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Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

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Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

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Leadership and Multifaith Program

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Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

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School of Economics

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School of History and Sociology

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School of Literature, Media, and Communication

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Publication Search Results

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The impact of performance ratings on federal personnel decisions

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-16) Oh, Seong Soo

Can pay-for-performance increase the motivation of public employees? By providing a basis for personnel decisions, particularly linking rewards to performance, performance appraisals aim to increase employees' work motivation and ultimately to improve their work performance and organizational productivity. With the emphasis on results-oriented management, performance appraisals have become a key managerial tool in the public sector. Critics charge, however, that pay-for-performance is ineffective in the public sector, largely because the link between performance and rewards is weak. However, no one has empirically measured the strength of the linkage. If performance ratings do have an impact on career success in the federal service, they might contribute to race and gender inequality. Although many studies have examined factors affecting gender and racial differences in career success, studies that try to connect gender and racial inequalities to managerial tools are scarce. Using a one percent sample of federal personnel records, the first essay examines the impact of performance ratings on salary increases and promotion probabilities, and the second essay explores whether women and minorities receive lower ratings than comparable white males, and women and minorities receive lower returns on the same level of performance ratings than comparable white males. The first essay finds that performance ratings have only limited impact on salary increases, but that they significantly affect promotion probability. Thus, the argument that performance-rewards link is weak could be partially correct, if it considers only pay-performance relationships. The second essay finds that women receive equal or higher performance ratings than comparable white men, but some minority male groups, particularly black men, tend to receive lower ratings than comparable white men. On the other hand, the returns on outstanding ratings do not differ between women and minority male groups and white men, though women groups seem to have disadvantages in promotion with the same higher ratings as comparable men in highly male-dominant occupations.
The amphetamine years: a study of the medical applications and extramedical consumption of psychostimulant drugs in the postwar united states, 1945-1980

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-16) Moon, Nathan William

The Amphetamine Years is a history of psychostimulant drugs and their clinical applications in post-World War II American medicine. Comprising such well-known substances as the amphetamines (Benzedrine, Dexedrine), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and phenmetrazine (Preludin), this class of pharmaceuticals has been among the most widely consumed in the past half-century. Their therapeutic uses for a variety of indications such as depression, obesity, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, not to mention their relevance for a number of different medical specialties, reveals that psychostimulants have occupied an important, if underappreciated role in the practice of modern medicine. In this dissertation, I illuminate the various ways in which physicians, particularly psychiatrists, put these drugs to work in clinical practice. In short, I contend that physicians exploited the wide range of physiological and psychological effects of psychostimulants and made a place for them in different therapeutic settings, even ones characterized by competing views and theories about the workings of the human body and mind. My dissertation is distinguished by two prominent themes. First, I emphasize the clinician perspective as a vehicle for understanding the history of the psychostimulants, as well as related developments in psychiatry, pharmacotherapy, and the political economy of drugs, in the second half of the twentieth century. Scholars such Nicolas Rasmussen, David Courtwright, and Ilina Singh have elucidated the history of psychostimulants by emphasizing how pharmaceutical companies positioned their products in the medical marketplace. My dissertation takes a different, yet complimentary approach by studying clinicians, themselves, to further historical comprehension of the place of these pharmaceuticals within postwar medicine, society, and culture. Second, I advance the concept of "therapeutic versatility" to explain their historical trajectories. The complex set of psychological and physical effects these drugs produced made them ideal for a diverse range of therapeutic applications, which explains why they were embraced by many different medical specialties, why they were marketed by manufacturers for a variety of indications, and why they have enjoyed an enduring therapeutic lifespan, in spite of increasing efforts since the mid-1960s to regulate their availability and control their consumption. In addition to these two overarching themes, I advance five specific arguments in my dissertation. First, I contend that pharmaceutical markets were simultaneously created by the drug industry and clinicians. Pharmaceutical firms' efforts to develop markets for their products have been well documented by historians, but in my dissertation, I underscore the role also played by clinicians in discerning drugs' applications. Second, I argue that twentieth-century psychiatry's conception of illness and therapeutics may not be served best by strictly dividing its history along lines of institutional and outpatient treatment. Third, I demonstrate how the use of psychostimulants by analytically oriented psychiatrists during the 1950s complicates historical notions of paradigm shift from a psychodynamic to biological orientation. Psychotherapy and psychopharmacology were not competing paradigms; in practice, doctors often employed both. Fourth, I assert that an appreciation of psychiatrists' empirical and eclectic approaches to the use of drugs is necessary to comprehend the rise of psychiatric pharmacotherapy in the postwar era. Finally, I contend that in order to understand the relationship between medical applications of psychostimulants and their extramedical consumption, it is necessary to conceive of a plurality of distinct "amphetamine cultures," each characterized by a unique set of relationships between physician-prescribers, patient-consumers, pharmaceutical firms, and political authorities.
The tribulations of adventure games: integrating story into simulation through performance

