Research Summary No. 20192

This paper examines trends in Alaska public high school graduation rates from academic year 2010-11 to 2015-16 and explores differences across demographic groups. We focus specifically on students from public neighborhood high schools. These are publicly-funded schools run by district or Regional Educational Attendance Area school boards serving all residents within school attendance boundaries. These schools represent about 88% of Alaska’s high school students.Council of Alaska Producer

Updating automation system and making user manual

The purpose of this thesis was to update an automation system (thermal cycling testing chamber) and make user manual. The main purpose of this thermal cycling testing machine was to test building materials quality through the dramatic changes of temperature in Finland. The thesis was divided into two parts, which were updating thermal cycling testing machine and making user manual. The first part of this thesis was to successfully update the thermal cycling testing chamber, which is easy and safe to use and able to be maintained. Related topics were also mentioned in this thesis to provide readers with in-depth knowledge of the concept. The second part introduced user manual of the thermal cycling testing chamber, which provided the needed knowledge for users to be able to use this thermal cycling testing chamber with ease. The starting point for the design work was proposing ideas of how to update this thermal cycling testing chamber via several discussions between author and the original co-creator of this thermal cycling testing chamber. Background information was also collected from the creator of this machine. Practical work was required to gain actual understanding as well as specific information about the machine, how it works, how to maintain it and to make user manual about how to operate it

[AR] You Ready?

This project challenges the obsolete existence of signage and billboards and seeks to explore how augmented reality (AR) advertisements change the relationship between signage and buildings

Major Depression Among Immigrants: Findings From The Nis-2003

Lawful permanent residents (LPRs) are immigrants who come to the US through a variety of countries and circumstances. Most studies focus on subsets of immigrant populations, however, this study utilized data from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, a nationally representative, cross-sectional survey of LPRs (n = 8,573). Participants were grouped into three main visa categories (i.e. Refugees/Asylees/Parolees, Legalization, Family/Employment/Diversity) and the objective was to examine the association between visa status and depression outcomes among adult survey respondents. We used bivariate analyses to measure the relationship between sociodemographic variables and visa status. Approximately 98% of the Legalization category originated from Latin America & the Caribbean (P \u3c .0001) and about 68% had less than high school education (P \u3c .0001). Almost half of Refugees/Asylees/Parolees (46%) and a significant portion of the Legalization group (15%) experienced pre-migration harm (P \u3c .0001). Prevalence of depression in the overall sample was 3.6%. Adjusted and unadjusted logistic regression was performed to examine the relationship between study variables and depression. After controlling for all variables, females were still more likely to have depression than men (adjusted OR [AOR] = 2.01, 95% CI = 1.565, 2.591), and unmarried individuals more likely to be depressed than those who were married (AOR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.193, 1.950). Refugees/Asylees/Parolees (AOR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.076, 2.530) and the Legalization group (AOR = 1.78, 95% CI = 1.229, 2.565) maintained higher odds of depression than the Family/Employment/Diversity group and participants who reported pre-migration harm (AOR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.330, 2.930) had higher odds of depression than those who experienced no harm. The difference in depression rates by visa status highlights the vulnerability to adverse mental health outcomes of certain groups (i.e. Refugees/Asylees/Parolees and Legalization) and reveals the need for more resources and attention towards immigrant sub-populations

The effect of family ownership on financing decisions of listed Vietnamese companies

The poster is a visualisation of my research proposal. Family firms play an important role in the global economies, especially in Vietnam. There have been studies on family firms\u27 financing decisions; however, the results were mixed. On the one hand, family shareholders have strong control motives. Hence they are argued to employ more debt because debt is a non-control diluted security. On the other hand, family shareholders are risk averse, and have incentives to pass down their businesses. Thus, they may prefer equity since debt incorporates bankruptcy risks. The literature gap calls for a demand of investigating how family ownership impacts on financing decisions of listed Vietnamese companies. I will use panel regression approach to analyse data collected from listed companies on Vietnam\u27s stock exchanges from 2008 to 2016. The regression results will show the effects of business characteristics (e.g, size, age, profitability, tangibility), corporate governance quality and family ownership on corporate financing decisions. My research has significance to researchers, practitioners and the Governmenthttps://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuposters/1023/thumbnail.jp

Air quality degradation in Alaska wilderness areas due to emission changes

The increasing trends in aerosol concentrations observed by the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network in the wilderness areas along the Gulf of Alaska during low insolation periods and in Denali National Park and Preserve (Denali NP) during high insolation periods have raised the concerns about air quality degradation and visibility impairment in these pristine areas. This dissertation aims to investigate the reason for those observed increases in aerosol concentrations in Alaska wilderness areas by performing a series of simulation sets with the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). These simulation sets use the same meteorological conditions but change the emission scenarios. The model evaluation analysis showed that WRF-Chem performed well in simulating meteorological conditions over Alaska and the North Pacific under both low and high insolation conditions. Performance skill-scores of the WRF-Chem model in simulating aerosol concentrations for the coastal monitoring sites along the Gulf of Alaska were consistent with state-of-the-science air-quality model performance. During low insolation periods, domestic and international ship emissions were the most important contributors to aerosol concentrations in the coastal regions along the Gulf of Alaska. The increases/decreases in ship emissions led to subsequent increases/decreases in aerosol concentrations in the coastal areas along the Gulf of Alaska during low insolation periods. During high insolation periods, in Interior Alaska, the contributions of local wildfire emissions to aerosol concentrations were notable even during the weak Alaska fire activity scenario. Under the strong Alaska fire activity scenario, local wildfire emissions were the dominant source of aerosols in Interior Alaska. The increases in Alaskan wildfire emissions led to significant increases in aerosol concentrations in Interior Alaska. During both low and high insolation periods, Japanese anthropogenic and Siberian wildfire emissions were not important contributors to total aerosol concentrations in all regions of Alaska. Overall in the wilderness areas along the Gulf of Alaska, the increases in aerosol concentrations observed during low insolation periods stemmed from increases in domestic and international ship emissions in the North Pacific. In contrast, the increases in aerosol concentrations observed at Denali NP during high insolation periods stemmed from increases in Alaskan wildfire emissions.1. Introduction -- 2. Experimental design and methodology -- 3. Emission inventory -- 4. Impacts of emission changes on sulfate aerosols in Alaska -- 5. Potential impacts of an emission control area on air quality in Alaska coastal regions -- 6. Impacts of wildfire emissions and their changes on PM₂.₅ concentrations and speciation in Alaska -- 7. Conclusions

