Creativity and economic development : exploring the relationship between index rank, index components and economic development context.

Richard Florida\u27s (2002a and b) work ranks 276 U. S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) according to a creativity index. This dissertation explores whether the creativity index or its subcomponents are related to the economic strength or growth in MSAs. The dissertation initially explores the relationship between the creativity index or the proportion of the creative class in an MSA with measures of per capita income and mean earnings adjusted for cost-of-living and region. It further tests the relationship between the creativity index or the proportion of the creative class in an MSA and economic strength and growth where economic strength is operationalized using Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) per capita for the year 2000 and economic growth is operationalized by the percent change in GMP from 2000 to 2004 and from 2000 to 2005. These economic measures are tested against the components of the creativity index for the year 2000 as defined in the softcover edition (Florida 2002b). In addition, this dissertation explores whether creative metropolitan areas are in fact better from a quality of life perspective, as a result of creativity. I test the relationship between the proportion of the creative class in an MSA in 2000 and measures of poverty, homelessness, and crime in all the MSAs for which data are available. Using only the 49 largest MSAs, I conduct an exploratory factor analysis of the creativity components and several measures of culture and economic development context to determine if the three components of the creativity index – technology, talent and tolerance – emerge as reasonable dimensions. The gender wage gap is an element of culture. I test whether this wage gap is smaller in MSAs with high creativity indices than in MSAs with lower creativity indices. Using backward regression analysis I test for significant economic context variables against GMP percent change and then test whether the inclusion of the culturally related subcomponents of the creativity index in the independent variable set adds any explanatory power to the regression models. Finally, I present the results of qualitative research for four specific MSAs – Louisville, Nashville, Indianapolis and Raleigh-Durham. The results raise questions as to the whether the concentration of the creative class in an MSA acts as an economic engine, or as a positive influence, on quality of life. These conclusions are based on the analysis of correlations, various linear regression models, and qualitative analysis in selected MSAs and therefore do not constitute causal arguments

Public Engagement Technology for Bioacoustic Citizen Science

Inexpensive mobile devices offer new capabilities for non-specialist use in the field for the purpose of conservation. This thesis explores the potential for such devices to be used by citizen scientists interacting with bioacoustic data such as birdsong. This thesis describes design research and field evaluation, in collaboration with conservationists and educators, and technological artefacts implemented as mobile applications for interactive educational gaming and creative composition. This thesis considers, from a participant-centric collaborative design approach, conservationists' demand for interactive artefacts to motivate engagement in citizen science through gameful and playful interactions. Drawing on theories of motivation, frequently applied to the study of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and on approaches to designing for motivational engagement, this thesis introduces a novel pair of frameworks for the analysis of technological artefacts and for assessing participant engagement with bioacoustic citizen science from both game interaction design and citizen science project participation perspectives. This thesis reviews current theories of playful and gameful interaction developed for collaborative learning, data analysis, and ground-truth development, describes a process for design and analysis of motivational mobile games and toys, and explores the affordances of various game elements and mechanics for engaging participation in bioacoustic citizen science. This thesis proposes research into progressions for scaffolding engagement with citizen science projects where participants interact with data collection and analysis artefacts. The research process includes the development of multiple designs, analyses of which explore the efficacy of game interactions to motivate engagement through interaction progressions, given proposed analysis frameworks. This thesis presents analysed results of experiments examining the usability of, and data-quality from, several prototypes and software artefacts, in both laboratory conditions and the field. This thesis culminates with an assessment of the efficacy of proposed design analysis frameworks, an analysis of designed artefacts, and a discussion of how these designs increase intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for participant engagement and affect resultant bioacoustic citizen science data quantity and quality.Non

Exploring public health intervention strategies to address barriers and challenges in the prevention of avoidable blindness due to glaucoma in Anambra State, Nigeria

