Digital Commons Network^™

Designing A Makerspace, Mackenzie Dinsmoor

Instructional Psychology and Technology Graduate Student Projects

The purpose of this project was to design a makerspace in the McKay School of Education here at Brigham Young University. This project is for pre-service teachers and faculty in the Teacher Education Department primarily in the Elementary Education program.

The purpose of a makerspace is to provide students with the materials and experiences to iteratively design and create. It’s a place for hands-on learning with all the tools for creativity. Makerspaces provide creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in science, engineering and tinkering. A makerspace is not solely a science …

New Iscsc Website

Comparative Civilizations Review

After several years of faithful service, the ISCSC website has received a much needed facelift. The new site is more attractive, has more content, and is far easier to navigate.

The Cycles Of Progress And Regress In Ethiopian Civilization And Politics, Tseggai Isaac Phd

Comparative Civilizations Review

This is a study of the historical traditions of Ethiopia and their value as basis for national identity considering the inescapable evolutionary trajectories of modernization.

Specific watershed events with catastrophic effects besieged Ethiopia, resulting in the precipitous decline of the values, dignity, and solemnity of the Ethiopian State. Challenges that contributed to the distancing of Ethiopia’s institutional identity from the loftiness of its roots will be covered.

The political and religious history of Ethiopia will be highlighted to establish landmark events of history, politics, and religion. Specific crises resulting in shifts in values, as well as various reactions to these …

Civilizational Heritage In The Age Of Innovation: Exploring The Importance Of Civilizational Heritage In The 21st Century, Bibi Pelić, Ulrike Michel-Schneider

Comparative Civilizations Review

‘What has civilizational heritage to do with innovation?’ you may ask. ‘I just got the latest iPhone and don’t see any connection.’ You would not be the only one to ask this question.

If we backtrack a thousand years or so and look at innovations from the past, such as the Via Appia or the Colosseum, did the Romans think about civilizational heritage when they built these two magnificent structures? Did they care about civilizational heritage? What about the ancient Egyptians whose building innovation, ‘the pyramid,’ is still an enigma for us today?

Innovation is thus nothing new, but it …

Thinking Ahead: The Advent Of New Paradigms In International Relations Theory: “Truth Unfolds In Time Through A Communal Process.” - Carroll Quigley, Vlad Alalykin-Izvekov Phd

Comparative Civilizations Review

International Relations Theory is a branch of Political Science that studies International Relations from a theoretical perspective. Historically, it was dominated by two paradigms — Realism and Liberalism. Recently, though, among other theories and perspectives an influential Civilizational Paradigm has emerged. The paper contains analysis of the roots, significance, as well as discontents of those schools of thought. Looking into the future, the author of this paper proposes the Integralistic Paradigm in International Relations Theory.

A Comparative Analysis Of Black American Student Experiences And International Student Experiences During The Initial Months Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Leah P. Hollis Edd

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Covid-19 pandemic created an indelible mark on K-12 education — specifically, high school students transitioning to college and career. The global scope of this pandemic presented an opportunity to compare how high school cultures across the world adapted to the emergency. Further, news reports highlighted how communities of color were more susceptible to the pandemic.

To better understand how the Black student experience in middle America compared to that of other students from the global community in responding to pandemic-related educational disruption, I used Krippendorff’s content analysis procedures (2018) and a phenomenological interview process to gather and analyze data …

Family Therapy And Civilization And Its Discontents, Bonnie K. Lee

Comparative Civilizations Review

Myth or history, the origin of civilization was ascribed in the Hebrew scriptures to the first couple, Adam and Eve, and to the intergenerational saga of their descendants. Civilization has been a concern of psychoanalysts since the time of Freud and Jung, the fathers of depth psychology. In their mature years, they applied their theories and observations of human nature to the tumultuous events of the First and Second World Wars.

Taking their cues, the author utilizes key concepts and insights from family therapy on couple conflict as a lens for analyzing international relations, with the goal for finding their …

Alegaatr The Bandit, Ethan Pedersen

Theses and Dissertations

One design strategy for developing intelligent agents is to create N distinct behaviors. At each time step during task execution, the agent, or bandit, chooses which of the N behaviors to use. Traditional bandit algorithms often (1) assume the environment is stationary, (2) focus on asymptotic performance, and (3) do not incorporate external information available to them. Each of these simplifications limits these algorithms such that they often cannot be used successfully in practice. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, called AlegAATr, as a step toward overcoming these deficiencies. AlegAATr utilizes a technique called Assumption-Alignment Tracking (AAT), proposed …

Undernutrition Among Children In Guatemala, Ellie Ostvig

Ballard Brief

Undernutrition in Guatemala is a serious issue that affects physical, mental, and social well-being. Children are most vulnerable to this dangerous condition, and in Guatemala, almost 50% of children experience inadequate growth and development due to a lack of appropriate nutrient intake. Because of food insecurity and lack of nutrients, young children do not have adequate access to the nutrition that they need. Guatemala is located in an area that makes it prone to natural disasters, which also contributes to the high rates of undernutrition. Undernourished children also experience intense disadvantages because of their weakened immune systems and cognitive underdevelopment. …

White House Memo And Faculty Cvs, Ellen Amatangelo

Faculty Publications

This information was presented to the Subject Librarians Council. The "Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies" from the Executive Office of the President concerning "Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research" was discussed. The presentation also includes a portion on how faculty publications are added the BYU's institutional repository.

