes economic growth is largely based on complementary factors which include among others human capital, education, infrastructure, health, population and a technology gap. This essay investigates and estimates the effect of FDI and human capital on economic growth in 28 OECD countries over the period of 1996 to 2010. Three regression were conducted. Our results show over the period studied a positive effect of FDI on economic growth, the result are not statistically significant in all regressions. Population is significant in all regressions but has a mixed effect on economic growth. Human capital proxied as secondary education attainment shows a mixed effect on economic growth and is not significant in all regressions. For the remaining independent variables (see table 7), the results show that Life expectancy and Government expenditure have a significant effect on economic growth. However, Trade is not statistically significant in the regressions.

Dust grain properties were investigated in two very different Galactic environments: the interstellar medium and an exoplanetary system. Two sounding rocket missions were developed to study these regions. Wide-field observations of the Orion OB stellar association were performed in the far-ultraviolet using the Spectrograph for Photometric Imaging with Numeric Reconstruction (SPINR) sounding rocket. These observations reveal the diffuse signature of starlight scattering off interstellar dust grains. The spectral-imaging data were used along with a three-dimensional radiative transfer model to measure the dust scattering parameters: the grain albedo (a) and the scattering asymmetry (g). The measured parameters are consistent with previous measurements made toward Orion. A sharp increase in albedo was measured at 〜1330 A. This feature is not explained by current grain models. The constructed three-dimensional model of Orion includes a two-component dust distribution. The foreground distribution is responsible for the small amount of visible reddening measured toward the bright stars in the Orion constellation.The background distribution represents the Orion Molecular Cloud, which dominates observations of dust emission in the infrared. This model was used to show that backscattered light from the molecular cloud alone cannot produce the observed scattered light distribution. The foreground dust, though optically thin in the visible, significantly contributes to the scattered light in the far-ultraviolet. This suggests that observations of Orion in the infrared and far-ultraviolet may probe entirely different dust populations. The Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Rocket Experiment (PICTURE) sounding rocket was developed to characterize dust grains in the nearby Epsilon Eridani exoplanetary system. This is a young, dusty system with a Jupiter-massed planet orbiting at 〜3.4 AU (astronomical units). PICTURE sought to capture a direct, visible-light image of dust-scattered starlight in this system with the aid of a high-contrast nulling coronagraph. The design and laboratory testing of the PICTURE science payload is presented. Although the mission returned no science data, several important technological advances were made to enable future direct imaging missions. Most notably, PICTURE demonstrated 5.1 milliarcsecond pointing stability using a fast optical tracking system.

This series of poems documents the speaker’s experience working as a wilderness field guide for a substance abuse program in North Carolina. The poems explore what it looks like to work direct care and to hold responsibility for a group of women’s physical and emotional wellbeing. There is a secondary narrative that interrogates the speaker’s relationship to substances as well as the speaker’s father’s identity as a recovering alcoholic.

Education is the foundation for the future, and a successful education begins with strong literacy skills. The 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that only 36% of eighth-grade students in the United States were classified as reading on a proficient level, and 22% of eighth-grade students were unable to read and comprehend text at the basic level. The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental, post hoc analysis was to determine whether a difference existed in the change in test scores of the reading portion of the Criterion Referenced Competency Test from the 2011-2012 academic year to the 2012-2013 academic year for eighth-grade students who received differentiated instruction compared with those who received direct instruction. Using Vygotsky's constructivist learning theory as the framework, this study was built on existing research regarding adolescence and literacy, cooperative learning, scaffolding, direct instruction, and differentiated instruction. Archival CRCT data was collected for sixty-four students. 32 that were instructed with differentiated instruction and thirty-two that were instructed with direct instruction for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 academic years. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to determine which instructional pedagogy yielded higher academic results. Overall results revealed no significant difference in academic achievement when differentiated instructional pedagogy or direct instructional pedagogy was used for instruction. Implications for positive social change include providing research results to administrators at the local site to better inform pedagogical decisions at the school level. Recommendations to the local site include further research on other strategies to improve literacy achievement in secondary classrooms.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis examines the use of ballot initiatives at the state level to determine whether the presence of certain types of ballot initiatives cause an increase in voter turnout at the state level. This study is unique in that rather than focusing on individual level voting behavior to explain why an individual may or may not be more likely to vote with the inclusion of ballot initiatives, I focus on aggregate level data to answer the following questions: do certain types of ballot initiatives have an effect on voter turnout? If so, how large is the effect? Collecting data from all ballot initiatives that appeared in the United States from 1998-2014, my research disputes the conventional wisdom that ballot initiatives have any effect on voter turnout during a presidential election. However, my research shows a four percent increase in turnout when any initiative appears on the ballot and a nearly five percent increase in voter turnout when an initiative concerning same-sex marriage appeared on the ballot during a non-presidential year election.

