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This study assesses whether parents' educational background positively affects the retention and graduation of African-American students who attend Predominately White Institutions (PWI). Studies that have compared successful African-American students to unsuccessful African-American college students at PWI (Allen, 1985) have suggested that an important factor in understanding these differences in outcome is parents' educational background. College-educated parents may have clearer expectations for their children's college experience and may have instilled different cultural or socialization messages in their children. Those messages could include Historical/Cultural, Black Identity/Self-Concept, Maladaptive, and Residual messages. These children may enter college with clearer ideas of college norms and expectations, and may have fewer adjustment and transition problems than first generation black peers (Pounds, 1987). The population of this study will consist of African-American respondents in the National Survey of Black Americans. / Master of Science

This paper investigates into the transmission cost of web services related messages which is affected by network latency. Web services enable seamless interaction and integration of e-business applications. Web services contain a collection of operations so as to interact with outside world over the Internet through XML messaging. Though XML effectively describe message related information and is fairly human readable, it badly affects the performance of Web services in terms of transmission cost, processing cost, and so on. This paper aims to minimize network latency of message communication of Web services by employing pre-emptive resume scheduling. Fundamental principle of this approach is the provision of preferential treatment to some messages as compared to others. This approach assigns different priorities to distinct classes of messages given the fact that some messages may tolerate longer delays than others. For instance, shorter messages may be given higher priority than longer messages, or the Web service provider may give higher priority to the messages of paying subscribers.

Static analysis tools can be used to help programmers identify problems in their code. However, these tools often assume that developers have some programming background knowledge, so they can be hard to use in an educational context. We investigated the most common FindBugs errors from student code submissions and determined those errors that were related to incorrect solutions to problems and potential struggling for students. FindBugs is a static analysis tool that looks for incorrect patterns in Java bytecode analysis to identify potential coding flaws. For the common errors, we rewrote some of the original FindBugs messages to help students more easily understand the problems with their code. We found that students with at least one FindBugs warning in their final submission to an assignment had more submissions, longer work times, and lower correctness scores than students who did not have a FindBugs warning in their final submission. Adding modified FindBugs feedback to the automated grader resulted in students making fewer submissions and decreasing the length of time required to complete assignments. / Master of Science / Professional software developers use automated tools when they code to help them catch potential coding problems. These tools are difficult for novice student programmers because they do not have the same level of background as professionals. In this work, we attempted to change the feedback given by these tools so that students could understand it and use it to fix their code. We found that, across all of the undergraduate courses in this study, FindBugs warnings were associated with students having more trouble with assignments. When students could see FindBugs warnings, their time to complete assignments and the number of attempts they made both went down.

Le modèle des Acteurs, introduit par HEWITT et AGHA à la fin des années 80, décrit un système concurrent comme un ensemble d'agents autonomes au comportement non uniforme et communiquant de façon point-à-point par l'envoi de messages étiquetés. Le calcul CAP, proposé par COLAÇO, est un calcul de processus basé sur ce modèle qui permet de décrire sans encodage complexe des systèmes réalistes non triviaux. Ce calcul permet, entre autre, la communication de comportements via les messages et est, en ce sens, un calcul d'ordre supérieur. L'analyse de propriétés sur ce calcul a déjà fait l'objet de plusieurs travaux, essentiellement par inférence de type en utilisant des types comportementaux et du sous-typage.<br /> Par ailleurs, des travaux plus récents, effectués par VENET puis FERET, proposent une utilisation de l'interprétation abstraite pour l'analyse de calculs de processus. Ces approches permettent de calculer des propriétés non uniformes : elles permettent, par exemple, de différencier les instances récursives d'un même processus.<br /> Cette thèse s'inscrit donc dans la suite de ces deux approches, en appliquant l'interprétation abstraite à l'analyse de CAP. Suivant le cadre proposé par FERET, CAP est, tout d'abord, exprimé dans une forme non standard facilitant les analyses. L'ensemble des configurations atteignables est ensuite sur-approximé via une représentation, correcte par construction, dans des domaines abstraits.<br /> Des domaines abstraits généraux sont ensuite introduits afin d'améliorer les analyses existantes ou de représenter des propriétés locales à un sous-terme.<br /> Des propriétés spécifiques à CAP, la linéarité des termes et l'absence de messages orphelins, sont alors étudiées dans ce cadre. Des domaines spécifiques sont définis et utilisés pour vérifier ces propriétés. Le cadre présenté permet de lever toutes les restrictions existantes des analyses précédentes quant à la forme des termes ou l'utilisation du passage de comportement.<br /> L'intégralité des analyses présentées a été implantée dans un prototype.