Tracing East Asian Librarianship In Correspondence: A Data Analysis Of Eastlib Messages From 1995 To 2020, Tang Li, Junjiro Nakatomi, Xiang Li

Journal of East Asian Libraries

The Eastlib listserv, established by the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) as its official mailing list in the early 1990s and hosted at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill until the end of May 2022, has been the primary communication channel for East Asian librarians in North America for nearly 30 years. In 1999, Eastlib’s functionality was enhanced to allow its subscribers and the general public to browse and search through email discussions online. However, due to unanticipated system setting changes, it was discovered in March 2020 that access to the online Eastlib archive was limited to postings …

Book Review: The Theory And Practice Of The East Asian Library: A Marginal Science, Susan Xue

Journal of East Asian Libraries

Dr. Hong Cheng, a librarian and a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles, presents a groundbreaking and thought-provoking research on East Asian libraries outside of East Asia. The most important contributions he made to the field, through this Karl Lo Award-winning book, are his exploration of a theoretical model of Glocalism for East Asian libraries and defining East Asian libraries as a marginal science.

From The President, Hong Cheng

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

Is Robinhood A Smart Way To Invest?, Tanner Bouck

Marriott Student Review

No abstract provided.

Deeptype: A Deep Neural Network Approach To Keyboard-Free Typing, Joshua V. Broekhuijsen

Theses and Dissertations

Textual data entry is an increasingly-important part of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), but there is room for improvement in this domain. First, the keyboard -- a foundational text-entry device -- presents ergonomic challenges in terms of comfort and accuracy for even well-trained typists. Second, touch-screen smartphones -- some of the most ubiquitous mobile devices -- lack the physical space required to implement a full-size physical keyboard, and settle for a reduced input that can be slow and inaccurate. This thesis proposes and examines "DeepType" to begin addressing both of these problems in the form of a fully-virtual keyboard, realized through a …

Team Moms And Tiger Moms: Formal Sports Participation And Closeness To Mothers: Supplementary Materials, Tom R. Leppard, Mikaela J. Dufur

Faculty Publications

Recent research highlights that relationships with parents are among those strengthened when youth play sports. This recent work, however, largely focuses on fathers, arguing that because of the persistent emphasis on masculinity in sporting spaces, youth sports might be especially effective at facilitating stronger relationships between fathers and children. This chapter asks how the mother-child dyad is influenced by youth formal participation in sports during their adolescence, including whether these patters differ for daughters and sons. The intense time investments the entire family unit incurs to support youth sport participation might be borne primarily by mothers; this in turn might …

Effect Of Carpobrotus Edulis Invasion History On Plant Communities, Claire Savage, Kelly Savage, Kane R. Keller

Western North American Naturalist

Invasive species can cause drastic changes to plant communities. In many cases, removal of invasive species fails to reverse these changes, perhaps due to side effects of removal strategies, changes that co-occurred with invasion, or legacy effects. Carpobrotus edulis is a notorious invasive species in Mediterranean-type climates around the world that alters plant communities and may generate legacy effects. We investigate the impact of C. edulis invasion, removal, and potential legacy effects on coastal plant communities. We assessed community composition, species richness, diversity, and native and exotic species cover at 5 sites differing in C. edulis invasion and removal history. …

Faith For Rights Online Conversion, Hillari Bollard

Instructional Psychology and Technology Graduate Student Projects

The purpose of the Faith for Rights Toolkit Conversion project is to convert an existing learning framework, the Faith for Rights Toolkit (FFRT) into an online learning resource useable by interfaith actors and human rights activists of varying educational and cultural contexts, thus enabling them to advocate for and teach about human rights in their respective communities. This project was sponsored by the BYU J. Reuben Clark Law School under the direction of Professor David H. Moore, Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religious Studies (ICLRS). The project was completed in conjunction with the human rights law …

Hard To Be Won: A Theatrical Interpretation Of Elizabeth Keckly’S “Behind The Scenes, Or Thirty Years A Slave And Four Years In The White House”, Selah Degering

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hard to Be Won is a musical adaptation of a memoir by Elizabeth Keckly, a black woman of considerable success who earned the confidence of Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, in war-torn 1860s America. My adaptation of this story showcases a new perspective: that of Elizabeth herself. Despite her memoir narrating these events in her own voice, Elizabeth as an individual has been largely ignored or misrepresented in modern, idealistic, and racially ignorant retellings and criticism. Elizabeth as a token black person in the narrative of the Lincoln household cannot stand as representation of this woman’s legacy when she …

Healthcare Access Disparities Among Rural Populations In The United States, David Clove

