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Rugged Individualism in American Political Thought
Get PDFAfter Herbert Hoover used the term “rugged individualism” in his 1928 campaign speech, the phrase became a cornerstone of American politics, advanced in the 1930s in opposition to social liberalism and New Deal collectivism. This thesis explores the political rhetoric and policy platforms that dominated the Depression era, mapping a spectrum of ideologies that displays the nuanced similarities and differences among and between the various political camps. Discourse between Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the two main figures in the political debate about government interventionism at the time, represented the pinnacle of the controversy. The examination of these two Chief Executives’ policy intentions demonstrates that Hoover and Roosevelt exhibited far more political centrism than first meets the eye. Based on their rhetoric, policies, and center-leaning divergences from more polarized extremes, this thesis questions the assumption of insurmountable polarization in American politics, and emphasizes the utility of the relative moderation employed by these two administrations. Despite their noteworthy differences, Hoover’s rugged individualism and Roosevelt’s New Deal exhibited significant overlap, especially in their continuance of the American traditions of individuality
Are Certain Countries More Nimble in Completing Major Infrastructure Projects? A Cross Country Analysis of Infrastructure Capital Efficacy
Get PDFDiscovering the drivers that lead to faster and more efficient completion of major infrastructure projects is important because there is a wide range when it comes to countries’ ability to complete projects in a time and cost effective manner. This study looks at a dataset of the longest bridges in the world, which includes highways, high speed rail, expressways, and roads among other transportation infrastructure projects from 41 countries. This paper aims to discover whether some countries or regions appear to complete infrastructure projects faster than others and find which variables lead to faster completion of bridges as measured by feet built per day through various best fit models. It is concluded that a more recent start date, greater bridge length, and stronger property rights are positively correlated with completion speed of a bridge and Gross Domestic Product per capita is negatively correlated. This study also concludes that further research is needed to validate and replicate the results with a larger data set that has more bridges per country examined
Preface
No full textThe University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) is an occasional series published by the Penn Graduate Linguistics Society. The series has included volumes of previously unpublished work, or work in progress, by linguists with an ongoing affiliation with the Department, as well as volumes of papers from NWAV and the Penn Linguistics Conference.
This volume contains selected papers accepted into the 44th Penn Linguistics Conference. This volume is exceptional insofar as PLC 44 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; we thank all authors accepted into PLC 44 for their patience and understanding. In an effort to give a panoramic view of the canceled conference, we decided to invite submissions both from authors of oral presentations (10-page papers) as well as poster presentations (5-page papers).
Thanks go to Faruk Akkuş, George Balabanian, Johanna Benz, Nikita Bezrukov, Pik Yu May Chan, Yiran Chen, June Choe, Ava Creemers, Gwen Hildebrandt, Wei Lai, Aini Li, Daoxin Li, Ollie Sayeed, Christine Soh, Ruicong Sun, and Yosiane White for their help in editing.
Since Vol. 14.2, PWPL has been an internet-only publication. As of September 2014, the entire back catalog has been digitized and made available on ScholarlyCommons@Penn. Please continue citing PWPL papers or issues as you would a print journal article, though you may also provide the URL of the manuscript. An example is below:
Li, Aini, and Meredith Tamminga. 2021. Intra- and interspeaker repetitiveness in locative variation. In University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 27.1, ed. Alexandros Kalomoiros and Lefteris Paparounas, 119-127. Available at: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol27/iss1/16.
Publication in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) does not preclude submission of papers elsewhere; copyright is retained by the author(s) of individual papers.
The PWPL editors can be contacted at: U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, 3401-C Walnut Street, Suite 300, C Wing, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228 and [email protected].
Alexandros Kalomoiros and Lefteris Paparounas, Issue Editor
NO NEED TO YELL: A Prosodic Analysis of Writing in All Caps
Get PDFWriting in all caps, while not unique to the internet, has become a common feature used in social media. English-speaking internet natives seem to have shared intuitions about what meaning it contributes to a text, even though it is not a feature taught in standard English orthographic education. This study employs production studies to determine how readers produce tweets written in all caps out loud, in order to provide evidence that there is a prosodic component to the interpretation of all caps. Though common discourse about all caps holds that it indicates yelling and anger, the data from this study shows that it\u27s not just average loudness but also average pitch and syllable duration that tend to be increased in the production of all caps text versus text with standard capitalization. This combinaiton of prosodic features which can be associated with all caps also supports the conclusion that it can be used in contexts exemplifying a wide range of emotions, not just anger. This study lays groundwork for a better understanding of the interaction between orthography and prosody on social media and how production studies can be used to test such interactions
On the Diachronic Nature of Marathi Light Verbs
Get PDFThe diachronic nature of Indo-aryan light verbs has been a matter of debate. Scholars like Hook (1991, 1993) and Slade (2013) consider light verbs to have emerged as a resultant of diachronic change; whereas Butt and Lahiri (2002, 2013) opine that light verbs are historically stable and resistant to change. In the light of these views, the present paper traces the Marathi light verbs across time to i. show that their pattern is indicative of gradual emergence rather than historical stability, and ii. affirm Butt and Lahiriís (2013) observation that once established, they show little change in terms of their semantics and morphophonology
Embracing the world: development of historic preservation theory in China since the 1980s
