Showing papers by "Oklahoma City University published in 1998"

Ethnocentrism in TESOL: Teacher Education and the Neglected Needs of International TESOL Students.

Abstract: This article argues that strong ethnocentrism exists in TESOL teacher education in the Western English-speaking countries, and that teacher educators in these countries have by and large neglected the special needs of international students enrolled in their programmes. The article specifies the major needs of international TESOL students, and provides suggestions about what TESOL teacher education programmes should do to help meet these needs.

Minimum wage laws: What does an employment increase imply about output and welfare?

Abstract: Card and Krueger find empirically that minimum wage laws may increase employment. The current paper seeks the analytical implications of employment-increasing minimum wages for output and welfare. The standard supply and demand model cannot be used for this purpose. One needs a model in which employment-increasing minimum wages are at least possible, such as this paper's efficiency wage model. Here, an employment increase is neither necessary nor sufficient for expected welfare gains for either employed or unemployed workers. An employment-increasing minimum wage raises output but unambiguously lowers labor force participation and hurts those who remain unemployed.

Reconfiguration for fault tolerance using graph grammars

Abstract: Reconfiguration for fault tolerance is a widely studied field, but this work applies graph grammars to this discipline for the first time. Reconfiguration Graph Grammars (RGG) are defined and applied to the definition of processor array reconfiguration algorithms. The nodes of a graph are associated with the processors of a processor array, and the edges are associated with those interprocessor communication lines that are active. The resulting algorithms for dynamic (run-time) reconfiguration are efficient and can be implemented distributively.

Are Real Assets Priced Internationally? Evidence from the Art Market

Abstract: This article investigates the relationships between the U.S. and Japanese stock market indices and the prices of modern and impressionist paintings sold at auction in New York by Christies and Sotheby. An art price index is constructed to adjust for heterogeneity of individual paintings. Time series properties of the art price index are examined in relation with the S&P500 and Topix stock market indices. The art-price index is heteroskedastic and autocorrelated. When the log-returns to art are compared to log-price returns to the S&P500 and TOPIX stock indices, a single common long-term stochastic trend in the three indices is found. In the short run, log-changes of art prices are related to current and lagged log-changes of the TOPIX index only.

Low versus high prevalence of AIDS: effect on nursing students' attitudes and knowledge.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to compare AIDS knowledge and attitudes of baccalaureate nursing students living in a state with a high prevalence of AIDS and those who resided in a state with a low prevalence of AIDS. Students from the high-prevalence state had significantly higher AIDS knowledge scores than did students from the low-prevalence state. However, overall, respondents from the low-prevalence state viewed the person living with AIDS with more accepting attitudes than did the respondents from the high-prevalence state. Students in the high-prevalence state interacted with persons living with AIDS (PLWA) primarily through professional contact. In contrast, students in the low-prevalence state identified both personal and professional contact with PLWA as their most significant interactions. Personal experience of nursing students appears to be a key to decreasing stigmatization of PLWA.

On the impossibility of placebo effects in psychotherapy

Abstract: Two inimical interpretations of psychotherapy look to many of the same features of empirical research. One camp infers that placebo effects are impossible in principle in psychotherapy; the other camp infers from the same research that psychotherapy is essentially placebo. I examine the crucial discussions and conclude that these opposing evaluations ensue because each group presumes a different baseline from which the significance of the research is gauged. I show how different baselines set different standards of significance and invite different comparisons between therapeutic and non‐therapeutic practices. Attention to this point about the baseline of significance puts the placebo debate in sharper relief and frames more clearly the merits and demerits of each position. It also leads to the conclusion that neither group really lays hold of in‐principle claims, since both interpretations rest on context‐dependent features of the empirical situation. Along the way, I discuss salient features of...

The Quaker Bibliographic World of Francis Daniel Pastorius's Bee Hive

Abstract: What Quaker tracts and treatises were available in the Delaware Valley in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century? How did the published Quaker writings in early Pennsylvania compare in number and subject matter with the universe of published Quaker writings? What do their nature and content suggest about the literary, religious, political, and legal interests of early Pennsylvanians? Answers to these questions are of interest to anyone who seeks to explore the nature of print culture in colonial America. Francis Daniel Pastorius, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1683, offers assistance in developing answers to those questions. Pastorius's life touched great events in Europe and America. Born in 1651 in Sommerhausen, Germany, he was the son of a magistrate of that city. From 1668 to 1676 he was educated in law at the University of Altdorf, interspersed with time at the Universities of Jena, Regensburg, Strassburg, and perhaps Basel. Upon graduation from Altdorf in 1676, he began practicing law in Windsheim. Because of his interest in the Pietist movement centered around Frankfurt, he moved there in 1678. When the Frankfurt Pietists formed the Frankfurt

Racetrack Wagering and the `Uninformed' Bettor: A Study of Market Efficiency

Abstract: The analysis examines the wagering behavior of the "uninformed" bettor. Using data from a second tier racetrack, the high correlation between subjective and objective probabilities suggests an efficient win pool. However, the results fail to demonstrate the public's tendency to underbet favorites and overbet longshots. Employing computer intensive statistical methods, a second part of the analysis suggests that mispricing does exist in the place and show pools, although the size of these inefficiencies may be of small economic consequence. Taken as a whole, the results of a small, start-up track mirror those found in earlier studies of major racetracks and support an earlier conjecture that the fast, repetitive feedback in horserace wagering facilitates learning.

Classroom Exercise: Interpreting Sacred Texts

Abstract: The author uses a contemporary functional document (a campus map) to design an imaginative exercise which teaches students the limits of map (or text) as a guide to reliable information. Through the exercise, students learn about gaps in information and the limits of what any text reveals, even one which is ostensibly designed as a reliable guide for navigating a campus.