Ballard Brief

In the United States, people living in rural areas face significant disparities in access to healthcare, quality of treatment, and the presence of chronic physical and mental ailments. Given their geographic isolation, it is relatively difficult for these individuals to seek emergency care, an issue that is exacerbated by socioeconomic gaps. These relationships flow in both directions-health and wealth often rise and fall in unison. Rural individuals also have to travel further to access healthcare, and the number of practitioners is sparse in comparison to metropolitan areas. Cultural and behavioral risks such as smoking, as well as the aforementioned shortage …

Period Poverty In The United States, Katie Krumperman

Ballard Brief

Period poverty is the lack of access to menstrual products and inadequate education surrounding menstruation. Period poverty affects menstruators worldwide, including those in the United States. In a 2019 study, 64% of menstruators noted that they struggled to afford menstrual products within the last year. Stemming from the cost of products, stigmas, education, and the world pandemic, those who menstruate struggle to afford menstruation products and have adequate education on the subject. The effects of period poverty include effects on menstruators' physical and mental health as well as their productivity at work. Lawmakers are fighting to end period poverty with …

Latest Research: Summary 1. Climate Change Research And The Search For Solutions: Rethinking Interdisciplinarity

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5C in 2018, the escalated pressure to act on climate change has urged scientists to move past providing information regarding climate change and to helping define solutions. The growing need for solutions has put a spotlight on how different disciplines collaborate through interdisciplinary research approaches.

A Case Study: Do Board Consultants And Funders Have It Wrong?, Mike Burns

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

The following case, a moment in time for a 25+ year-old nonprofit, features a smart, committed, driven, savvy, and uber persuasive nonprofit founder/executive who decided it was time to expand the building. Also featured: a board that has never been more than a figurehead to the executive and the public. This case is intended to highlight that the popular thinking about board and executive as partners may be no more than a false narrative throughout the nonprofit sector that should in-fact be rewritten to reflect more of a reality. As a subplot, this case acknowledges that when a board cannot …

Decentralization And Centralization In Sociocratic Organizations—Dynamics, Combinations, And Hybrid Solutions, Ted Rau, Phd

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

The article discusses the interplay between decentralized and centralized aspects of governance in the context of decentralized self-governance and shares learnings from Sociocracy For All’s (SoFA) experience, including that decentralization is an active process that requires preparation, budget, strategy, and information can act as centralizing forces, and decentralization requires different ways of thinking about responsibility and leadership. SoFA is a young membership organization founded in 2016 promoting sociocracy, a governance system with consent-based decision-making in small groups, in nonprofits and other organizations.

Full Issue - Climate Change

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

No abstract provided.

Designing Interfaith Leadership And Ethics Course, Michael Hubbard Mackay

Instructional Psychology and Technology Graduate Student Projects

This course will enable Religious Education to embrace the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Brigham Young University more fully. This course serves as a foundational introduction for students to discover the nature of interfaith work. Students who fully embrace Brigham Young University’s expansive motto “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve” are vocationally responsible to bring good into reach for themselves, their families, their communities, their Church, and above all and undergirding all, the world. In this endeavor, students must and will engage with individuals who hold deep convictions of religious faith and affiliation, …

Forgotten Brother Reuben Lewis: Missouri River Fur Trader And Indian Agent For The Arkansas Cherokees, Jay H. Buckley, Deveney Reber

Faculty Publications

Reuben Lewis was born in 1777, the fourth and youngest child of William Lewis and Lucy Meriwether. Their oldest child, Jane, married and lived out her days at Locust Hill, the family estate in Virginia. The Lewis’ second child, baby Lucinda, died in infancy. Their third child, Meriwether – the closest in age and friendship to Reuben – became the famous first half of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which explored the uncharted West before he met his tragic and mysterious death on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. While Reuben’s life has been rightly overshadowed by his older brother Meriwether’s …

Origami-Based Design Of Conceal-And-Reveal Systems, Bryce P. Defigueiredo, Kyler A. Tolman, Spencer P. Magleby, Nathan A. Pehrson, Erica Crampton, Larry L. Howell

Faculty Publications

This work introduces a type of motion termed “conceal-and-reveal” which is characterized by a state that protects a payload, a state that exposes the payload, and coupled motions between these two states. As techniques for thick, rigid origami-based engineering designs are being developed, origami is becoming increasingly more

attractive as inspiration for complex systems. This paper proposes a process for designing origami-based conceal- and-reveal systems, which can be generalized to design similar thick, rigid origami-based systems. The process

is demonstrated through the development of three conceal-and-reveal systems that present a luxury product to the consumer. The three designs also confirm …

Remembering Sarah Duvall, Norm Krasne

Newsletter of the Jussi Björling Societies of the USA & UK

After suffering a catastrophic stroke last summer, one of our fellow JBSers, my partner Sarah Duvall, passed away on August 15th. Compared to most in our Society, she was a relative newcomer to opera and to Jussi’s heavenly tenor. As her exposure to the art form grew, she came to prefer more contemporary operatic works to the more traditional classics, but she recognized superior singing when she heard it. Portland (OR) Opera was our home base and over a decade we became more involved with the Company and made many friends among its supporters and staff. Sarah was a volunteer …

Full Issue

Newsletter of the Jussi Björling Societies of the USA & UK

No abstract provided.