Digital Commons Network^™

Artificial Intelligence And Perception: An Empirical Study, Anthony J. Neil

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the impact of adjusting artificial intelligence explainability levels’ outputs on user perception. The overarching study extends within the Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) domain. It examines a spectrum of variables, including performance, cognizance, familiarity, transparency, system bias, and the overall impact of AI, to understand their collective and individual effects that enable effective professional use in an organization. The study aims to illuminate the relationship between the degree of explainability provided by large language models such as ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing AI and the performance of these models when tasked with XAI adjustments.

The Missionary And The Pea: An Anthropological Study Of The French Mep Economy, Michel Chambon

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper discusses how the French missionaries of the Missions Etrangères de Paris (MEP) are linking humans and material objects to support their religious agenda. Revisiting the long history of this organization in Hong Kong and Thailand, but also its distinct recruitment and assignment policies, I highlight how these Catholic missionaries rely on their French cultural background to interconnect people and goods. While theological principles and political pragmatism shape their functioning, I argue that their economy is distinctively rooted in the French notion of terroir –the taste of place— an embodied relation to land that acts as a cultural mechanism …

A Queer Chinese Pilgrimage: Encountering Catholic Life In Manila, George Wu Bayuga

Journal of Global Catholicism

Starting in the late 1990s, Chinese Catholic priests, sisters, and seminarians began journeying to the Philippines to undergo religious and spiritual formation. This paper documents this journey and characterizes it as a kind of queer pilgrimage. Recognizing the queer theoretical parallels between minoritized populations under hegemony and Catholic life under socialism, this paper calls for attention to the queer work of imagining futures that emerges through processes of movement, encounter, and reflexivity across new political and social spaces. Specifically, this paper highlights how state-religious relations under socialism can differentially shape how Chinese Catholics think of themselves, faith formation, and how …

“Eres Un No Sabo Kid”: How Linguistic Discrimination Online Is Shaping Young Heritage Spanish Speakers’ Language Attitudes, Identities, And Community Connections, Diana Camberos, Claudia Pozzobon Potratz

11th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language (Archived)

We explore how a social media phenomenon impacts the identity, language development, ideologies, and sense of community and self among Heritage Spanish Speakers (HSS) at a PWI in the Midwest. The data reveals the unique experiences and challenges faced by HSS and their perspective on language ideologies and identity.

Empowering Spanish Heritage Learners Through A Community Informed, Online Medical Spanish Curriculum, Bonnie C. Holmes Ph.D., Kenneth Rhee Md

11th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language (Archived)

The lack of standardized medical Spanish curriculum leads to variable content and quality, often neglecting heritage language learners. Also, community engagement efforts seldom extend to curriculum development. Learn about a collaboration between Spanish faculty and a physician to create an innovative, virtual Spanish for healthcare curriculum that addresses these challenges.

The Signs Of Cinema: Exploring The Effects Of Signifying God In Shadowlands, Bad Times At The El Royale, And The Tree Of Life, Eric Wescott Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the cinematic semiosis of God, to understand how God is signified through the film medium, and to explore possible effects of this signification on the American Christian mythos. This qualitative study was conducted as an artifactual analysis study. The selected artifacts were three films and two works of literature. The film artifacts were Shadowlands, Bad Times at the El Royale, and The Tree of Life. The literature artifacts were A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis and The Book of Job. The practice of close reading was given to each artifact …

Fake News: Finding Truth In Strategic Communication, Anne Damisa

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Fake news is an old phenomenon that has become a new obsession and a menace to society due to technological advancement and the proliferation of social media, which has changed traditional journalism norms. As the spread of false information has increased these past few years, it has become increasingly difficult for information consumers to distinguish between facts and fakes. A comprehensive systematic literature review to extract themes revealed the major factors responsible for spreading fake news. This qualitative interpretative meta-synthesis (QIMS) aims to better understand and offer solutions to combat fake news. This Ph.D. dissertation will serve as a guide …

Reducing Loneliness And Improving Social Support Among Older Adults Through Different Modalities Of Personal Voice Assistants, Valerie Jones, Changmin Yan, Marcia Shade, Julie Blaskewicz Boron, Zhengxu Yan, Hyeon Jung Heselton, Kate Johnson, Victoria Dube

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This study examines the potential of AI-powered personal voice assistants (PVAs) in reducing loneliness and increasing social support among older adults. With the aging population rapidly expanding, innovative solutions are essential. Prior research has indicated the effectiveness of various interactive communication technologies (ICTs) in mitigating loneliness, but studies focusing on PVAs, particularly considering their modality (audio vs. video), are limited. This research aims to fill this gap by evaluating how voice assistants, in both audio and video formats, influence perceived loneliness and social support. This study examined the impact of voice assistant technology (VAT) interventions, both audio-based (A-VAT) and video-based …