abstract: Wildlife endangerment and extinction is a significant and pressing issue. Environmental research notes that if humans hope to preserve wildlife, change needs to occur within the next decade. Therefore, it is important to understand the kinds of messages young adults are receiving about wildlife. This communication may affect their attitudes, beliefs, and ideals toward nature. Communication and socialization remain significant factors in cultivating environmental values in individuals. Memorable messages remain a socialization tool utilized to promote values in others. This study explores the kinds of wildlife messages and underlying values individuals receive by asking them to recall a memorable wildlife message. The study analyzed 108 memorable messages from individuals between the ages of 18-35. The study employs a content analysis to examine message content and values. The study employed sensitizing concepts, such as Stern's Value-Belief-Norm theory to examine the messages’ underlying values, such as altruism and progressivism. Results indicate messages revolve around themes of preservation, stewardship, sanctity, domestication, and complexity of conservation. Of the 108 messages, 66 messages conveyed altruistic and progressive values as defined by Stern while other messages conveyed appreciation, awareness, and dominative values. Additionally, wildlife messages were received mostly through mediated sources. Implications for parents, the media, and wildlife are explored. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Communication Studies 2016

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Mobile telephones are impacting societies around the world and text messaging, short type-written messages sent via mobile phones, has also garnered international research efforts. Research demonstrates that text messages are being used primarily to commence, advance, maintain or otherwise impact interpersonal relationships. The present study probes relational benefits of text messaging within familial and fraternal contexts. Specifically, the study seeks to answer the research question: How does text messaging impact feelings of “connectedness” (IJsselsteijn, van Baren & van Lanen, 2003, p. 928) within “strong-tie” (Howard, et. al., 2006), dyadic relationships? Findings from nineteen respondent interviews show that texting becomes a channel through which dialectical tensions in relationships are played out. Respondents use texting to both assert autonomy and to maintain connectedness with relational partners. Several participants noted that financial issues were an important consideration but nevertheless subscribed to texting services. Users also perceived texting as more constant and more private than mobile voice interaction. Romantic pairs vis-à-vis non-romantic dyads perceived the benefits of text messages differently.

In the early 1990’s more and more companies of the Swedish public sector were exposed to competition, and this started the debate on how such actions might affect the business and even society. The first chapter examines how the public sector and especially health care, is financed and managed. We also explore what it means to be exposed to competition and find that there are many different ways of exposing the public sector to competition. The study examines dental care as an example of a market with both publicly and privately owned companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore how publicly and privately owned health care companies view their relationship with their consumers. The question that this paper seeks to answer is: "Are there any differences between publicly and privately owned dental care companies in how they communicate with their consumers?" Communication in this study refers to planned communication such as advertisement and websites, as well as the message the consumer receives when interacting with the product or service that is delivered. Two dental care companies in the city of Stockholm are examined in this comparative case study, one is owned by the public sector and one is a privately owned company. This paper concludes that publicly and privately owned dental care companies communicate with their consumers in slightly different ways. Privately owned dental care companies include their employees and use word of mouth in their communication to a higher extent than dental care companies owned by public sector. We suggest that this could mean that privately owned companies view their consumers as customers who need to be convinced, whereas publicly owned companies are more informative in their communication suggesting they view their consumers more like patients who need to be educated. Because unplanned communication was not examined in this study, this is suggested as a future field of research, to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between consumer and company.