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-13) Fernandez Vara, Clara

This dissertation aims at positioning adventure games in game studies, by describing their formal aspects and how they have integrated game design with stories. The adventure game genre includes text adventures (also known as interactive fiction), graphical text adventures, and graphic adventures, also referred to as point-and-click adventure games. Adventure games have been the first videogames to evidence the difficulty of reconciling games and stories, an already controversial topic in game studies. An adventure game is a simulation, the intersection between the rule system of the game and its fictional world. The simulation becomes a performance space for the player. The simulation establishes how the player can interact with the world of the game. The simulated world integrates a series of concatenated puzzles, which structure the performance of the player. Solving the puzzles thus means advancing in the story of the game. The integration of the story with the simulation is done through the performance of the player. The game design establishes a specific set of actions necessary to complete both the game and the story, and this set of actions constitutes a behavior that must be restored through performance. The player can also explore the world and its workings, which is necessary to solve the puzzles. By solving the puzzles, the player restores this pre-set behavior. The simulation in adventure games may not be evident because of a historical shift in the level of abstraction, which determines how the world is implemented in the game mechanics. Adventure games have increasingly curbed the agency of the player in the world, in order to facilitate completing the story of the game. This move to a less fine-grained interaction has affected different aspects of game design, from reducing the number of possible actions to limiting the interactivity of non-player characters. The dissertation discusses how adventure games have integrated story with the performance in the simulated world of the game. This integration is further evidenced by how they apply to the four basic elements that bridge story and game design: space, player character, non-player character and time. The qualities of these elements help us understand how the player performs in the simulation, and how that performance is designed. Analyzing the properties of the simulation in adventure games helps draw comparisons with other videogame genres. The rich history of adventure games can inform the game design of other videogames, particularly in relation to the creation of fictional worlds, strategies to script the interactor, and design of non-player characters.
A study of the impact of decentralization on access to service delivery

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-10) Saavedra, Pablo A.

This research builds further on the existing conceptual framework of the relationship between decentralization and service delivery and provides a cross-country empirical examination of the core dimensions of decentralization reform on access to two key services: health care and improved drinking water sources. The regression results provide evidence supporting positive and significant effects of fiscal, administrative, and political decentralization, individually, on the variables used to measure access to health care, and improved water provision; although the size and robustness of such effects varies for each dimension of decentralization in relation to each service examined. The results obtained in this study suggest that there is an additional (or "extra") positive effect coming from the interaction of two decentralization dimensions on access to health care and water services (that is, a mutually-reinforcing effect additional to the individual effect of each dimension of decentralization). The results obtained also support the expectation that developing countries could benefit significantly more from decentralization reforms compared to developed countries. These findings underscore the importance of considering all dimensions of the decentralization process when investigating the effects of this reform on any economic, institutional, or social variable. The policy implications are highly relevant, particularly for developing countries: decentralization implemented only through one dimension may render fewer positive fruits in terms of access to services than a multi-dimensional approach. Moreover, learning more about the most beneficial mutually-reinforcing effects across dimensions of decentralization may also help strategically in how the overall decentralization reform is designed.
Evaluating the impacts of partnership: an electronic panel study of partnering and the potential for adaptive management

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-08-21) Waschak, Michael R.