The Pacific Sentinel, February 2024, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

The Pacific Sentinel

Editor: Eva Sheehan

Articles in this issue include:

• Earth Mama
• Spotlighting Black Artists Through a Mix of Mediums
• The Dresden Dolls in Portland: A Punk Cabaret
• Let Knowledge Serve the City
• Artificial Intelligence
• Surviving Seasonal Struggles
• What We're Enjoying
• Events Calendar & Extras

Algorithmic Love: Twenty-First Century Organizations Of The Romantic, Sandra Moyano Ariza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the highly computed and accelerated experiences of digital love as well as their cultural and artistic representations in order to shed light on the human and more-than-human entanglements producing the algorithmic love experience. The recent turn to love in critical theory and cultural studies examines how love circulates in neoliberal societies and in the subjective processes of the users, foregrounding the control of populations and the very much lamented “end of love” (Illouz 2019). My study of love supplements the neoliberalist critique of algorithmic love with a posthuman and media theory approach that attends to the material …

No Ela Without Ella: Understanding The Naming And Crafting Of Gendered Subjectivities In Puerto Rico, Carmín Quijano Seda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the beginning of the 20th century, the official metadiscourses about gendered job titles sedimented the idea that names or indexes pointing to women should be interpreted as unskilled, cheap, or even free labor in Puerto Rico (Azize, 1985; Muñiz Mas, 1998; Baerga-Santini, 1999). For this reason, Puerto Rican women organized and fought for equality in work settings. Furthermore, they became more active in politics and the government. Nevertheless, the Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) and local media discourses and interpretations about women’s labor discouraged them from participating in more senior positions (Acevedo Gaud, 2012).

However, this interpretation seemed to have …

Culturally And Socially Responsive Teacher Professional Learning At The American Museum Of Natural History, Jessica Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project consists of a series of professional learning sessions to support teachers in their implementation of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-SE) using the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) as a resource and case study. Through the lens of Historically Responsive Literacy, the series also seeks to reestablish social science as a critical element of natural history for teachers. This series can help teachers see the museum as not only a place to explore life and physical science, but also a place to explore identity, social/emotional development, cultural studies and American History. The project includes resources and directions for …

Digital Echoes: The Influence Of Internet And Social Media On The “Ideal” Conception Of Motherhood In Indonesian Stunting Programs, Sari Damar Ratri

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

This article examines how information about childhood care available on social media affects the construction of ideal Indonesian mothers. Specifically, I pay closer attention to how women's roles and experiences in stunting prevention campaigns are portrayed and enacted online in the context of the digital socialization of these programs. Based on online ethnographic research from 2021-2023, which examined social media accounts of healthcare professionals and mothers, this article explores the construction of “ideal” motherhood within the digital realm of stunting programs. As health care professionals’ social media accounts carried messages and embodied the authoritative power of medical knowledge, they helped …

“Merdeka Belajar”: A Cultural Political Economy Of Indonesia’S Neoliberalising Nationalist University, Inaya Rakhmani

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

This article examines the realignment of nationalist higher education in Indonesia to suit market interests. Using a cultural political economy approach to knowledge and power, this article selects and analyses university policy reforms and narratives in Indonesia that have guided university reform in the past decades. It suggests that the reorganisation of Indonesia’s higher education sector can be understood through the relationship between structural change in the global economy, which occurs together with cultural shifts within national and local conditions. It looks at how universities and higher education policies are organised in post-authoritarian Indonesia under the framework of neoliberal governance, …

When And Why Do Arabs Verify? Predicting Online News Verification Intention During The 2023 Gaza War, Menna Elhosary

Theses and Dissertations

Guided by the network gatekeeping and secondary gatekeeping theoretical frameworks, this study employed a 2 (news headlines: pro-Palestine/anti-Palestine) x 2 (news sources: the Times of Israel/Al-Jazeera English) experiment embedded in an online survey on a purposive sample of Arab social media users (N= 452), aiming to understand the antecedents of online news verification during the 2023 Gaza War1. The study investigated the motives that might have encouraged or discouraged Arabs from verifying the war-related news circulated on social media. A model was proposed to examine the role of confirmation bias in shaping perceptions about sources and messages, thereby impacting online …

The Cowl - V. 88 N. 1 - January 25, 2024

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 88 No. 1 - January 25, 2024. 16 pages.

