This study contributes to the existing knowledge about the history of Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) legislation passed into law by the 102nd United States Congress by investigating how individuals and organizations in support of Hispanic higher education worked within and outside the federal political process between 1979 and 1992. By drawing from theoretical frameworks rooted in the historical and policy analysis fields, this study utilizes historiographical methods to situate the HSI policy formation period within the larger social and political context of the time. The Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Entrepreneurship theory serve as policymaking models that deepen the understanding of the efforts of Hispanic higher education proponents during this policy formation period. / text

This dissertation addresses the development of Nuevomexicano/a student identity at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) during three periods: (1) New Mexico's Territorial period and early statehood, (2) the 1940s, and (3) the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nuevomexicano/a student identity was shaped through a process of accommodating to and resisting institutional powers. Since 1898, Nuevomexicano/a students have been active members of the university community, despite periods when they constituted a small portion of the student body and the institution's frequent disregard for Nuevomexicano/a culture and language. As they participated in campus activities, Nuevomexicano/as reconstructed their individual and collective identities, appropriating terms such as Spanish or Chicano/a, as a rhetorical strategy to revise their relationships with the university. Extralocal institutions, including government institutions, national protest movements, and international organizations shaped public conversations about cultural identity. During the first two periods, students employed subtle strategies of resistance that included presenting speeches and reorganizing student government. Often labeled as accommodationist, these strategies represent viable rhetorical strategies that provided students access to dominant literacies, which were used to promote social change. In the 1970s, Chicano/a students utilized more aggressive practices, such as a weeklong sit-in, to radically alter the institutional culture at NMHU. In the forty years since the sit-in, NMHU has developed into a university that supports its Nuevomexicano/a students and incorporates elements of their culture into the university's social fabric.

An under representation of Latino/as in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) still persists. In Rising Above the Gathering Storm , the National Academies sounded an alarm in response to data indicating a "troubling decline" in the number of U.S. citizens trained to become scientists and engineers at a time when the number of technical jobs is outpacing the rate of the U.S. workforce. The shrinking technical talent pipeline threatens the country's future in technology innovation, energy alternatives, national security, and education. This study purported to contextualize resilience and discern the cultural capital and persistence behaviors of STEM Latino/a students succeeding in two adverse environments--higher education and science and engineering. Through a critical race perspective the student cuentos were thematically analyzed. Student narratives were then triangulated with the narrative of the researcher--a Mexican American, first-generation college student, who pursued a life science bachelor's degree through the two institutions in this study. The theoretical framework was guided by Critical Race Theory, Resiliency, Persistence Theory, and Social Construction of Technology. The study consisted of a pilot survey and narrative inquiry. The survey contained pilot questions on the use and perception of information technologies in STEM education. The narrative inquiry was guided by critical race that enabled both positionality and storytelling through narratives and counter-narratives. Twenty-two Latino/a graduating seniors majoring in the biological sciences or engineering/engineering technology at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and a Predominantly-White Institution (PWI) in Texas were recruited. The narratives of these students were collected through one-time, semi-structured interviews during the last semester of their studies. Results from the study indicate that these Latino/a STEM students are conscious of their ethnicity; however, they are not critically conscious of the master narrative of what it means to be a Latino/a in a STEM discipline. These students have bought into the master narrative of colorblind science and engineering. The students understood that to succeed in STEM, they had to survive based on their proficiency with institutional norms, practices and cultures and then maintain a sense of self through a respect for their Latino culture.