There has been an increase in the use of partnerships as a policy prescription for improving education since the mid 1980's. This trend builds on nearly a century of reform movements in education. In order to improve education policy, this study focuses on the question of whether math and science education partnerships as typically constituted provide the necessary conditions for the adaptive management (sustainable and adaptable action) of local education problems by the participants. This qualitative study uses data derived from the views of 32 experts on math and science partnerships collected during an internet-based application of the Delphi methodology designed to develop testable elements of a logic model of partnerships in math and science education. The results of this study suggest that the implementation and content requirements built into grant programs that include partners as a condition in aid most often result in a narrow programmatic focus among the participants. Organizations choose to participate in disjointed serial interventions that support organizational needs or goals based on the availability of funding and partners for particular programmatic activities. They choose partners from among those who are interested in similar or complementary activities. The primary focus of STEM education partnerships is therefore on implementing and sometimes evaluating the funded programmatic activities and not on building a broader learning community. Activities or education problems that are not funded tend to be excluded from the activities and dialog of the policy-induced partnership. By limiting the scope of the collaboration we are limiting the potential for adaptive management and the value of these partnerships.
Government funding and INGO autonomy: from resource dependence and tool choice perspectives

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-08-20) Chikoto, Grace Lyness

Using a qualitative multiple case study methodology, this study explores the relationship between government funding and INGO autonomy in three INGOs through resource dependence and tool choice frameworks. Adapting Verhoest, Peters et al.'s (2004) conceptualization of organizational autonomy as the extent of an organization's decision making capacity in matters concerning agency operations and human resource and financial management; this research regards the authors second definition of financial, structural, legal, and interventional constraints not as types of autonomy per se, but as the mechanisms through which INGOs' actual use of their decision making competencies is constrained. The findings in this research suggest that relative to other funding sources, government funding disproportionately impacts INGOs' operational and managerial autonomy. This is largely accomplished through various ex ante and ex post constraints such as, rules and regulations on inputs allocation and use, performance controls and evaluation requirements attached to government funding. This research also finds that the tool of choice used by government to finance INGO activities also steer, direct and influence INGO grantees' decisions thus positioning INGOs to incorporate government policy interests, preferences and priorities. However, INGOs can exercise their autonomy through various strategies ranging from program design, contract negotiation, and participation in advisory groups.
The earnings of Asian computer scientists and engineers in the United States

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-07-06) Tao, Yu

While Asians are overrepresented in science and engineering, they receive limited scholarly attention in sociology of science. To fill the knowledge gap about this understudied group, this study examines the effects of race, nativity, degree origin, gender, field, employment sector, and nationality on the earnings of Asian computer scientists and engineers working in the U.S. Data are derived from the National Survey of College Graduates, 1993 and 2003. Using quantile regression, this study has the following findings. First, race and nativity had some effects on the earnings of Asian computer scientists and engineers in 1993 at both 90th and 50th quantiles, but they disappeared in 2003 with one exception. Degree origin had an effect in 1993 in some cases at the 90th quantile but across gender, field, and two sectors at the 50th quantile. However, it disappeared in 2003 with two exceptions. Second, all the four women's groups--white, Asian American, U.S.-, and Asian-educated immigrant women--earned less than their male counterparts in 1993 or 2003 at either quantile. Furthermore, U.S.-educated immigrant women suffered from the double bind effect, or being disadvantaged due to both their gender and race, at the 50th quantile. Third, computer scientists earned slightly more than their engineer counterparts in both years at both quantiles. Fourth, educational institutions and state/local government paid less than industry in 1993 and 2003 at both quantiles. Federal government eliminated the gap in 2003 at the 50th quantile. Finally, this study finds that a few but not all nationality groups suffered from earning disadvantages in 1993 or 2003 at either quantile. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the earnings of workers in the upper tail (90th quantile) are less influenced by factors that this study examines than those at the median (50th quantile). Overall, the findings partly reaffirm the structural barriers that some groups, notably women, racial/ethnic minorities, and immigrants, face in the U.S. workplace. The degree origin effect in 1993 could be due to the lower quality of degrees from Asia. The disappearance of such an effect in 2003 could be due to the interactions between structural forces and human capital.
The value of Fijian coral reefs by nonusers: a contingent valuation study to investigate willingness-to-pay for conservation, understand scale/magnitude of reef problems and provide tools for practitioners

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-07-06) Fonseca, Carolyn E.

