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The Political Determinants of Refugee Status Recognition
Get PDFWhat explains the variations in refugee status granting among states? How is refugee status determined? The purpose of the study is to analyze if politics affect refugee status granting to asylum-seekers. Despite the political implications revolving around refugee issues, forced migration studies are still a neglected topic in international relations research. However, scholarly works that focus on forced migration often overlook broad political themes, and do not thoroughly examine how politics affect refugee status rates across countries. This dissertation examines state responses to forced migration. It quantitatively investigates the research questions across countries between 2000 and 2013. It argues state interests affect refugee recognition rates. Specifically, it hypothesizes that bilateral relations between states and the domestic politics of the host state affect refugee recognition rates. This study finds rival host states grant refugee status recognition rates greater than non-rival host states. The results also find refugee status rates increase in dyads that are in alliances compared to dyads that are not in similar pacts. It also finds asylum rates decrease as bilateral trade increases. Most of the models show the more democratic a state becomes, the less asylum is granted. However, the results also demonstrate democracies grant asylum slightly more than non-democracies, and autocracies grant asylum less compared to non-autocracies. However, opposite results are found for democracies and autocracies that are not signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. The study also finds minimal support for refugee recognition rates decreasing during years of national, executive elections. While the results did not find support for all hypotheses, this study concludes that on average, political and commercial relations between states affect refugee recognition rates
An Application of M-matrices to Preserve Bounded Positive Solutions to the Evolution Equations of Biofilm Models
Get PDFIn this work, we design a linear, two step implicit finite difference method to approximate the solutions of a biological system that describes the interaction between a microbial colony and a surrounding substrate. Three separate models are analyzed, all of which can be described as systems of partial differential equations (PDE)s with nonlinear diffusion and reaction, where the biological colony grows and decays based on the substrate bioavailability. The systems under investigation are all complex models describing the dynamics of biological films. In view of the difficulties to calculate analytical solutions of the models, we design here a numerical technique to consistently approximate the system evolution dynamics, guaranteeing that nonnegative initial conditions will evolve uniquely into new, nonnegative approximations. This property of our technique is established using the theory of M-matrices, which are nonsingular matrices where all the entries of their inverses are positive numbers. We provide numerical simulations to evince the preservation of the nonnegative character of solutions under homogeneous Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. The computational results suggest that the method proposed in this work is stable, and that it also preserves the bounded character of the discrete solutions
MOTIVE through Automotive Compassionately Criticizing the Desires of Car Culture
Get PDFMy artwork represents my admiration and criticisms of car culture I have gathered throughout my personal experiences beginning at a very early age. The work exists in the form of drawings, paintings, prints, collage and sculpture. This work is created through the elements of personal narrative, desires, obsessions, and questions surrounding car culture and its influences. My intention to refurbish the icons of this culture has involved creating work that is both obsessive and critical for personal exploration and understanding of past memories
The Lived Experience of Teachers Choosing an Arts-Rich Approach in Turnaround Schools
Get PDFIncreased metacognition, social-emotional growth, and career viability are all researched benefits of including the arts as part of core content instruction, with even greater impact for struggling students, English Language Learners, and students with special needs. Some turnaround schools that are federally funded School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools are beginning to implement an arts-rich method of school reform by teaching core content both through and in the arts. This approach is most often presented as a choice in the high-stakes testing environment of turnaround schools. Since teachers have the most direct impact on students, yet a relatively low amount of authorship in the way school reform is approached, their voice and experience is highlighted in this phenomenological study.
The participants are from three public turnaround schools in the South. The researcher used traditional research methods layered with an arts-based research approach mirroring the techniques used in an arts-rich classroom. The researcher found that participants experienced their work as a vocational calling, used methods of engaged pedagogy, and experienced a number of roadblocks to their work. They swiftly moved through these roadblocks to create pathways leveraging the arts to change their curriculum and classroom contexts, applied the arts as an access point for content areas, and then experienced the use of an art-rich classroom as a contagious practice. Potential implications for this study include a scalable model for turnaround schools, investment in engaged pedagogical practice for turnaround schools, and increased agility for teachers to become curriculum bricoleurs
A Narrative Case Study Examining the Influences of Peer-led Team Learning on Student Critical Thinking Skill Acquisition and Deeper Process Content Knowledge in a Midsize Texas University Humanities and Social Sciences Program
Get PDFThis dissertation will examine the efficacy of peer-led team learning (PLTL) in a humanities and social sciences program, at a midsize Texas university. It will be conducted exclusively within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), and the academic subjects to be evaluated include English, history, and philosophy. Its primary function is to disclose whether or not PLTL facilitates in student participants improvement in critical thinking skill acquisition and deeper process content knowledge. Of primary interest in this qualitative, narrative case study is deducing how breakout sessions – supplementary meetings led by student participants, in the absence of instructors, designed to enhance classroom instruction – aid in concept synthesis and retention. Of equal importance is evaluating how the implementation of a PLTL instructional framework cultivates in its participants the acuity necessary to demonstrate that positive learning outcomes are occurring, or have the potential to occur; thereafter, collected data, in the form of participant and instructor narratives derived from questionnaires, interviews, researcher observations, writing samples, and essay-based examinations will support or refute whether improvement in critical thinking skill acquisition and deeper process content knowledge is evident in student participants.
Keywords: Peer-led Team Learning (PLTL), Critical Thinking Skill Acquisition, Deeper Process Content Knowledge, Positive Learning Outcomes, Humanities and Social Sciences, Qualitative, Narrative, Case Stud
Smashing Friends In Slidell
No full textVincent Delucca is an active member of a Super Smash Brothers: Melee group of competitive gamers in Slidell, Louisiana. Melee players build community through intensive training in preparation for local, national, and global tournaments. Delucca contextualizes this gaming phenomenon by explaining the contentious history between player communities and parent company Nintendo. Interviewee Mike Willman lends insight into the development of the Slidell Melee group and how its members care for one another