Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
A Transdisciplinary Emergent Approach For Systems And Interventions (Easi), Chaithanya Renduchintala
A Transdisciplinary Emergent Approach For Systems And Interventions (Easi), Chaithanya Renduchintala
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
In modeling human behavior and social structures several factors can emerge over time this can be attributed to the availability of new data, increased complexity, changes to the organizational structure, interventions, introduction of innovative technology or services and due to improved knowledge and treatments. We hypothesize a new class of emergent decision support systems that continually evolve to account for this "Causal Drift". In this work, we illustrate the application of the Emergent Approach to Systems and Intervention (EASI™) methodology with the example of Community Intervention Activity Model (CIAM) to reduce the rate of diabetic hospitalization at the local/ county …
Modeling The Effects Of Diversity And Corporations On Participation Dynamics In Floss Ecosystems, Olivia Newton
Modeling The Effects Of Diversity And Corporations On Participation Dynamics In Floss Ecosystems, Olivia Newton
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
A multitude of societal issues associated with the development of technology have emerged over the years including, but not limited to: insufficient personnel for maintenance; a lack of accessibility; the spread of harmful tools; and bias and discrimination against marginalized groups. I propose that a systems perspective is necessary to identify potential leverage points in technology production systems to influence them towards increased social good and evaluate their effectiveness for intervention. Toward this end, I conducted a mixed-methods study of a widely-adopted approach in tech production, free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) development. A survey was distributed to elicit responses …
Postpartum Depression Symptoms In New Mothers And The Disclosure Process, Kelsey Lunsford
Postpartum Depression Symptoms In New Mothers And The Disclosure Process, Kelsey Lunsford
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Using a qualitative approach, this study examined disclosure patterns of women who have experienced symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD). Postpartum depression is a mental illness that new parents are at risk of developing. If left unresolved, PPD can have severe, negative impacts on the development of the baby and the well-being of the parent. Unfortunately, due to the stigmatized nature of the illness, parents are sometimes reluctant to bring up their struggles with this illness and seek help. Eighteen women who had experienced PPD within the past five years were recruited and participated in an interview where they were asked …
Learning And Decision Making In Social Media Networks, Zhecheng Qiang
Learning And Decision Making In Social Media Networks, Zhecheng Qiang
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Social media is a virtual community where users share news, ideas, interests, and information. Learning the information diffusion dynamics and making decisions correspondingly, e.g., selecting the seed nodes to maximize the influence, have been widely applied to the areas of viral marketing and cyber security. In this dissertation, we study the problem of learning diffusion process, i.e., infection prediction, in social media networks utilizing both feature-based machine learning methods and mathematical model-based methods. For feature-based machine learning methods, the neighborhood information is treated as an important feature together with user profile and content similarity features. For model-based methods, two distinctive …
Circulating Suburbia: Locating A Transnational Suburban Imagination In Post-War Periodicals, 1945-1970, Tyler Dick
Circulating Suburbia: Locating A Transnational Suburban Imagination In Post-War Periodicals, 1945-1970, Tyler Dick
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
In this thesis I argue that a suburban cultural imagination developed transnationally during the post-war period (roughly 1945-1970) rather than as a cultural phenomenon largely associated with the 1950s United States. I situate the suburbs—in both their physical and cultural constructions—as my primary focus and discuss the suburb's influence on hegemonic culture by performing an in-depth comparison of the U.S. with another country with a long history of suburbanization—Australia. Given that the suburbs structure several social, cultural, economic, political, and historical vectors—which all in turn inform issues of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nationality—I focus on how the suburbs inform …
Post-Crisis Organizational Learning Thresholds, Pitfalls And The Risk Of Repeated Crises: Clarifying The Discourse Of Renewal Theory, Rodrigo Soares
Post-Crisis Organizational Learning Thresholds, Pitfalls And The Risk Of Repeated Crises: Clarifying The Discourse Of Renewal Theory, Rodrigo Soares
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Through a case study analysis of repeated crises that impacted the same organization in Brazil, this dissertation aimed to solve an applied problem: the potential for unresolved or amplified risk for organizations and their stakeholders facing repeated crises due to incomplete post-crisis learning. This research expands and clarifies the understanding of organizational learning, particularly in the Discourse of Renewal theory, by exploring the potential for organizations to ascertain vital lessons for a crisis but fail to communicatively constitute them as central features of a renewed organization. The study investigated an organization's failure to avoid repeating a crisis within a relatively …
Investigating The Effects Of Negative Influence Gradients And Emotion Contagion On The Information Processing Capacity Of Social Media Users: Information Diffusion Modeling Approach, Nisha Baral
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
