"Gumboots and grassroots" : exploring leadership for social change at a grassroots level in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

The primary aim of this study was to explore the motivations underpinning three agri-women’s involvement in grassroots associations. The research investigated leadership processes within the groups and sought to understand the impact of three specific projects in the context of grassroots leadership for social change. Grassroots associations have been described as innovative networks of people sharing common goals and vision, that recognise and respond to local community needs, often motivated by a need to create societal and environmental change. Future climatic and sustainability challenges predicted for New Zealand’s agri-sector provide the impetus to support and increase this collective leadership capacity. Voluntary groups such as these have largely been ignored by leadership scholars, however their informal, decentralised structures and collective decision-making processes offer unique opportunities to view leadership in a different way, a way that may be essential in the complex world of the 21st century. Furthermore, the context of this research in rural and provincial New Zealand provides a fresh perspective relevant to rural and urban alike, for a country largely reliant on its primary sector for economic prosperity. A qualitative multiple case study design was chosen for its ability to achieve a holistic result, rich in content and meaning, through employing multiple data collection techniques in a naturalistic setting. Thematic analysis was used to draw out themes from the data, which combined with existing theory in an abductive approach adding new contributions to the current limited knowledge of grassroots leadership processes. Key findings were the participants’ voluntary altruistic principles and their passion, persistence and commitment to their causes. Leadership processes within the groups confirmed an outdated leader-follower influence paradigm and strong parallels with elements of Complexity Leadership Theory, especially in terms of enabling leadership to create adaptive space. However, the major contribution from this study was an adapted framework demonstrating how philosophical foundations, leadership practices and activities of grassroots associations can build community power in the creation of social capital contributing to community resilience for unknown and unknowable future events

Protecting Innovation: The Role of State Attorneys General in Antitrust Enforcement

Antitrust law was devised at the end of the 19th century. Since then, courts and regulators applying antitrust laws have developed a wide range of appallingly anticompetitive doctrines. Many of those doctrines tended to protect businesses from competitive forces, rather than the other way around. Nor were the stakes trivial: As Robert Bork insisted in his seminal work, the Antitrust Paradox (1978), many of these doctrines were "ultimately incompatible with the preservation of a liberal capitalist social order."In recent years, antitrust enforcement by state attorneys general has seen a dramatic rise. This raises several concerns: first, the potential of geographic bias that comes from state attorneys general protecting the interests of business or consumers in their states from competition; second, the potential for increased litigation and harsher penalties; and third, the duplicative nature of state antitrust enforcement, particularly in the context of parens patriae suits and pre-merger reviews. These concerns suggest that increased state involvement in antitrust enforcement could have significant negative consequences for competition and innovation. This danger is particularly acute in high-technology markets, where antitrust enforcement is already problematic in several ways. Consumers benefit from increased efficiency, but efficiency can increase market share, which in turn can trigger ill-advised antitrust enforcement. The complexity and rapid innovation of high-tech markets increase the danger of erroneous and damaging antitrust enforcement. These challenges are exacerbated by state involvement in antitrust. While we see a clear role for the states in enforcing antitrust law in local commerce, it is much more difficult to discern a role for the states in transactions that are in many cases not only national, but international. Instead, the involvement of the states in these markets is more likely to lead to an expansive regulatory regime that inhibits -- rather than enhances -- competition and innovation. This is particularly true in the case of e-commerce. This paper examines the role of states in antitrust enforcement and the impact this role can have on competition, particularly in high-tech markets. Part I provides a short summary of major antitrust laws. Part II looks at the different ways in which antitrust law is enforced. Part III provides a closer look at the role of the states in antitrust enforcement, focusing on Texas. Part IV sets forth a law-and-economics analysis of the main types of cases that are typically the subject of antitrust enforcement, with a special focus on the activity of state attorneys general. Part V provides a close look at antitrust enforcement in high-tech markets. Part VI makes recommendations for improvement.This paper argues for a continued effort to understand how markets work, and for revision of antitrust laws and judicial doctrines in light of those insights. We argue that the scope of state antitrust enforcement should be reduced, particularly with respect to interstate and high technology markets. Specifically, we recommend that states' ability to bring parens patriae suits under the federal antitrust laws should be repealed, and that state involvement in premerger review should be curtailed. We also find that where the federal government has settled an antitrust matter under investigation, continued state involvement makes little sense, and in fact may stifle product development, investment and innovation

