Procedural justice research in the field of criminal justice and policing have investigated how perceptions of procedural justice during police-citizen encounters influence satisfaction with police, cooperation with police, perceptions of police effectiveness, and perceptions of police authority. In general these studies have investigated police-initiated encounters, police-suspect encounters, and to a lesser degree, police-victim encounters. Limited research exits perceptions of police-citizen encounters during calls for service, and even less regarding police-domestic violence victim encounters. The present study investigates this relationship of procedural justice and domestic violence victims' satisfaction with police processes during a call for service, police actions during calls for service, and domestic violence victims' willingness to seek help from police in the future. The sample study for the present research comes from a 1994-1995 victim survey distributed in New York and Texas. Results from this study suggest that perceptions of procedural justice do influence domestic violence victims' satisfaction and willingness to seek help in the future.

abstract: Perceptions of legitimacy are an important antecedent of rule-abiding behavior. However, most research on the link between legitimacy and compliance has focused on legal authorities (i.e., police, courts, and corrections). To help fill this gap, the present study investigates the relationship between students' perceptions of the legitimacy of institutional authority and compliance with a code of conduct in a university context. This study uses cross-sectional data from pencil-and-paper surveys administered to 517 individuals 18 years and older that were enrolled in 12 undergraduate classes at a large southwestern university. Results from the multivariate regression models show that procedural justice judgments are associated with perceived legitimacy. The evidence also supports the link between legitimacy and compliance in that the former is inversely related to students' behavioral intentions to cheat on an exam. However, legitimacy was not significantly associated with plagiarism. Overall, findings support the application of the process-based model of regulation to the university context in regards to academic misconduct. In addition to contributing to the process-based model literature, this study emphasizes the utility of the process-based model as a guide for the development of fair processes, in order to reduce the prevalence of student academic misconduct. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Criminology and Criminal Justice 2015

abstract: Prior research looking at procedural justice has largely focused on legal authorities, such as the police. There is a gap in the research regarding the influence of procedurally-just treatment of other criminal justice professionals, including 911 operators. These individuals are often the first contact citizens have when initiating police services, and it is likely that 911 operators set the stage for how police encounters with the public unfold. Using a factorial vignette design, this study tests the causal links between procedural injustice and several outcome measures, including cooperation, satisfaction, callback likelihood, and willingness to testify in court. Data from a university-based sample (n=488) were used to estimate a series of ordinal regression models. The results show that participants who received the injustice stimuli were generally less likely to report they would call 911 in the future, cooperate with the 911 operator if asked additional questions, cooperate with the police once they arrived on the scene, and had lower levels of satisfaction with the how the operator handled the call. These results were significant across two different scenarios (i.e., breaking and entering and traffic accident). Seriousness of the encounter also varied across these outcomes, but the magnitude of the effect was more modest. The results demonstrate the effect non-sworn personnel, such as 911 operators, can have on the outcome of police-citizen encounters. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Criminology and Criminal Justice 2018

abstract: Procedural justice serves a critical role in the interactions between criminal justice system actors and their clientele. Much of the literature in this area focuses on policing, and we know comparatively less about how procedural justice operates in corrections. Much like policing, it is likely that perceptions of correctional procedural justice vary within larger contexts. Using structured interviews with inmates (N=248) in Arizona at max, close, and medium custody, this study examines the association between conditions of confinement and perceptions of procedural justice, with a focus on how personality characteristics may modify this relationship. Results indicate that custody level does impact inmate perceptions of correctional officer procedural justice and that certain personality traits serve as protective or aggravating factors within the relationship between custody level and procedural justice. Policy implications and future research are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Criminology and Criminal Justice 2018

Magister Legum - LLM / Corruption is rampant in Tanzania. It is one of the major obstacles to the economic growth and sustainability of the country. The country loses a huge amount of money through corrupt practices. It is estimated that 20% of the national budget is lost to corruption annually. In recent years, Tanzania experienced grand corruption scandals which involved senior public officials and high political leaders. Between 2005 and 2006, 22 companies stole 133 billion Tanzanian shillings, the equivalent of$96 million, from the External Payment Arrears Account facility at the Central Bank of Tanzania. The discovery of this theft led to the investigation and prosecution of a number of perpetrators, including big businessmen and senior officers of the Central Bank of Tanzania. However, hitherto no assets have been traced and recovered from the offenders, save a handful of money which was paid back by a few perpetrators on condition that they would not be prosecuted. Furthermore, in 2008 a government minister by the name of Andrew Chenge was forced to resign after he allegedly was implicated in taking a bribe of $1 million from the British company, BAE Systems, in relation to a $40 million radar deal. Sources disclosed that Chenge deposited the alleged bribe money in one of his offshore accounts, but this money has not been recovered by the state. In response to the corruption problem, Tanzania enacted various anti-corruption laws. These laws include the Anti-Money Laundering Act (2006), the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act (2007), the Proceeds of Crime Act (1991) and the National Prosecutions Service Act (2007). These laws contain provisions for the confiscation of proceeds of crime as one means of combating economic crimes. However, grand corruption persists in the country and only a few stolen assets have been confiscated to date. It is on this account that this study is exploring confiscation procedures in Tanzania.