With the growing use of Online social media (OSM), users are observing a substantial amount of information in their social feeds. Moreover, people often use multiple OSM platforms because of each platform's unique features. Because of the huge volume of information present in social feeds, it restricts a user's ability to process the relevant information since the most important information may be overwhelmed by unimportant information. For information to diffuse in OSM, the receiver's attention is the most important condition. Cognition plays an important role in determining a user's attention/responsiveness. If OSM users receive the information above their cognition limits …
A Human-Centered Approach To Improving Adolescent Online Sexual Risk Detection Algorithms, Afsaneh Razi
A Human-Centered Approach To Improving Adolescent Online Sexual Risk Detection Algorithms, Afsaneh Razi
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Computational risk detection has the potential to protect especially vulnerable populations from online victimization. Conducting a comprehensive literature review on computational approaches for online sexual risk detection led to the identification that the majority of this work has focused on identifying sexual predators after-the-fact. Also, many studies rely on public datasets and third-party annotators to establish ground truth and train their algorithms, which do not accurately represent young social media users and their perspectives to prevent victimization. To address these gaps, this dissertation integrated human-centered approaches to both creating representative datasets and developing sexual risk detection machine learning models to …
Not All Influence Is Born Equal: On The Effects Of Various Types Of Behavioral Influence Relationships On Social Media, Chathurani Senevirathna
Not All Influence Is Born Equal: On The Effects Of Various Types Of Behavioral Influence Relationships On Social Media, Chathurani Senevirathna
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Typically, online social influence is analyzed using a single metric approach. However, social influence is not monolithic; different users exercise different influences in different ways, and influence is correlated with the user and content-specific attributes. One such attribute could be whether the action is an initiation of a new post, a contribution to a post, or a sharing of an existing post. Thus, this dissertation uses this platform-independent action classification and models the influence as multiple entities and examines social networks through the perspective of behavioral influence propagation. Two empirical studies are present in this dissertation. The first study presents …
Igniting Interest?: Female Perceptions Of Communication Effectiveness In Public Safety Recruitment Campaigns, Ashley Papagni
Igniting Interest?: Female Perceptions Of Communication Effectiveness In Public Safety Recruitment Campaigns, Ashley Papagni
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Despite the potential for positive impacts resulting from a diverse workforce, fire departments across the country have struggled with the recruitment and hiring of minorities for decades, with women accounting for only 4.7% of its workforce (NFPA, 2020). Due in part to the limited diversity, the fire service tends to perpetuate the stereotypes of masculinity. There are three identified issues that are leading to the lack of female applicants in public safety positions, including the lack of diversity and inclusivity in Public Safety Organizations (PSOs), the absence of women in the role as firefighters, and the absence of recruitment strategies …
D&D&U&G: Uses And Gratifications Theory And Dungeons & Dragons, Ariana Ferrante
D&D&U&G: Uses And Gratifications Theory And Dungeons & Dragons, Ariana Ferrante
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Given the growing popularity of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D, this thesis study applied the Uses and Gratifications theory to determine what players of the game get from engagement with this particular, previously overlooked form of entertainment media. Additionally, this research sought to determine whether these discovered gratifications overlapped at all with perceived similar media, specifically massive multiplayer online roleplaying games, MMORPGs, and social media. A series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews designed to elicit relevant responses were conducted with 14 respondents, followed by a thematic analysis to determine gratifications. The qualitative analysis determined a set of …
When Doubt Comes In: Framing Of Sexual Trauma Experiences In R/Sexualassault, Alison Kubala
When Doubt Comes In: Framing Of Sexual Trauma Experiences In R/Sexualassault, Alison Kubala
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
At age 23 I began acknowledging and healing from my experiences with sexual trauma. Although my trauma occurred from ages twelve to eighteen, my doubt and preconceived notions about what abuse was kept me from believing that I deserved help. Due to an incessant belief that abuse looked one particular way, I found ways to minimize and frame my experiences as "not abuse". Fueled by encouragement from my therapist and my interest in Communication research, I began to wonder how others who experience shame and doubt surrounding sexual abuse frame their experiences. To better understand, I conducted a critical discourse …
Identifying Challenges And Opportunities For Designing Social Media Nudges For Adolescents, Oluwatomisin Obajemu
Identifying Challenges And Opportunities For Designing Social Media Nudges For Adolescents, Oluwatomisin Obajemu
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
With the prevalence of online risks encountered by youth online, strength-based approaches such as nudges have been recommended as a potential solution to subtly guide teens toward safer decisions. However, most nudging interventions to date have not been designed to cater to teens’ unique needs and online safety concerns. To address this gap, this study aimed to better understand adolescents’ perceptions and feedback on online safety nudges to inform the design of more effective online safety interventions. We conducted 12 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus group sessions with 21 teens (13 – 17 years old) to get their feedback on …