A contingent valuation study was done to investigate the value of Fijian reefs by households in the Metro Atlanta area. Individuals were surveyed and asked questions about their Willingness-to-Pay for coral reef conservation, personal views on the scope/magnitude of coral reef problems, and experience around ocean related activities as well as knowledge. Results from this data, find individuals would donate on average $0.18 taking into account sample and response bias. Less conservative estimates calculated contributions per person to equal $13.9 for the conservation of Fijian reefs. These results imply Atlanta, which is very distant from Fiji, has the potential to contribute to Fijian coral reef conservation programs. Although little empirical work exists on valuation measure for reefs of non-users and groups distant to reefs, this study suggests nonprofits and developing countries could benefit from the inclusion or previously excluded (due to distance to reefs) participants. The study discusses donor characteristics as well as possible market strategies these organizations could utilize to maximize revenue. Findings from this work highlight two important issues rarely discussed in the policy literature: 1-the use of non-market valuation methods to identify stakeholders and 2-the effects of distance on use and non-use value ultimately impacting conservation.
Intentional systems and the artificial intelligence (AI) hermeneutic network: agency and intentionality in expressive computational systems

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-07-06) Zhu, Jichen

Human interaction with technical artifacts is often mediated by treating them as if they are alive. We exclaim "my car doesn't want to start," or "my computer loves to crash." Of increasing cultural importance are software systems designed explicitly to perform tasks and/or exhibit complex behaviors usually deemed as intentional human phenomena, including creating, improvising, and learning. Compared to the instrumental programs (e.g., Adobe Photoshop), these intentional systems (e.g., George Lewis' musical system Voyager) seem to produce output that is "about" certain things in the world rather than the mere execution of algorithmic rules. This dissertation investigates such phenomena with two central research questions: (1) How is system intentionality formed? and (2) What are the design implications for building systems that utilize such intentionality as an expressive resource. In the discourse of artificial intelligence (AI) practice, system intentionality is typically seen as a technical and ontological property of a computer program, emerging from its underlying algorithms and knowledge engineering. Distilling from the areas of hermeneutics, actor-network theory, cognitive semantics theory, and philosophy of mind, this dissertation proposes a humanistic and interpretive framework called the AI hermeneutic network. It accentuates that system intentionality is narrated and interpreted by its human creators and users in their socio-cultural settings. Special attention is paid to system authors' discursive strategies, a constitutive component of AI, embedded in their source code and technical literature. The utility of the framework is demonstrated by a close analytical reading of a full-scale AI system, Copycat. The theoretical discovery leads to new design strategies, namely scale of intentionality and agency play. They provide insights for using system intentionality and agency as expressive resources that can be used to convey meanings and express ideas. The fruits of these insights are illustrated by a stream of consciousness literature inspired interactive narrative project Memory, Reverie Machine, co-developed using Harrell's GRIOT system. It portrays a protagonist whose intentionality and agency vary dynamically in service of narrative needs.
Embodying comics: reinventing comics and animation for a digital performance

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-07-02) Samanci, Ozge

In the digital era, the comics medium has been transported from print to computer screen, and thus its evolution takes place in digital performances based on full-body interaction technologies. The major implication of this process is that the conventions of comics will be merging with those of performance, film, and animation. In a comics story implemented with full-body interaction technologies, representational space shifts from two to three dimensions. Physical elements can now easily be combined with virtual ones. The participants' contribution to the experience now includes a larger set of kinesthetic choices. Earlier media offer the readers the opportunity to read the story with their eyes, turn pages, and click a mouse. Instead of one or perhaps two readers of print and screen-based comics, a digital performance can be experienced by a group of viewers positioned in space in various ways. By utilizing the tools of computer vision, the projection of a participant can be made the main character of the comics story. Consequently, the comics and animation frame changes when moved to digital performance spaces. The frame becomes embodied, nested, elastic, and dynamic. The first two qualities relate to the physicality of the medium, where performers and viewers are simultaneously present in both the real and fictional spaces. The second two qualities relate to the procedurality of the medium and the potential for computational manipulation within the frame based on changing relationships across space (distance) and time (story).