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This paper considers whether the implementation of an international draft by Major League Baseball (MLB) will be possible. Over the last five years, the MLB has increasingly placed more stringent limitations on international spending, which has limited the bargaining power of international free agents. Many in the international market believe that the agreement between the MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) during the 2016 Collective Bargaining (CBA) negotiations are progressing towards an international draft, which would have a crippling effect on the future of baseball in many foreign countries. This paper is focused on the countries that stand to suffer the most should an international draft be implemented: the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Cuba. Currently there is little reliable research on this topic. Based on extensive research and interviews with both current and former international scouts, MLB baseball operations personnel, and employees working in the Labor Department in the MLB Commissioner’s Office, this paper suggests that while the MLB maintains that an international draft will be implemented in upcoming collective bargaining agreements, the obstacles in implementing an international draft will prove to be insurmountable.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / In the Dominican Republic (DR) the development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in rural areas is of great importance because SMEs generate employment and increase local capacity in areas with the highest poverty rates in the country. Ultimately, SME development can contribute to poverty alleviation especially in rural areas. Micro-enterprise training as a form of capacity development initiatives aim at effective empowerment of entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs, which allow them to build capacities to develop their business. These capacities will enhance their ability to ensure sustainability of decisions that influence their quality of life. So far, very little research has been conducted on the precise effects and overall effectiveness of SME-related training in the Dominican Republic. Against this background, it is of great benefit to evaluate impacts of micro-enterprise training initiatives on the development of SMEs in rural DR, in order to find out which factors stimulate the creation and growth of enterprises and which factors hinder their development. This allows effective adjustments of future support initiatives in the development sector and it contributes to the existing empirical evidence base in this field. This study applies Human Capital Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour as theoretical frameworks to analyze impacts of micro-enterprise training on SME development. Secondary data for this study was drawn from the Dominican tourism-project La Ruta del Cacao, applying a mixed-method approach for the data collection. Quantitative research methods in the form of a semi-structured questionnaire helped to quantify the impacts of provided micro-enterprise training. Qualitative methods in the form of Focus Group Discussions allowed an in-depth analysis of training impacts on respondents, with the aim of identifying influencing factors, especially those which the theoretical framework may not have covered. The theoretical discussion of this study identified that entrepreneurial intentions are mediated by the attitude toward entrepreneurship, perceived subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. The empirical results show that the provided training is likely to have slightly improved the participants attitude towards enterprise creation. Perceived subjective norms have not decreased due to the training and appear not to have played a role in the participants decision to start or not start a business. The participants perceived behavioural control is not likely to have increased due to the training. On the other hand, results indicate that the training provided participants with useful entrepreneurship-related skills and knowledge. Overall, the participants entrepreneurial intentions slightly improved as a result of the training. However, the impact of these outputs on SME development was rather modest. Identified external factors which influenced the participants entrepreneurial behaviour were a lack of capital, job loss, having a family to take care of, being part of an entrepreneurial family and the existence of an entrepreneurial role model. Intrinsic characteristics were identified as the most influential in demonstrating successful entrepreneurial behaviour and SME creation. The findings of this research contribute firstly to the existing evidence base of micro-enterprise training impacts in rural Dominican Republic. In addition, the findings contribute to the literature base on applications of both Human Capital Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour in the field of entrepreneurship education.

My dissertation examines second generation Dominican high school students and their parents in a diverse, middle-class suburb. At a moment when immigrant families are arriving directly to suburban locations, and the number of second generation immigrants in our public schools is growing, it is important to examine how they are making sense of their experiences in this new context. In my study, I consider how one sub-group of Latinx high school students, with at least one parent born in the Dominican Republic, are experiencing a new place. Specifically, I look at their experiences within their community, school and family influence their assimilation processes, their ideas about future success, and the role of education in reaching that success. I also explore how the parents’ experiences in this community inform their definitions of success for their children and the role that education plays in achieving it, and how those beliefs affect their children. I examine the parents’ accounts through in-depth interviews and the students’ accounts through pre and post in-depth interviews two years apart, as well as photo elicitation interviews. I found that the location of this suburb, adjacent to an ethnic enclave, provides a context that supports the process of selective acculturation, whereby the students are learning English and American customs while also developing and maintaining their Dominican cultural practices, including speaking Spanish. I also uncovered nuances to their understanding of the role of education in securing future success, through the use of open-ended questions. I found that the students with college-educated parents were more cautious about believing in the American Dream, and the idea that education guarantees success. Despite this, all of the families in the study approached education in similar ways, a style typically attributed to low-income families. And lastly, I found that the families lacked the social and cultural capital to gain educational advantages, specifically in the college application process. My study challenges the assumption that immigrant families arriving to middle-class suburbs are equipped to take advantage of the resources that their place of residence can afford them. Living in this type of place signals an achievement of the American Dream, but we have to question whether their children will be able to maintain it.