This dissertation examines the involvement of political elites in direct legislation contests in the United States. In order to address this objective, this analysis proceeded by asking three questions. The first question addresses the level of political elites’ involvement. Using social media data, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of the dissertation focus on the involvement - defined as the endorsement of ballot propositions - of governors and state legislators. Using data extracted from the Twitter or Facebook profiles of 60 governors between 2012 and 2016 revealed that less than 10 percent of all measures were endorsed by state's chief executives. In addition, considering the official voter information guide printed by the Secretary of State, ballot campaign websites, coverage in two newspapers, and social media data shows that about 20 percent of all observations were endorsed by state legislators in at least one of the four platforms. With the aim of explaining the behavior of political elites, the second question asked in this research concerns the conditions that shape the behavior of political elites, and in particular, the involvement of governors and state legislators in direct legislation contests put on statewide ballots in recent years. With that goal in mind, I have built on previous work in direct legislation but also on executive and legislative politics to provide a theoretical framework. This framework emphasizes two general approaches. Policy and strategy are the two answers to the question of “Why do political elites get involved in direct legislation contests?” The analyses provide much support for my proposed general framework that political elites are strategic players, though not without important qualifications and reservations. Lastly, and addressing the consequences of their involvement, the third question asks: Does political elites’ involvement affect candidate elections? I assessed the impact of candidate positioning from two different perspectives. First, I examined aggregate-level voting behavior in California using vote returns from the 2014 elections. I found that Proposition 1, the salient water bond, did not play any role in moving counties to choose the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Despite the intense campaigning by Governor Jerry Brown in favor of the water bond, the aggregate-level results failed to find any priming effect of the measure on candidate choice. Secondly, using survey data, I examined the effect of two statewide ballot measures on the 2016 ballot in the Golden State and the endorsements of these propositions by two political elites on the vote for president and state senate. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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The purpose of this study was to determine if an individualized reading program, Accelerated Reader combined with the core reading program, Reading Mastery would produce a greater increase in oral reading fluency and grade level performance, than relying solely on the core reading program to accomplish this. Furthermore, this study sought to determine whether students with learning disabilities who were provided reading instruction through the Reading Mastery program and the Accelerated Reader program would demonstrate comparable growth in oral reading fluency and grade level performance on selected reading assessments (DIBELS and STAR Reading). This study looked at the differences in student performance between those who had been using Accelerated Reader since August 2014 versus those who began in January 2015. In this longitudinal study, 85 first grade students in a rural, southeastern state were assessed with the DIBELS (oral reading fluency) and STAR Reading (grade level equivalency) assessment during the fall, winter, and spring screenings. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance determined if there was a statistically significant difference between the fall and spring screenings of the STAR Reading assessment and the winter and spring screenings of the DIBELS assessment. Additionally, it determined if the oral reading fluency and grade level performance was statistically significantly different for students depending on whether they received special education services. The findings of this study revealed that when the Accelerated Reader program, is used with the Reading Mastery program, students statistically increase their oral reading fluency and grade level performance scores when instructed for 17 weeks and 34 weeks. However, the scores of the students who received 34 weeks improved more than the scores of students who only received it for 17 weeks. Additionally, scores of the students who did not receive special education services improved more than the scores of students who received special education services. Although the students who received special education services did not make the same increase in reading fluency and grade level performance, statistically significant within-person gains were still made for this student population, which increased their reading fluency and grade level performance.

The objective of this study is to identify differences in fully softened shear strength testing based on sample preparation technique and water source. Two sample preparation techniques were used, the blenderizing technique outlined in EM 1110-2-1906 and the hand disaggregation technique outlined in ASTM D 4318-10. The samples used for this study were clay shale samples from the Dallas, Texas area. The two water sources are groundwater and deionized water. Shear strength testing was conducted using a direct shear box. The clay shale Atterberg limits, shear strength, mineralogy, and water chemistry were analyzed to determine the effect on variations in the results.

Variable-rate technologies coupled with broadcast spray systems serve to reduce chemical inputs, misapplication of chemicals, and environmental pollution, thus improving profitability and sustainability. Sprayer variable rate control involves using pulse width modulation (PWM) solenoids and/or direct chemical injection to adjust the application rate. The objectives of this research were to: outfit a conventional broadcast sprayer with PWM and direct inject technologies; evaluate the accuracy of the PWM system to control application rate for strait line and turn segments; and characterize the direct injection system’s transport delay time. For the PWM evaluation, the mean flow rate and coefficient of variation of individual nozzles indicated consistent performance. For the direct injection evaluation, the manufacturer recommended plumbing scheme and injection point location resulted in unsatisfactory delay times, ranging from 105 to 150s for the 8 km h-1 (5 mph) speed and 60 to 90s for the 16 km h-1 (10 mph) speed.