Renewed emphasis by World Health Organisation in recent times has heightened the need for countries to address the issue of eye health with increased effort. However, due to scarcity of both human and material resources in Nigeria and many other developing countries health care is often marginalised; especially eye health. This contributes to the rise in prevalence of avoidable blindness. Glaucoma has been identified as one of the major causes of avoidable blindness globally, yet many people still lack the awareness of this disease. Most often the disease attacks without any obvious symptoms, and by the time the person becomes aware of the problem, probably more than 50% of the vision has been lost. Public health strategy such as health promotion when properly coordinated proves to be a cost-effective approach in tackling the incidence of avoidable blindness. This study assessed the population’s health seeking behaviour and examined the factors and barriers which hampered the people in Anambra State, Nigeria from accessing knowledge and eye health services in order to prevent avoidable blindness due to glaucoma. It also explored how the policy makers and service providers could be prompted for positive actions. This is a qualitative study that utilised face-to-face semi-structured interviews to investigate the level of glaucoma awareness and perception of its risk factors in the state. Purposive, non-random sampling technique was used to recruit 39 participants, [aged 21-73] for interviews. Three main stakeholders in eye health comprising of a sample of 28 key informants (the target population), 8 service providers (the eye doctors) and 3 policy makers were identified and recruited for this study. The resulting data were analysed using Nvivo 10 software and Interpretative phenomenological analysis framework. Eye health seminar was also delivered to the target population at two different venues in the state. The reason for the eye health seminar was to teach the attendees some good eye care practices that could contribute positively to blindness prevention. Of the 28 key informants, 53.6% live in urban areas and 46.4% live in the rural areas; 39.3% of the participants were male and 60.7% were females. Glaucoma awareness appeared to be higher among people in the urban areas 39.3% than people in the rural areas 35.7%. People with higher education appeared to have better awareness than people with less education; 42.9% for people with university degree and above, 3.6% for diploma, 17.9% for people with secondary education and 10.7% for primary. Glaucoma was perceived as “a dangerous eye disease that can cause blindness if not treated early; a serious eye problem; an incurable eye problem that can eventually result to blindness, and a dangerous eye problem that can easily render a person blind”. Poverty and inability to pay for eye care services has been the most prominent barrier among this population. Other barriers include distance of eye care service centres from the rural dwellers, fear of financial exploitation from the service providers, fear of negative treatment outcomes and the availability of other cheaper but unsafe treatment options. Other barriers identified were: the lack of awareness of eye diseases and the related risk factors, the inability to cope with eye disease, and the seriousness of the symptoms. Five apriori themes and fourteen emergent themes were identified in the analysis of the data. The implication of these findings is that the incidence of glaucoma-induced blindness will continue to rise unless a robust public health policy and adequate resources are put in place to address the challenges and problems identified by this study. The result of the present study confirms that there is low awareness of the causes and consequences of glaucoma in the state. This, as well as the associated factors listed above have huge impact on economy and well-being of the population

Study on open science: The general state of the play in Open Science principles and practices at European life sciences institutes

Nowadays, open science is a hot topic on all levels and also is one of the priorities of the European Research Area. Components that are commonly associated with open science are open access, open data, open methodology, open source, open peer review, open science policies and citizen science. Open science may a great potential to connect and influence the practices of researchers, funding institutions and the public. In this paper, we evaluate the level of openness based on public surveys at four European life sciences institute

A Guideline for Environmental Games (GEG) and a randomized controlled evaluation of a game to increase environmental knowledge related to human population growth