Scrutinizing Along With Visual Persuasion Of Movie Billboards In Egypt From The 1930s To The 2010s/ Qualitative Content Analysis Study, Sara Ali Almaleki

Dissertations - ALL

In this study, I will use qualitative content analysis to analyze the Cultural, social, and political aspects of film billboard, and the usage persuasion techniques in Egyptian film posters from the 1930s to the 2010s. Two posters from each political era—equaling a total of ten samples— are analyzed regarding how the persuasion techniques related to the politics of the time. This study shows the relationship between politics and cinema, as well as how film posters utilize visual persuasion techniques in images throughout time. Furthermore, information about the beginnings of Egyptian cinema and its success in the Arab world will be …

Introduction, La Rédaction De « Al-Kīmiyā »

Al-Kīmiyā

Al-Kīmiyā se présente à ses lecteurs cette fois en un double numéro comportant des articles couvrant divers domaines de recherche en traduction et en langues. L’absence délibérée de thématique a permis de recueillir une diversité de sujets, tels que l’enseignement de la traduction, la traduction littéraire, l’interprétation, les contraintes de traduction, ainsi que la grammaire arabe et la francophonie [...]

Enseignement De La Traduction Automatique Et De La Post-Édition : Enquête Sur L’Adéquation Des Formations Universitaires Avec La Réalité Du Terrain Du Traducteur, Sara Salmi

Al-Kīmiyā

Nowadays, machine translation has become part of many translators’ working environment, and its informed use can add value to their work (Loock, 2019). It is imperative for universities to teach students the necessary skills to adapt to these emerging technologies and a constantly evolving market. The survey, conducted as part of a master’s research thesis, aimed to evaluate the adequacy of post-editing training and its alignment with the reality of the translator’s activity. We sought to measure the role of post-editing in the translator’s activity by surveying professionals through a questionnaire and gathering their feedback on the adequacy of post-editing …

Gendering Civil War: Francophone Women’S Writing In Lebanon, Tamara Sleiman

Al-Kīmiyā

Rebeiz, M. (2022). Gendering Civil War: Francophone Women’s Writing in Lebanon. Edinburgh University Press.

Gendering Civil War: Francophone Women’s Writing in Lebanon by Mireille Rebeiz is a book that examines narratives surrounding the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) written by women authors in the French language. The book, published in 2022 by Edinburgh University Press, offers an analysis of the literature and theories adopted by these authors.

Reframing Palestine: "Mornings In Jenin Or David’S Scar?" A Narrative Account Of The Persian Translation Of Susan Abulhawa’S Mornings In Jenin, Atieh Asadollahi Hamedani

Al-Kīmiyā

This article, with narrative theory mainly of Baker applied, explores how the translation of Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin in Persian reframes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict narrated by a Palestinian-American author. The hyphenated narrative position of the author provides her with more than the narratives of a monolithic ‘self’ and makes her challenge some of them. The language (English) she has chosen to narrate in also reveals the global audience her narrative is targeted at. However, the translator doesn’t seem to associate her translation with such a narrative position of the author on the issue of self/other. The narrative aimed to …

Le Français Au Sénégal De 1817 À 1960 : D’Une Langue Imposée À Une Langue Qui S’Est Imposée, Harouna Dior

Al-Kīmiyā

Today’s study traces the course of the French language and the role it played during colonization in Senegal. It is a mission that it accomplished well and which allowed it to be chosen as the official language of independent Senegal in 1960. The article looks back on the use of French from mutual education to the accession of the country to independence, passing through the secular school and the school of the hostages of Faidherbe, as well as the major reorganization of teaching in 1903 in the AOF. Then, the impact of the exclusive use of French in colonial education …

تجلّيات أيديولوجيّة في عالم الترجميّة, Nabiha Maktabi

Al-Kīmiyā

Most of the time, translators strive to achieve absolute neutrality towards the text they are translating. However, to what extent can this neutrality be achieved, and what is the distance that may separate the translator from the text? Translators can be affected by multiple factors, including cultural, ideological, and psychological factors that can influence their neutrality. In view of that, this article sheds light on the impact of ideological factors on the translation process. It examines various ideologies that may affect the work of the translator, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, and ultimately, how these influences manifest in the …

Le Schème, Concept Fondateur De La Grammaire Arabe : À La Recherche Des Origines, Madyan Matar

Al-Kīmiyā

Researching the roots of grammatical ideas remains a far-reaching scientific undertaking, as it leads to a better understanding of the epistemic foundations of grammatical theories. Thus, the aim of this paper is to explore the first historical clues as to the potential origins of the concept of pattern (wazn), one of the flagship concepts of Arabic grammar. Since no one in the scientific community seems to have brought up where this concept came from before, the current study intends to start by discussing the hypotheses that could identify the origins of the concept. The paper then draws on the available …