Magister Legum - LLM / The fragmented approach of provinces in the use of legislation and policies, coupled with the uncertainty of key terms in the context of section 139(1) of the Constitution, have resulted in provincial executives not being consistent or not always complying with the use of the steps necessary for interventions in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution. In order to assess the impact of the fragmented approach and uncertainties on how provincial executives apply the above mentioned steps, this study answers eight questions designed to test the way in which provincial executives applied the aforementioned steps and the effectiveness of the use of aforementioned interventions. The assessment is based on the tallies from the answers to the eight questions, and the grouping of these answers in accordance with the tallies. Each of the three main groups characterises how the relevant provincial executives applied the steps necessary for the use of interventions in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution for the last five years. The fourth group assesses the effectiveness of such interventions. The answers are derived from the data relating to the notices to the Minister and NCOP, and complemented by the progress reports from the Minister and NCOP. The findings of the four groupings are as follows: the first group presented the steps which present no difficulty in terms of compliance; the second group presented the steps which provincial executives mostly complied with but which at times present some difficulty; and the third group presented those steps which are problematic. The fourth group determined that the effectiveness of the role of provinces in the use of interventions in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution is questionable due to the repetition and duration of a number of interventions. In order to address the issue of non-compliance by provincial executives with the steps necessary for the use of interventions, the study recommends the drafting of legislation and formulation of clear policy guidelines which will ensure a consistent, coherent and uniform approach when invoking interventions.

Procedural Content Generation (PCG) has become one of the hottest topics in Computational Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence (AI) game research in the past few years. PCG is the process of automatically creating content for video games, rather than by hand, and can offer great benefits for video games companies by helping to bring costs down and quality up. By guiding the process with AI it can be enhanced further and even be made to personalize content for target players. Among the current research into PCG, search-based approaches overwhelmingly dominate. While search-based algorithms have been shown to have great promise and produce several success stories there are a number of open challenges remaining. In this thesis, we present the Learning-Based Procedural Content Generation (LBPCG) framework, which is an alternative, novel approach designed to address some of these challenges. The major difference between the LBPCG framework and contemporary approaches is that the LBPCG is designed to learn about the problem space, freeing itself from the necessity for hard-coded information by the game developers. In this thesis we apply the LBPCG to a concrete example, the classic first-person shooter Quake, and present results showing the potential of the framework in generating quality content.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational variables (procedural justice, transformational leadership, job satisfaction, identification with leader, organizational commitment) and prosocial behaviors (Organizational Citizenship Behaviors) as well as harmful behaviors (Counterproductive Work Behaviors). Previous research treats OCB and CWB as two ends of a spectrum, with the assumption that individuals that engage in one kind of behavior refrain from the other. However, the present study aimed to examine intricate relationships between organizational variables to show that individuals can engage in both types of behavior, even in the same day. This is due to the intentionality and direction of targeted behaviors. Specifically, OCBs and CWBs can be targeted at individuals or at the organization as a whole. A structural equation model was used to explain the complex relationships between these variables. Specifically, it was hypothesized that procedural justice is positively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment, which in turn influence both OCB and CWB. Additionally, transformational leadership was hypothesized to be positively associated with job satisfaction, identification with leader, and organizational commitment. Approximately 300 participants were recruited from two sources (one public health and one online panel) to participate in the online web survey. Findings from the present study indicate that both identification with leader and organizational commitment mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. Organizational commitment also mediated the relationship between procedural justice and OCB. Finally, similar to the OCB outcomes, identification with leader mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and CWB; however, unlike the outcomes with OCB, organizational commitment did not predict CWB. Results from this study identify key factors such as transformational leadership, identification with the leader and organizational commitment on which organizations could focus in predicting the behaviors they desire and discouraging behaviors that are harmful.

Open-world video games give players a large environment to explore along with increased freedom to navigate and manipulate that environment. These requirements pose several problems that must be addressed by a game's graphics engine. Often there are a large number of visible objects, such as all of the trees in a forest, as well as objects comprised of large amounts of geometry, such as terrain. An open-world graphics engine must be able to render large environments at varying levels of detail and smoothly transition between detail levels to provide a believable experience. Often this involves finding a way to both store and generate the large amounts of geometry that represent the environment. In this thesis we present a system for generating and rendering large exterior environments, with a focus on terrain and vegetation. We use a region-based procedural generation algorithm to create environments of varying types. This algorithm produces content that can be rendered at multiple levels of detail. The terrain is rendered volumetrically to support caves, overhangs, and cliffs, but is also rendered using heightmaps to allow for large view distances. Vegetation is implemented using procedurally generated meshes and impostors. The volumetric terrain is editable in real time, which limits our ability to pre-generate or cache large amounts of geometry, and also limits the number of assumptions we can make with regard to visibility. We support a view distance of at least 25 miles in each direction, though distant objects are rendered at low resolution. The heightmap terrain used to achieve this view distance consists of over 360,000 triangles. Our system runs at 180 frames per second on commodity desktop hardware.

When pediatric patients are admitted to the inpatient or outpatient hospital setting they potentially have to endure procedures that cause pain, fear, and anxiety which can have a lifelong impact on the child's response to future healthcare needs. The purpose of this project was to create a comprehensive program proposal for a nitrous oxide sedation program to minimize those perceptions towards medical procedures. The project utilized a systematic review of literature and secondary data to address the most important indicators for developing a comprehensive program proposal to present to the pediatric leadership team. Multiple studies have shown nitrous oxide having an excellent safety profile in the pediatric population while providing an almost pain and anxiety free procedure. The program proposal will be used to improve pain and anxiety management for pediatric patients requiring procedures such as intravenous access, venipuncture, voiding cystourethrograms, lumbar puncture, bone marrow biopsy, port-a-cath access, PICC line insertion, dressing changes, chest tubes, and wound care. Key stakeholders and content experts were brought together to create the nitrous oxide program proposal which included a new practice guideline, a comprehensive policy and procedure for nitrous oxide administration, and an education plan. The program proposal included other key components necessary for a safe and efficient program such as a pre-assessment to determine if the child is a candidate, monitoring and documentation of nitrous oxide administration, and education for the child/parent(s). The nitrous oxide program for pediatrics was designed as a minimal sedation method to minimize procedural pain, fear, and anxiety in children where medical procedures are a necessary part of treatment.