Get PDFSince the late 1970s, China entered an unprecedented period of urbanization, and global interaction characterizing the following decade and beyond. Historic preservation was under severe challenges in the wave of large-scale construction, which largely stimulated the development of domestic preservation theory. By ratifying the World Heritage Convention in 1985, China opened its door to the global heritage conservation society. Chinese scholars and preservationists critically accepted the universal preservation principles recognized by international organizations (such as UNESCO and ICOMOS) and responded to the global community integrating the Chinese and East Asian philosophy and experiences. In order to understand the interaction between China and the global society on preservation theory exploration since the 1980s, and build the groundwork for preservation theory development and future international conservation cooperation, the thesis will illustrate China’s experience in participating in the global heritage conservation society, creating theoretical interactions, re-framing domestic preservation system, contribution to cultural diversity, and establishing national identity in the global arena. The thesis will interpret the interactions by summarizing, analyzing, and comparing published laws and regulations, international charters and conventions, and landmark scholarly studies in and beyond China
Private Equity Value Creation of Target Portfolio Companies
Get PDFThis study examines the topic of private equity, a subset of finance that deals with firms that attempt to improve another company through a leveraged buyout or equity investment. The goal of this paper is to understand whether private equity firms are helpful in the value creation of their portfolio companies. Value creation refers to either operational improvements or financial turnaround. Importantly, the focus of this study is from the perspective of portfolio companies rather than the private equity firms. As a result, the study examines metrics such as return on net operating assets (RNOA) to assess the operational health as well as Altman\u27s Z-Score and Ohlson\u27s O-Score to assess the financial health of a portfolio company. The observations come from a refined dataset of 35 portfolio companies, from immediately before the private equity buyout to after the company goes public again through an initial public offering (IPO)
Learning in the Time of a Pandemic and Implications for Returning to School: Effects of COVID-19 in Ghana
Get PDFThe Covid-19 pandemic led to school closures all over the world, leaving children across diverse contexts without formal education for nearly a year. Remote-learning programs were designed and rapidly implemented to promote learning continuity throughout the crisis. There were inequalities in who was able to access remote-learning during school closures, though little systematic evidence documenting these gaps exists, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we surveyed 1,844 children in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, as well as their caregivers and teachers, regarding their engagement in remote learning, literacy and math test scores, and household economic hardships. We document inequalities in access to and engagement in remote-learning activities during the ten months in 2020 in which schools were closed in Ghana. Specifically, children in private schools and children in higher-socioeconomic status households engaged in remote-learning at higher rates and received more support from their schools and caregivers. Further, controlling for demographic characteristics and pre-pandemic learning outcomes, we document gaps in children’s literacy and math test scores, with food insecure and low-SES children, as well as children enrolled in public schools before the pandemic, performing significantly worse than their peers (0.2-0.3 SD gap). Finally, children in households that experienced more economic hardships during the pandemic engaged in fewer remote learning activities and had lower literacy and numeracy assessment scores. The findings speak to the potential consequences of increased inequalities due to the pandemic as schools re-open in Ghana and around the world and provide insight into how schools may address these inequalities as children return to the classroom
Time, Talent, and Treasure: Exploring Development and Alumni Relations Metrics
Get PDFOne of the most common questions for alumni relations professionals is how to accurately measure alumni engagement. This capstone examines alumni engagement metrics from an organizational perspective as a way to identify why such a complex relationship exists between development and alumni relations teams. Limited research exists on this topic, so I reviewed the related literature on goal setting theory, characteristics of engaged alumni, the relationship between giving time and giving money, and alternative ways to measure donations of time. Given my position at Wharton External Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania, I employed the method of Action Research within my own organization. I collected data through my professional experience, including 22 informational interviews with colleagues at Wharton, Penn, and six peer institutions. While I did discover new methods for how to measure different types of alumni engagement, my primary conclusion focuses on five key organizational changes that I believe will help improve the dynamics between alumni relations and development teams
Implementation of Change to Audits and Inspections Using Action Research
Get PDFThe audits and inspections process is a critical component related to a pharmaceutical firm’s compliance in the industry. To be out of compliance has significant ramifications both on the safety and purity of the firm’s products and its viability in the industry. Such firms are routinely audited by boards of health and customers that purchase the firm’s products to ensure they are in compliance with expected standards. The success of hosting the audits and inspection program is the first line of defense in demonstrating compliance.
To succeed at these audits and inspections changing with the times is a necessity. The implementation of change in an organization is fraught with challenges. Issues such determining who in the organization are the right people to discover, develop, and diffuse change is a complex process for management. This study will describe how the use of Liberating Structures and coaching were used to change the audits and inspection process for a major pharmaceutical firm. The changes are evaluated through the lens of Adaptive Space and the use of action research to integrate theory and action with the goal of answering the following questions: How might I get the right people on the team to implement a digital auditing process? How might I implement a digital auditing process?
In the time involved with the completion of this action research study, COVID-19 hit. This led me to another question: What modifications to the auditing process must be made as a result of COVID-19, how can I modify the auditing approach to incorporate site restrictions
The outcome of this effort transformed the auditing process at the firm and was implemented at the firm’s sites worldwide