De La Spécificité De L’Interprétation Par Téléphone (Français-Arabe) – Étude De Terrain, Mohannad Alhalaki

Al-Kīmiyā

This field study was carried out with 10 public service interpreters by telephone in France with the aim of highlighting the aspects considered by practitioners as a source of constraints specific to the French-Arabic language pair. Three main questions were addressed with the participants: (1) the difficulties inherent to the variety of dialects spoken by Arabic-speaking users and (2) the issues of cultural differences between interpreter and users. The thematic analysis of data collected highlighted production and comprehension constraints due to the large dialectal diversity in the Arabic-speaking world, which partly explains the effort made by interpreters to adapt their …

Critical Multimodal Discourse Analysis: A Case Of A Palestinian Movement, Mohammedwesam Amer

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

The paper examines digital discourses of and on the Palestinian movement, Hamas on Twitter. The data corpus contains tweets and retweets by Shehab News Agency (Hamas’s agency), and all tweets associated with the hashtag #hamas and produced by any tweeter. The data resources were extracted in January 2022. The paper uses Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996 & 2006) social semiotic approach and critical discourse tools to examine online, textual and visual features of tweets. The findings show that the word occupation الاحتلال is the most frequent word in the tweets of Shehab News Agency, and it is associated with hashtags …

الدلالات السيميائية للبصريات المصاحبة للاحتجاجات الشعبية دراسة سيميائية لغرافيتي تظاهرات 25 تشرين الأول 2019 في العراق, Najm A. Kh. Aleessawi Alhatimi

Journal of the Association of Arab Universities for Research in Higher Education مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي

هدف المقال الوقوف على أبرز الدلالات السيميائية للبصريات والمرفقات الفنية التي صاحبت الاحتجاجات الشعبية التي حدثت في العراق نهاية عام 2019، وكيف وظف المحتجون كتاباتهم وفنونهم في تجسيد الحالة الاحتجاجية سيميائياً من خلال الغرافيتي. وقد اعتمد الباحث المنهج النوعي النقدي لمعالجة إشكالية المقال. عالج الباحث أكثر من 20 صورة ورسمة فنية وجدراية رسمها فنانو الاحتجاجات، وقد توصل الباحث إلى مجموعة من الاستنتاجات أهمها: إن فناني الاحتجاج وظفوا قدراتهم الفنية في تقديم رسائل واضحة بصورة فنية عالية المستوى عبروا فيها عن أهداف المحتجين، ومطالبهم. كما تبين من نتائج المقال أن بعض سيميائيات الغرافيني كانت مدعمة برسائل لغوية، ووطنية، وأخلاقية، وكلها تشير …

The New Paradigm Of Textual Content In Organizations: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis In The Digital Landscape, Sandrine Lefebvre-Reghay

Proceedings from the Document Academy

In this article, we aim to expand digital literature analysis to evaluate organizational textual content, vital for contemporary organizations' communication and operation. By comparing traditional literary structures with this new content format, we identify various dimensions influenced by it, including marketing, technology, economy, media, society, and culture. The dynamic nature of the internet, search engine algorithms, and AI's impact on content prompts a shift from prioritizing quantity to emphasizing quality, echoing Lucien Karpik's 1989 perspective on the value economy.

Patient Perceptions Of Audio-Only Versus Video Telehealth Visits: A Qualitative Study Among Patients In An Academic Medical Center Setting, Ryan Kruis, Elizabeth A. Brown, Jada Johnson, Kit N. Simpson, James Mcelligott, Jillian Harvey

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Introduction: Telehealth utilization surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering expanded health care access. Audio-only visits emerged as a crucial tool for patients facing technology or connectivity barriers to still use telehealth. This qualitative study aims to better understand patient perceptions of audio-only versus video telehealth visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how patients perceive the role of each in their overall health care. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 adult patients seeking care at an academic medical center located in the Southeast region of the United States. Patients had experienced both an audio-only and video telehealth visit within the …

Discursive Exclusion Of Chinese Americans:A Case Study Of New York City’S Political Media Landscape, Andrew G. White Iv

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to answer the following question: Between November 2020 and November 2021, were Chinese Americans discursively excluded from New York City’s political media landscape? The Chinese American experience has been punctuated with countless examples of faith and investment in the American ideal. Despite that fact, it has also been marred with periods in which that faith was tested and in which the return on their investment fell short of expectations. To arrive at this study’s findings, a summative content analysis of two-hundred-forty-three news articles was conducted. To reinforce these findings, a subsequent, discursive analysis, of …