Section 337 and National Treatment under GATT: A Proposal for Legislative Reform

This Article discusses the GATT panel reports on Section 337, the U.S. reaction to the GATT findings and possible amendments to Section 337 that would put the United States in compliance with its international obligations. Taking into account the difficult balancing act necessary to change Section 337 the authors attempt to take these requirements into account in suggesting ways out of the quandary in which the United States and its trading partners now find themselves

Design and Development of a High-Performance Quadrotor Control Architecture Based on Feedback Linearization

The purpose of this thesis is to outline the development of a high-performance quadrotor control system for an AscTec Hummingbird quadrotor using direct motor speed control within a Vicon motion capture system environment. A Ground Control Station (GCS) acts as a user interface for selecting flight patterns and displaying sensor values. An on-board Intel Edison embedded Linux computer acts as the quadrotor\u27s controller. The Vicon system measures the quadrotor\u27s position and orientation, while the Hummingbird\u27s stock AscTec Autopilot board provides inertial measurements and receives motor speed commands. Based on the flight pattern set by the GCS, smooth and di erentiable trajectories are generated. A control program was written for the Edison to obtain measurements, receive flight pattern commands, perform state estimation, calculate control laws, send motor speed commands to the Autopilot board, and log values. The program was written as a multithreaded C++ program for increased performance. A feedback linearization of the quadrotor\u27s dynamics was performed to account for its nonlinearities. A controller structure designed to ensure exponential Lyapunov stability was applied to the input-output linearized dynamics. The simplex method was used to aid the controller in pushing the Hummingbird\u27s actuators for aggressive maneuvers within set input limitations. The Edison\u27s Wi-Fi capabilities enable it to contact the Vicon server directly for position and orientation measurements. Accelerations and angular velocities are measured by the Autopilot\u27s inertial measurement unit (IMU). A quick state estimation process was implemented to filter the measured states, and state prediction was used to compensate for latency in the system. A custom circuit board and communication framework was designed and assembled for interfacing the Edison with the Autopilot. The custom communication framework allowed for a 16 times speed improvement over the default settings while bypassing the stock wireless communication\u27s inherently unreliable timing. The Hummingbird\u27s physical properties, such as propeller performance and rotational inertias, were characterized via static and step response experiments. The control system\u27s flight performance was evaluated through simulation and experimental tests

Composing a Comprehensive Music Education: Teacher and Student Experiences with the Role of Songwriting in Elementary General Music