The diploma thesis Specifics of the business environment in the Dominican Republic and possibilities of the extension of cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic brings detailed view on the business environment of that developing country. The business environment is investigated by the PEST analysis, the political and legal environment, the economic environment, the social and cultural environment and the technical environment. Strengths, weaknesses of the country and opportunities and threats for potencial entrepreneurs are assessed by the SWOT analysis. The mutual business cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic is subject of the last part of my thesis. The mutual institutions and treaties are presented and possibilites of the extension of cooperation between two countries are proposed based on the investigation in the czech travel agencies and entrepreneurs experienced in this territory.

acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Ariel Tusa

The Flagellum haereticorum fascinariorum (The Scourge of Heretical Bewitchers) was written by the Dominican inquisitor Nicolas Jacquier in 1458. Jacquier wrote the text to combat a sect of diabolical witches, the fascinarii, who worshipped demons at nocturnal “synagogues” and performed terrible crimes with demonic aid. The Flagellum was also aimed at those who did not believe in the physical reality of the sect or of interactions between humans and demons. This thesis, the first English-language work to examine the Flagellum in detail, traces Jacquier’s argument and endeavours to understand how his text was shaped within, and also helped shape, the cultural structures of late-medieval Burgundy. / Jacquier’s argument can be loosely divided into four parts. The first section defines the ways in which demons relate to humans, concluding that demons can act to delude humans both within the body, and through real, bodily interaction in the external world. The second section attacks the argument, based on the famous Canon Episcopi, that the fascinarii are simply deluded spiritually by the interior manipulation of demons. The reality of a demonworshiping sect raised questions about God’s omnipotence and benevolence. The Flagellum’s third part therefore elaborates a theology of divine permission based on the metaphor of the scourge to argue that God justly permits demonic action in the world. The final chapters of the tract turn to the legal dilemmas raised by the fascinarii. Jacquier argues that the fascinarii freely choose to sin and addresses difficulties associated with the possibility of demonic interference in witness statements. / Alongside my description of Jacquier’s argument, I have endeavoured to situate the Flagellum within the cultural structures of late-medieval Burgundy. I examine how the Flagellum can be read alongside a tale from the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles to reveal tropes of demonic deception within fifteenth-century Burgundian courtly texts. I explore the possibilities of interpreting the Flagellum’s treatment of gender within the Dominican reform movement, with its focus on external and communal piety. I interpret the symbolic language of the scourge and trampling within Christian cultural structures of redemption through abasement. Setting the tract in dialogue with fifteenth century Burgundian art, I begin the task of understanding the ways in which time is organised within the Flagellum through an examination of scholastic epistemology. Finally, I situate arguments about the fascinarii and free will within debates over free will and determinism. The result of these discussions is an appreciation of the Flagellum’s immersion in interrelated cultural structures of bodily reality, sight, time and knowledge. / Through this analysis, I locate the study of witchcraft within a wider cultural history, uniting the interpretation of Burgundian art, literature and theology with an intensive study of the Flagellum.

Globalization and the rise of the Information Society pose many challenges to developing nations. In adherence to the Millennium Development Goal of digital inclusion, the government of the Dominican Republic established a national program of community technology centers, or telecenters, that aim to promote digital literacy among the poor. This study examined how these telecenters promote the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and tested whether perceived structural factors, individual motivation or demographics predict adoption. Results from a survey conducted in the rural villages of El Seybo, Navarrete, and Oviedo confirm that telecenter users learn how to use information and communication technologies as a resource for information about civic life, entertainment, and professional development. The study concludes that telecenters can succeed in decreasing digital poverty, provided issues of sustainability are addressed with consistent and continued government funding and support. The field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) is in its infancy and has yet to develop strong methodological or theoretical standards. This study of ICT adoption and telecenter use in rural areas of the Caribbean contributes empirical evidence to the literature of this emerging discipline.

This paper endeavors to examine the mechanisms by which the crown of France was able to subsume the region of Languedoc in the wake of the Albigensian Crusade in the thirteenth century. The systematic use of Catholic doctrine and an inquisition run by the Dominican Order of Preachers allowed France to dominate the populace of the region and destroy any indigenous social, economic, and political structures.

<p>This dissertation explores how the combination of pious practice, economic activity, and religious poverty shaped the architecture of the mendicants in medieval Verona. It also examines how the presence of the friars affected the city. By the thirteenth century, the populated centers of northern Italy were fertile grounds for heretical movements, religious skepticism, and anti-clerical attitudes. The mendicant orders developed as a response to the crisis of the medieval church in the city and provided a new concept of the religious vocation, one committed to voluntary poverty and the conversion of heretics. The most important representatives of the new orders were the Franciscans and Dominicans, who centered their religious mission in an urban context where the growth of commerce and a literate and numerate middle class required a new approach to pastoral care, one that directly addressed both doctrinal and social issues. The friars revolutionized traditional religious practice: they used exterior sites as extensions of liturgical space and their innovative approach to church architecture emphasized function and utility.</p><p>Existing studies on mendicant building have traditionally emphasized the formal characteristics of the monuments, examining churches in isolation, with little concern for context, use, and sequence of construction. This dissertation moves beyond this approach to consider the broader circumstances that frame the appearance of mendicant houses. It examines how the Franciscan church of S. Fermo Maggiore, the Dominican church of S. Anastasia, and their respective communities, responded to the dynamics of urban Verona. The study includes revised construction narratives and new dates for S. Fermo and S. Anastasia that emphasize the <italics>process<italics> of construction--how the friars approached their building projects--and the role of lay patronage in the configuration of architectural space. As research reveals, the friars began to erect their conventual complexes before instigating construction or reconstruction of the churches themselves, and this sequence had significant implications for how the friars used the spaces in and around their convent for preaching and liturgical celebrations. They planned or reconfigured their architectural space to both appeal to and accommodate the lay public and their pious practices, including sermon attendance, burial, and the veneration of local saints. Modifications to the exterior spaces around the convents likewise indicate their liturgical importance. By investigating the specific interactions between the mendicants and the city of Verona, this dissertation explores how the architecture of the friars expressed aspects of the society in which they operated.</p> / Dissertation