Obesity, the second leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., and related health problems increase people’s concerns about healthy food consumption. The increased prevalence of obesity is a major concern of societies both in developed and developing countries. Nutrition label usage has been increasing due to the link between diet and health. This study intends to provide a framework for describing profiles of consumers who are more likely to use nutrition labels in USA and Turkey, a developing country with increasing obesity rates in recent years. Empirical results present similarities and differences between consumers’ attributes for food label usage in two countries. The main contribution of this study is to investigate the relationship between the importance of serving size, while the number of expanded portion sized products in the market is increasing, and rising obesity rates. Ordered probit model analysis is used to identify the effects of demographics, health status and other components of the nutrition facts panel on selected dependent variables. Better understanding consumers’ responses to nutrition labels may guide consumers and manufacturers to broaden the communication channels through nutrition labels. The findings of this study can provide useful information to policy makers, agribusinesses, manufacturers and marketing professionals.

De senaste åren har den internationella turismen ökat explosionsartat och den förväntas fortsätta öka på samma vis. Detta medför både positiv och negativ påverkan på destinationen och för lokalbefolkningen. För att turismen skall vara långsiktigt hållbar är det viktigt att inbegripa turisternas perspektiv på destinationspåverkan. Tidigare forskning har främst varit fokuserad på lokalbefolkningens syn på turismen, och därför behövs vidare forskning från turisternas synvinkel. Föreliggande uppsats har som syfte att undersöka hur svenska turister uppfattar destinationspåverkan inom de tre hållbarhetssfärerna ekonomi, sociokultur och ekologi. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att undersöka eventuella skillnader i upplevelser mellan de två turistgrupperna massturister och alternativturister. Undersökningen har gjorts med hjälp av en enkätundersökning administrerad på Internet. Enkäten har spridits på sociala medier med hjälp av ett snöbollsurval som avser spegla diverse varianser i populationen. Teorierna Social Exchange Theory och Self-Serving Bias har använts för att beskriva turism och turisters aktioner. Resultaten har analyserats statistiskt i programmet SPSS, genom att göra T-Test. Resultatet visar att turisterna anser att den ekonomiska påverkan från den allmänna turismen är positiv, medan den ekologiska påverkan är negativ och på det sociokulturella planet finns en bred spridning mellan positivt och negativt. De uppfattar också sin egen resa som positivt ekonomiskt och sociokulturellt men den ekologiska sfären anses inte påverkas speciellt mycket av deras egen resa. Vidare redovisas mycket svaga skillnader mellan olika turisttypers svar om destinationspåverkan, däremot tydliga skillnader i uppfattning om sin egen resa i förhållande till den allmänna turismen.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of 15 Latina lesbian students and their perceived sexual identity development at a predominately Hispanic-serving Institution (HSI). Participants for this study were purposefully selected using criteria, convenience, and snowball sampling. Using a conceptual framework comprised of the four tenets consistent across the spectrum of all sexual identity development models, participants’ experiences were described, analyzed, and interpreted to inform the study. Data were collected through individual face-to-face interviews, using an interview protocol, and were analyzed using inductive, deductive, and comparative analyses. Three themes emerged during the inductive analysis: (a) the trifecta: family, religion and gender, (b) the paradox of being Latina and lesbian, and (c) institutional care. In the deductive analysis, a rubric of a priori codes was derived from their (a) cultural perspectives, (b) identity awareness, and the four tenets sexual minorities consistently experience which included: (c) alienation, (d) social exclusion, (e) disclosure, and (f) self-acceptance of a non-heterosexual identity. The deductive analysis confirmed that participants’ experiences and perceived levels of sexual identity development were determined by the challenge or support they received from family, peers, and their Hispanic-serving institution overall. The comparative analysis revealed an overlap of the inductive and deductive themes. Among 15 participants, the inductive themes of (a) the trifecta: family, religion and gender, (b) the paradox of being Latina and lesbian, and (c) institutional care were present in all segments of the deductive analysis. The findings highlighted the complex and challenging experiences of Latina lesbians as they attempt to navigate their intersections of sexuality, gender, and culture in the context of higher education. The study makes a critical contribution to understanding the experiences and sexual identity development of Latina lesbian students at an HSI. The study concluded that while Latina lesbian students struggle to reconcile their Latina and lesbian identities, their experiences at a HSI can be a source of challenge or support in their overall well-being and identity development.