People often have very little knowledge about the impact of unsustainable human population growth on the environment and social well-being especially in developing countries. Therefore, an efficient method should be explored in order to educate, and if possible, to convince the members of the public to realize the environmental and social problems caused by the unsustainable population growth. Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) has been highlighted by some studies as an innovative tool for learning enhancement. While only a handful of studies have scientifically evaluated the impact of DGBL on knowledge outcomes, the approach is an attractive tool to increase knowledge and motivate engagement with environmental issues surrounding population growth because of its potential to improve learners’ motivation and engagement thereby compared to traditional learning approaches. Therefore, the three primary research questions for this study are: 1) "Can a single-player digital game be an appropriate and attractive learning application for the players to gain insight about the relationship between the growing human population and the environmental issues?" 2) "How can we design environmental games for the players to gain insights about the relationship between the growing human population and the environmental issues via playing a game?" and 3) "What are the obstacles preventing the players from adapting environmental knowledge obtained from the learning mediums into the real-life?" To inform the development of an efficacious DGBL game to impact learning outcomes, critical reviews of environmental issues related to population growth as well as critical reviews of commercial and serious environmental games in terms of their educational and motivational values were undertaken in this study. The results of these critical reviews informed the development of a Guideline for Environmental Games (or GEG). The GEG was developed by combining the engaging game technology with environmental learning and persuasion theories. The GEG was then used to inform the development of a prototype game called THE GROWTH; a single-player, quiz-based, city-management game targeting young adolescents and adults. Multiple evaluation methods of the game were used to answer the three key research questions mentioned earlier. These methods included: 1) The Randomized Controlled Trial approach (RCT) where the participants were systematically divided into the experimental and the control group respectively and their knowledge scores (quantitative data) compared and analyzed, 2) The participants’ abilities to recall and describe the environmental and well-being issues were collected and analyzed qualitatively using The Content Analysis method (CA) and, 3) The participants’ overall feedback on the learning mediums was collected and analyzed to evaluate the motivational values of THE GROWTH itself. To this end, THE GROWTH was evaluated with 82 Thai-nationality participants (70 males and 12 females). The results showed that participants assigned to play THE GROWTH demonstrated greater environmental and social-well-being knowledge related to population growth (F(1,40) = 43.86, p = .006) compared to the control group participants assigned to a non-interactive reading activity (consistent with material presented in THE GROWTH). Furthermore, participants who played THE GROWTH recalled on average more content presented in the game when compared to participants who were presented with similar content in the reading material (t (59) = 3.35, p = .001). In terms of level of engagement, the study suggested that participants assigned to the game were more engaging with their learning medium on average when compared to participants assigned to the non-interactive reading activity. This is evidenced by the longer time participants spent on the task, the activity observed from participants’ recorded gameplay, and their positive responses in the survey. The semi-structured interviews used in this study highlighted the participants’ attitudes towards the environmental, social, and technological issues. Although the participants’ perceived behavioural intention towards the environmental commitments were not statistically differed between the two study group, their responses still provide some evidences that leaps may occur from the learning mediums to the real-world context. Furthermore, these responses can be valuable evidences for the policy makers and for the future development of environmental serious games. Overall, the results suggested that digital environmental games such as THE GROWTH might be an effective and motivational tool in promote the learning about sustainable population size, the environment, and the social well-being. The game’s ability to convince the participants to change towards sustainable lifestyles, however, might be subjected to the future research and other real-world circumstances such as the governmental and public supports. In summary, the research in this thesis makes the following contributions to knowledge: • The Guideline for Environmental Games (GEG) contributes to knowledge about making theoretically-based environmental games. It has particular significance because the guideline was validated by demonstrating learning improvements in a systematic randomized controlled trial. • The use of Multi-Strategy Study Design where multiple systematic evaluation methods were used in conjunction to provide conclusive findings about the efficacy of DGBL to impact outcomes. • THE GROWTH itself is a contribution to applied research as an example of an effective DGBL learning tool

A Structural Analysis of Corporate Political Activity: An Application of Euclidean Modeling to the Study of Intercorporate Relations