Music education has for many years focused on the musical role of performance and teaching from the traditional canon of Western classical music. In recent years, it has been noted that just a small portion of students participate in music offerings in secondary schools. Yet, the mission of the music education profession is for all students to experience and make music. To reach more students, music education must be relevant to students’ real world, pragmatic for a lifetime of musical involvement, and must help students build their identities. Providing a comprehensive music education in which students experience all musical roles, such as those of composing and songwriting, could address and meet the issues of relevance, pragmatism, and identity construction. In turn, potentially more students may identify as a ‘musician’ in one of the various roles and thus continue their education in music. This comprehensive music education must begin in elementary general music classes. However, it is unknown how often songwriting is incorporated, what strategies are used to teach it, and how it is experienced by teachers and students in elementary general music. The purpose of this study was to investigate how songwriting is included and experienced in elementary general music classes. To gain a comprehensive understanding, teachers and students were included in this two-part research study. Through an anonymous survey, 180 teacher participants reported how often they include songwriting, how comfortable they are teaching songwriting, perceived challenges, and strategies they use when teaching songwriting. Additionally, 50 of the researcher’s third-grade students participated in action research to explore how students experience songwriting and how effective visual art might be as one songwriting strategy. The results of the teacher survey suggested that songwriting is not regularly incorporated in elementary general music, with nearly half of participants never or rarely including it, while the other half only occasionally include songwriting. Teachers also reported being less comfortable teaching songwriting than teaching traditional instrumental composition. Through analysis of the data sets it was discovered that participants who were more comfortable teaching songwriting taught it more frequently and also utilized more songwriting strategies. The greatest reported challenges to songwriting in the general music classroom included students feeling stuck in their writing, songwriting taking too much class time, and songwriting being messy and chaotic. As part of the action research conducted in the classroom, 50 students working in pairs wrote 12-bar blues songs based on an environmental justice theme of their choosing without any other sort of prompt. Teacher observation and student work analysis revealed lyrical idea generation to be a significant challenge and many students struggled to complete thorough, prosodic verses. Following the days spent on the environmental justice topic, the same student participants wrote another blues song in pairs using a piece of social justice artwork as a visual prompt strategy. Analysis of the student work and student questionnaires after using the art prompt revealed most students felt more confident, found idea generation to be less of a challenge, and completed more detailed, thorough verses. Generating rhyming pairs of words was still a considerable challenge in both parts of the student songwriting study, and a small number of student songwriters found it more challenging to use the visual art prompt. Taken in the context of one another, the results of the teacher survey and student research indicates using strategies such as a visual art prompt when teaching songwriting in general music could help remedy some of the teacher-perceived songwriting challenges, increase teachers’ songwriting comfort level, and boost songwriting frequency by improving the student songwriting experience. Consequently, the vision of a comprehensive music education could begin to take shape if songwriting is included more often. Further research needs to be conducted that explores the effectiveness of other songwriting strategies and ways in which teachers can receive more training in general music classroom songwriting

Determinants of Public Corruption in Arkansas and the Nation

Through reviewing the existing scholarly literature on corruption, factors that seem to increase the likelihood or contribute to rising numbers in reported cases of corruption will be used to determine which factors are most highly correlated with the amount of reported public corruption in a state’s government. With this, one will gain knowledge on which states have the highest levels of reported corruption and what factors are present in the state that can help explain the high levels of corruption. This combination of relationships will answer the question as to what a state should look for to address issues related to political misdeeds. With that being said, we can examine where Arkansas falls with respect to general corruption level rankings compared to other states in the nation and assess the presence of multiple factors that may contribute to increasing the likelihood of higher numbers of reported corruption within the state

Charge-Based Optimization of Neurotensin for Neurotensin-Receptor-1 Targeting Utilizing a One-Bead One-Compound Peptide Library Approach

Neurotensin-receptor-1 (NTSR1) is regularly overexpressed in various cancers and contributes to the proliferation, survival, migration, invasion, and angiogenesis of tumors. NTSR1-targeting vectors have demonstrated promise in both diagnostic and therapeutic aspects. Unfortunately, the relatively poor in vivo metabolic stability and high renal uptake and retention of NTSR1-targeted compounds have hampered the translation to the clinic. In this research, we utilized a one-bead one-compound (OBOC) peptide library approach to make targeted modifications at the naturally charged residues of an NTS (4-13) sequence to discover an NTS derivative with comparable affinity to NTSR1, acceptable in vivo stability, and tolerable renal retention. Subsequent in vitro screening and analysis by LC-MS/MS and PEAKS® Studio software determined the modifications of interest for further investigation with the most favorable observed binding affinity toward NTSR1 were Gln at Glu4, Lys(Me2) at Lys6, and Arg(NO2) at Arg9

An Assessment Of The Potential For Coal Based Power Generation In Rural Alaska

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 198

The Constitutional Right To Suicide, The Quality Of Life, And The Slippery-Slope : An Explicit Reply To Lingering Concerns

[M]any courts and scholars appear to be motivated by yet another and more implicit concern with the so-called quality of life argument. [...] This ofttimes subtle design ultimately proves to be nothing more than a variation of the slippery-slope argument. This paper will contend that such arguments are logically fallacious and, at best, sway only by emotional appeal. As such, this style of argument should be afforded little forensic weight as it serves only to further confuse the debate over the constitutionality of selfdirected death