This thesis deals with NoSQL database performance issue. The aim of the paper is to compare most common prototypes of distributed database systems with emphasis on performance and scalability. Yahoo! Cloud Serving Benchmark (YCSB) is used to accomplish the aforementioned aim. The YCSB tool allows performance testing through performance indicators like throughput or response time. It is followed by a thorough explanation of how to work with this tool, which gives readers an opportunity to test performance or do a performance comparison of other distributed database systems than of those described in this thesis. It also helps readers to be able to create testing environment and apply the testing method which has been listed in this thesis should they need it. This paper can be used as a help when making an arduous choice for a specific system from a wide variety of NoSQL database systems for intended solution.

The aim of this Master's Thesis is to propose improvement of the process of providing selected service, specifically serving food in the AV Gastro canteen located in the University of Economics, Prague Žižkov, for customers using the method Quality Function Deployment (QFD abbreviated), converts customer requirements into measurable indicators and set improved values. The interviewing technique based on use of questionnaires in written and electronic form was used to disclose customer requirements. One step of this method is the technical competitive assessment of functional requirements, the mystery shopping method was used for this. The graphical output of this method is the set of matrices called the house of quality. Various measures including the outline of associated costs were proposed based on outputs of QFD.

abstract: De facto potable reuse (DFR) occurs when surface water sources at drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) contain treated effluents from upstream wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs) originate from treated effluents (e.g., unregulated disinfection by-products, pathogenic microorganisms as Cryptosporidium oocyst, Giardia cyst, and Norovirus) can be present in surface water and pose human health risks linked to CECs. Previously developed De facto Reuse Incidence in our Nations Consumable Supply (DRINCS) model predicted DFR for the national largest DWTPs that serve >10,000 people (N = 2,056 SW intakes at 1,210 DWTPs). The dissertation aims to quantify DFR at all surface water intakes for smaller DWTPs serving ≤10,000 people across the United States and develop a programmed ArcGIS tool for proximity analysis between upstream WWTPs and DWTPs. The tested hypothesis is whether DWTPs serving ≤10,000 people are more likely to be impacted by DFR than larger systems serving > 10,000 people.The original DRINCS model was expanded to include all smaller DWTPs (N = 6,045 SW intakes at 3,984 DWTPs) in the U.S. First, results for Texas predicted that two-thirds of all SW intakes were impacted by at least one WWTP upstream. The level of DFR at SW intakes in Texas ranged between 1% to 20% under average flow and exceeded 90% during mild droughts. Smaller DWTPs in Texas had a higher frequency of DFR than larger systems while < 10% of these DWTPs employed advanced technology (AT) capable of removing CECs. Second, nationally over 40% of surface water intakes at all DWTPs were impacted by DFR under average flow (2,917 of 6,826). Smaller DWTPs had a higher frequency (1,504 and 1,413, respectively) of being impacted by upstream WWTP discharges than larger DWTPs. Third, the difference in DFR levels at smaller versus larger DWTPs was statistically unclear (t-test, p = 0.274). Smaller communities could have high risks to CECs as they rely on surface water from lower-order streams impacted by DFR. Furthermore, smaller DWTPs lack more than twice as advanced unit processes as larger DWTPs with 52.1% and 23%, respectively. DFR levels for DWTPs serving > 10,000 people were statistically higher on mid-size order streams (3, 5, and 8) than those for smaller DWTPs. Finally, DWTPs serving > 10,000 people could pose risks to a population impacted by DFR > 1% as 40 times as those served by smaller DWTPs with 71 million and 1.7 million people, respectively. The total exposed population to risks of CECs served by DWTPs impacted by upstream WWTP discharges (DFR >10%) was estimated at 12.3 million people in the United States. Future studies can use DRINCS results to conduct an epidemiological risk assessment for impacted communities and identify communities that would benefit from advanced technology to remove CECs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 2020

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