Superintendents\u27 Beliefs and Identification of District Level Practices Contributing to the Academic Achievement of Black Males in the State of Georgia

The graduation rate for Black males in the state of Georgia during the 2003-04 school year as reported by the Schott Foundation was 39 percent. This was in stark contrast to a 54 percent graduation rate for non-Hispanic White males. Nationwide, more than 50 percent of Black males drop out of school compared to between 25 and 30 percent of all other student populations. Additionally, Black males are twice as likely as Black females to be in special education. More Black males receive their GED in prison than graduate from college. The purpose of this study was to explore superintendents\u27 beliefs about and identification of district level practices contributing to the academic achievement of Black males in the state of Georgia. This qualitative study was a purposeful sampling of school superintendents\u27 beliefs regarding the academic achievement of Black males and identification of district level practices believed to positively impact the academic achievement of school-aged Black males in the state of Georgia. Superintendents identified multiple factors, both internal and external, believed to impact the academic achievement of Black males in the state of Georgia. Factors identified by superintendents were both school and community based. While superintendents\u27 beliefs about their role in impacting the academic achievement of Black males varied, the belief that superintendents can and should play a vital role in implementing district level practices to impact the academic achievement of Black males was universal. District level practices identified by superintendents as being implemented to impact the academic achievement of Black males varied among the superintendents and systems surveyed. District level practices as described by superintendents were multifaceted and particular to districts surveyed. The findings from this study enabled the researcher to make several recommendations regarding the academic achievement of Black males in the state of Georgia

Making Christian Art in a Contemporary Setting

Over the past 4 and a half years, I have studied contemporary art and seen countless artworks being made in an academic setting. In doing so, I have come to the realization that religious content is rare in today’s time. While it is not actively discouraged, the environment I am in and the current art community does not seem to be particularly interested in merging the two concepts. Without understanding why, I subconsciously kept art and my faith as separate entities for the first few years of my higher education. But as I matured and developed my own artwork, I began to feel as though my identity and my interests should be rooted in my relationship with God. Upon this reflection, I began looking for ways to make Christian art in a contemporary setting that could also be accepted by those who do not share my faith

Delivering Extinction

Living during a human extinction is something no one is prepared for. No one thought humans would last this long. Even the sun dies eventually. A child’s drawing with a dripping smile. Sun rays heating soil into dust, melting metals, and large pine trees would light like matches. Smoke would rise into the air blocking out everything but the fires taking over the once livable landscape of Earth. Then, it would be over. The sun would explode. Simple and quick, painless for the few who wouldn’t try to resist their demise. Too bad humans were a few million years early. ..

Counterterrorism and the Deterrence Doctrine

The United States presently focuses much of its energy on the prevention of terrorism through particular counterterrorism policies and strategies. Today, deterrence is the primary theoretical basis for counterterrorism policies. If the United States invests so heavily in deterrence as a counterterrorism strategy, is it successful? If not, what are its theoretical flaws? Who is best served by efforts to prevent terrorism through a deterrent project? This thesis will argue that a more appropriate understanding of terrorism is necessary. In order to achieve a more holistic conception of the terrorism problem, efforts should be made politically and theoretically to incorporate international relationships that include politics, economics and culture. Such an approach to understanding terrorism as a collective action that is related to various social structures is not facilitated within the 4 present theoretical application of deterrence to counterterrorism. Therefore, this thesis is a political and economic approach to understanding the relationship between theories of terrorism and strategies of counterterrorism. If deterrence is not the most appropriate way of addressing terrorism, then the first step to creating alternative strategies is to analyze the deterrence policies currently in place. Therefore, this thesis is a stepping stone to moving past present conceptions of how to address terrorism; in order to critique U.S. counterterrorism strategy and understand why deterrence is employed as a strategy so that we can create more suitable counterterrorism strategies

The Interdependent Relationship of a Free Press and an Independent Judiciary in a Constitutional Democracy

For nearly 240 years, we have recognized, at least constitutionally, that it is essential to the very existence of a constitutional democracy that there be an independent judiciary and a free press. What is not often appreciated is how dependent these two vital institutions are upon each other. Certainly, judges and journalists rarely think in such terms. But events occurring at home and around the world in fledgling and failing democracies should heighten our awareness and appreciation for their interdependence, and help us better understand the liberties and fundamental rights they protect

Towards Statistical Prioritization for Software Product Lines Testing

Software Product Lines (SPL) are inherently difficult to test due to the combinatorial explosion of the number of products to consider. To reduce the number of products to test, sampling techniques such as combinatorial interaction testing have been proposed. They usually start from a feature model and apply a coverage criterion (e.g. pairwise feature interaction or dissimilarity) to generate tractable, fault-finding, lists of configurations to be tested. Prioritization can also be used to sort/generate such lists, optimizing coverage criteria or weights assigned to features. However, current sampling/prioritization techniques barely take product behavior into account. We explore how ideas of statistical testing, based on a usage model (a Markov chain), can be used to extract configurations of interest according to the likelihood of their executions. These executions are gathered in featured transition systems, compact representation of SPL behavior. We discuss possible scenarios and give a prioritization procedure illustrated on an example.Comment: Extended version published at VaMoS '14 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2556624.2556635

Micronesian Textiles in Transition: The Woven Tol of Kosrae

This paper presents findings on the major steps in the transition of the Kosraen tol from traditional clothing, to tourist souvenir, to the end of tol manufacture. An extensive study of the German, French, and English literature of the 19th and 20th centuries was done to piece together the history of the Kosraen tol. The island of Kosrae, located in the Pacific (4–10°N latitude, 140–163°E longitude), is part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Since earliest European contact it has seen numerous changes in its traditional culture. One of its most beautiful and complex traditional crafts is the woven tol--the only clothing used on Kosrae prior to European contact. It is this tol that will be traced through various periods of European contact Kosrae. An expanded presentation of tol construction can be found in Deegan and Cordy (1994). A short summary of tol technology, based on that research, is contained in this paragraph. Tol was woven by women. It was made of fiber split from banana leaves. Yarn was made by twisting 3 to 6 of these leaf fibers together and knotting them end to end. Traditional tol fabric ranged in size from 13–25 cm wide and 92–183 cm long. Tol was worn by women as a wrapping around their hips, while men wore tol as a loin cloth. In addition to natural tan, these tol often contained black, red, and yellow dyed fibers. Tol were predominantly woven in warp-faced plain weave. The most complex were cross-banded by changing colored warps down their length. Each change in color required knotting-on of a different colored warp yarn; some complex tol may have contained as many as 4,000 knots. A warping bench was used for measuring warp color changes. Warp yarns encircled the warping bench pegs in a ring warp until the desired tol width was reached. The finished ring warp was slid off the warping bench onto a backstrap loom. After weaving completion the ring warp was cut, leaving fringe at both ends of the tol. Four time periods of Kosraen history will be examined in this paper: (1) the European Contact Era, 1824 to mid 1850s; (2) the Transition to the Christian Era, mid 1850s to 1869; (3) the Christian Era, 1869 to 1914; and (4) the Post-Toi Era, 1914 to present