On the one hand, time-honored practices of open outcry, bazaar and other flea markets, as well as Sotheby's and Christie's, the traditional auction houses. On the other hand, the Internet technology quickly and cheaply connects people anywhere in the world at anytime. A true love story then began and gave rise to online auctions, which are undoubtedly one of the greatest successes of e-commerce. Thanks to the Internet, individual consumers, average people, generally used to posted prices, discover an efficient mechanism of price setting. The weak popularity of auctions until the dawn of the third millennium (auctions were intended to B2B transactions, or to B2C transactions but in specific markets, such as the art market) certainly justifies the lack of interest of researchers in marketing for this mechanism. On the other hand, economists made auctions one of their favorite topics, as this mechanism constitutes a wonderful application of game theory, which has been playing a preponderant role in economics for twenty-five years. Entitled “Essays on Online Auction Design and Bidding Behavior”, this doctoral dissertation helps enrich the traditional economic approach of auctions by a behavioral and dynamic approach. The original part of the research is structured in three main stages, which go deeper and deeper in the study of bidders' behavior and auction dynamics. The whole research is based on online auctions organized by the French airline company Air France and by the auction site eBay. In the first stage of the research, on the basis of hypotheses coming from the auction theory, the impact of auction rules on bidders’ participation and seller's revenue is econometrically studied, using simultaneous equations models and the 2SLS method. Does a high opening bid have a negative effect on the number of bidders and a positive one on the auction revenue, as predicted by the auction theory? Do sequential auctions of similar items lead to similar auction price? These are examples of questions that are investigated. While the auction theory literature typically takes the number of bidders as exogenously given, we chose to consider it as endogenous. Even though an increasing number of researchers acknowledge the endogenous feature of auction participation, no empirical study really takes this feature into account. Hypotheses from the auction theory turn out to be confirmed, as far as the minimum bid and the number of bidders are concerned. Interesting results are found regarding the performance of sequential auctions of similar items, since auctions in a sequence turn out to yield increasing revenues. Furthermore, the impact of the starting bid turns out to be moderated by the effect of these sequential auctions. In the second stage of this research, a disaggregated perspective (at the bidder’s level) is adopted, since a typology of bidding behaviors based on bidders' choices is built. This part is thus aimed at investigating whether heterogeneity exists in bidder’s behavior in online auctions, contrary to the longstanding assumption of homogenous, rational and strategic bidders made by the auction theory. A clustering analysis is conducted, based on decisions that bidders have to make during an auction, whose keywords are certainly: when? How? How much? For example: do bidders submit a small or a large number of bids? Do they react quickly when they lose auction leadership? When do they make their bids: at the beginning of the auction, at the end of it, or during the whole auction? What increment do they use? Results, based on two different samples related to Air France and eBay auctions provide a description of different bidding behaviors. The analysis focusing on Air France auctions highlights five types of bidding behavior: jump bidders, rational bidders, active bidders, bottom fishers and pioneers. Slightly different results are obtained for eBay auctions, since six types of bidding behavior are highlighted: snipers, evaluators, unmasking bidders, bottom fishers, pioneers and late pioneers. A closer look is given to the group of bidders who turned out to win an auction, in order to determine whether these bidders are characterized by specific bidding decisions, and thus, by specific bidding behaviors. The third stage focuses on the dynamic bidding process of an English auction, by specifically studying the impact of signals – namely, promotional messages – sent during an online auction on the final auction price. It proposes to test a model of the genesis and the impact of these messages aimed at informing current bidders and potential bidders about the item or urging them to submit a bid. This impact is modeled through a disaggregated and dynamic model. It exploits the recent behavioral view that each bid submitted by a bidder in an English auction is a particular decision that may be influenced by signals sent by the auctioneer during the auction, that is, between the decisions that the bidder makes. This model simultaneously takes into account the following three factors: (i) the direct impact of marketing messages on the auction price when messages affect bidders’ valuations, (ii) the indirect impact of messages on this price when messages attract a new bidder to the auction, and (iii) the possibility that the auctioneer’s strategy for sending messages depends on past events in the auction and on the timing of past messages. In this model, we thus propose that messages influence final auction prices through a dual-path system. The model also reflects an important feature of auction messages, which is the real time interactivity between the auctioneer and auction participants. The results, obtained through Bayesian inference, support the proposed model. This doctoral dissertation globally helps better understand bidders’ behavior in view of the rules set by the seller, and estimate how this seller can maximize his/her revenues. The main original aspects of this research consist in considering the English auction as a dynamic process and in focusing on bidders’ behavior, these two elements being ignored by economists. From a managerial point of view, this research can help online auction designers to better design their auctions in order to maximize their revenue.