Essays on the impact of conflict and regulations on the private sector in developing countries

My dissertation explores the effect of ethnic conflict, or regulations meant to avoid ethnic strife, on firm employment and productivity in developing countries. The first chapter investigates the impact of the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire that began in 2000, using a census of all registered firms for the years 1998-2003. We use structural estimates of the production function and exploit spatial variations in conflict intensity to derive the cost of conflict on firms in terms of productivity loss. The results indicate that the conflict led to an average 16-23% drop in firm total factor productivity and the decline is 5-10 percentage point larger for foreign firms. These results are consistent with anecdotal evidence of attacks on and looting of foreigners and their businesses during the conflict. We also find evidence to support the hypothesis that firms responded by hiring less foreign workers. The second chapter studies affirmative action policies in Malaysia, focusing on a specific policy in the private sector. In particular, I examine the impact of a regulatory change which no longer requires foreign-owned manufacturers above a certain size to reserve 30% equity for (ethnic) Malay shareholders. I set up a theoretical model to show that the original policy results in a range of firms to stay inefficiently small. Removing this equity requirement for foreign firms leads to two effects: (i) foreign firms become less likely to be sized constrained, and (ii) their average size increases relatively to other firms. These predictions are supported by empirical evidence from difference-in-difference estimations, based on firm-level data from the Malaysia Productivity and Investment Climate Survey in 2002 and 2007. Finally, chapter three examines the relationship between labor standards and market power in imports in a cross-country context. The hypothesis is that since labor standard policies can act as a substitute for import tariffs, all else equal, bigger importers would have lower labor standards. IV estimation with geography-based instruments finds evidence consistent with theory. In general, countries with higher market shares in labor intensive imports tend to have weaker Free Association and Collective Bargaining rights. Moreover, the effect is stronger among GATT members

Immigration and Reverse Brain Drain in South East Asia

In recent years, governments around the world have shown increasing concerns about brain drain, the shift in human intelligence of many of their best educated citizens from developing countries to developed countries, as it causes negative effects on social and economic sectors of the source country. Nonetheless, Kuhn and McAusland (2006) argue that talent might often be wasted at home; migration to more supportive environments raises global innovation. Saxenian (2003) finds that gains may flow back to the developing country via returnees with enhanced skills, personal connections, and ideas for innovation. This thesis studies the causes of immigration. The study focuses on migrants from South East Asian countries to 50 states in United States excluding District of Columbia. Using a sample from the American Community Survey of people living in the United States, together with the source country data from World Development Indicator, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Labor Statistics, International Labor Organization, and Heritage Foundation, this thesis constructs a gravity model of immigration to analyze the factors affecting the immigration flow. The dependent variable of the model is the number of immigrants flowing into each of the 50 states from each of the 8 source countries. The result shows that for high-skilled immigrants, GDP per capita differentials between U.S. states and the source country, the political factor, population of both the U.S. and the source country, the distance between the destination and the origin, as well as the corruption freedom index have a positive influence on the immigration flow. On the other hand, income inequality in the U.S. has a negative effect on the immigration flow, suggesting that the immigration flow looks for a more socially balanced lifestyle. This thesis also suggests that the source country’s government implement changes to improve the gender inequality as well as the income inequality to mitigate the outflow of residents

Investigating the Effects of Personalization on Brand Love: A Study of Facebook

This paper investigates how personalized advertising affects customer brand relationship in social media. In particular, this paper develops and tests a conceptual model that captures the impact of perceived personalization on customer brand relationship through an online survey where respondents are free to describe a personalized ad they see on their Facebook. Eight hypotheses are developed and tested using PLS-SEM. The results show that all hypotheses are accepted except for Hypothesis 7 (the effect of self-expressive brands on brand love). More specifically, the findings confirm that personalized advertising has an impact on consumer perceptions of a brand. Stated differently, as long as customers perceive an advertising to be personalized, their perceptions about the brands being advertised generally become more positive. Additionally, the levels of consumer brand engagement, brand self-expressiveness and consumer brand connection are enhanced by perceived personalization and brand love can be improved by consumer brand engagement and consumer brand connection. However, brand love is not affected by brand self-expressiveness. This study is developed after cooperation between IBM and Facebook with its purpose to provide a better advertising solution for marketers. The findings from this research show that this type advertising could change customer perspectives of the brands advertised and ultimately improves customer passion of and emotion about the brand (or brand love). This study also provides empirical results to strengthen the belief that social commerce companies could now apply a unique marketing tool – personalized advertising – to accomplish their marketing goals. The research sheds light into advertising literature investigating the effects of personalization in traditional media (Baek & Morimoto, 2012; Pavlou & Stewart, 2000; Tam & Ho, 2005) and into understanding the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). This research helps better understand key factors affecting brand love through a study of personalized ads in social media