During the past two decades business has become increasingly active in the political process, and scholars continue to debate the extent to which this activity is organized. This fundamental issue is addressed by examining corporate political activity within the context of resource dependence and class cohesion theories. Political action committee (PAC) campaign contributions, this study\u27s measure for corporate political activity, are structurally analyzed to determine if either resource dependence or class cohesion theory explains the forces which drive business participation in the U.S. public policy process. The rationale which forty-two diverse corporate PACs exercise when selecting which congressional campaigns to support during two election cycles is explored. Resource dependence theory contends .that a firm\u27s behavior is a function of its dependence on the environment for resources. Successful firms attempt to manage this external dependence by controlling or manipulating their environment corporate involvement in politics, therefore, will reflect a firm\u27s dependence on the government for sales, subsidies or regulation. The regulatory environment in which a firm operates is this study\u27s measure of resource dependence. Conversely, class cohesion theory argues that a firm\u27s political activity is a function of its top management\u27s inclusion in a network of corporate elites. Board members and chief executives from the nation\u27s largest corporations coalesce to advance a political agenda which is compatible with the overarching goals of the business community rather than the parochial goals of an individual firm or even industry. Interlocking directorates, professional association memberships, shared educational experience and geographic proximity of headquarters locations are this study\u27s indicators of a corporate elite network. Two categories of analytical methodology are applied. Multidimensional scaling maps corporate patterns of support for congressional candidates based on a PAC contribution proximity measure. These patterns are subsequently subjected to discriminant analysis, canonical correlation, regression and chi-square analysis to test for Resource Dependent and Class Cohesive political behavior. The results are conclusive: Support of selected congressional campaigns is more likely fueled by fragmented business interests, as resource dependence theory suggests, rather than the collective motives of a corporate elite. In fact, no support emerged for class cohesion theory as an explanation for the observed patterns of intercorporate relations. Further, a corollary proposition that PAC activity will vary with the ideology of White House administrations is not supported. Rather, PAC contribution patterns do not vary significantly between the Carter and Reagan administrations. This research renders four significant contributions to scholarship: 1. It provides empirical evidence to clarify a central issue in business-government relations, i.e., the atomistic or collective nature of corporate political activity. 2. It introduces a rigorous mathematical technique to the business-government relations discipline. 3. It indirectly addresses an ongoing scholarly debate over the role of interest groups in a democracy. 4. It indirectly addresses the current public policy debate over campaign finance reform

Law's moral legitimacy and the significance of participation

Legal positivism posits that the observation of how officials and citizens treat the legal system’s rules combine to constitute law’s existence. This is not an understanding verified by cases such as Nigeria’s legal system. Using historical evidence from the UK National Archives, and examples of recent court cases, I attempt to show that although such legal systems do, in fact, exist, they defy positivism’s conceptualization. They suggest that while the legal legitimacy of law is one thing, it does not account for obedience; and neither is the social fact of obedience necessary in defining legal validity. This thesis aims to suggest that far from being an outlying case, Nigeria provides interesting philosophical illumination about what positivism does not explain about legal systems in general—namely, what determines obedience. This thesis uses the political philosophies of Aristotle and Rousseau to construct a philosophical understanding of the basis for obedience to law. It suggests that it is by participation in the function of a legal system, that law is shown to a given population to have a specific purpose that is tied to the moral nature of the state. This thesis asserts that participation serves to illuminate law’s moral legitimacy as an especial type of legitimacy that is, in a sense, prior to its legal legitimacy and as what explains obedience separately from law’s legal validity, which simply explains its plain existence. This thesis further uses a field experiment centred on a transportation system in Lagos, Nigeria to test, empirically, the hypotheses generated by its theoretical investigations that: 1: the greater a people’s direct participation in creating their laws, the greater they perceive of the law’s moral legitimacy. and 2: The greater the people’s belief in the law’s moral legitimacy, the greater their free obedience to the law. The results suggest that the manner in which citizens are allowed to participate on the formulation and enactment of rules affects the extent to which they go on to obey those rules. These results, further, give empirical grounds for the thesis’ theoretical combination of an Aristotelian understanding of law’s authority with a reformulation of Rousseau’s argument that participation is necessary for, and derived from, freedom