Digital Commons Network^™

Geo-Ontology Tools – The Missing Link, Jochen Albrecht, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Brandon Derman

Publications and Research

Numerous authors have presented ontology building tools that have all been developed as part of academic projects and that are usually adaptations of more generic tools for geo-spatial applications. While we trust that these tools do their job for the special purpose they have been built, the GIScience user community is still a long way away from off-the-shelf ontology builders that can be used by GIS project managers. In this article, we present a comparative study of ontology building tools described in some twenty peer-reviewed GIScience journal articles. We analyze them from the perspective of two application domains, crime analysis …

Religion And Initiation Into Marijuana Use: The Deterring Role Of Religious Friends, Amy Adamczyk, Ian Palmer

Publications and Research

Over the last two decades researchers have begun to look at how personal religious beliefs and behaviors influence substance use, finding that more religious teens are less likely to drink, smoke, and use illegal drugs. This study builds on this previous research, combining it with work on religious contextual effects to develop a theoretical model that explains why friends’ religion would influence teens’ marijuana use, even if teens are not personally religious. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examines whether individual and friends’ religiosity (e.g., religious participation and importance) or born-again …

Women Of The Sisters' Hall: Religion And The Making Of Women's Alternative Space In Taiwan's Economic Restructuring, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Scholarly Monographs On Rock Music: A Bibliographic Essay, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Purpose This article is an overview of scholarly monographs on rock music from 1980 to the present. It provides an overview to the literature for practical purposes of collections development as well as giving the reader insight into key issues and trends related to a interdisciplinary topic that attracts scholars from many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

Design/methodology/approach This bibliographic essay, focusing on works related to American culture and of a general nature, includes an overview and historical background; a discussion of how music and ethnomusiciological scholars approach the topic; geographic approaches; literature on four key icons (Elvis, …

Persuasive Design Of Destination Websites: An Analysis Of First Impression, Heejun Kim, Daniel R. Fesenmaier

Publications and Research

This research examines the persuasiveness of destination websites through an investigation of users’ first impression. To achieve this goal, it builds on research by Fogg (2003) and by Kim and Fesenmaier (2007) to assess the effect of the design factors of destination websites on first impression formation. The results of this study indicate that the subjects were able to make quick judgments on tourism websites, and that inspiration and usability were the primary drivers evoking a favorable first impression. This research concludes by discussing the implications of these findings and possible directions for future study.

Markers Of Dyslexia In Adult Spanish-Speakers Who Report Severe Difficulty Learning English, Elizabeth Ijalba

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The relationship between native-language reading ability and second-language (L2) learning was explored in a cohort of 60 adult Spanish-speakers learning English as a second language. The research questions centered on whether underlying nativelanguage deficits associated with dyslexia would be present in a subset of English Language Learners who reported severe difficulty learning English. Our participants were divided into two education groups (below and above12th grade). These two groups were classified into three groups based on self- and teacher- ratings of ease or difficulty in English learning ability: for the high-education group, Poor English Language Learners (PELL, N=7); Good English Language …

Development Of Lexical Tone Production In Disyllabic Words By 2- To 6-Year-Old Mandarin-Speaking Children, Puisan Wong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigated children's development in the production of Mandarin lexical tones in familiar disyllabic words and tested the hypothesis that disyllabic tone contours with more complex fundamental frequency contours are more difficult for children to produce. Participants were forty-four 2- to 6-year-old monolingual Mandarin-speaking children and 12 mothers. Their disyllabic tone productions were elicited by picture naming and low-pass filtered to eliminate lexical information while retaining the fundamental frequency contours. Three Mandarin-speaking judges listened to the filtered stimuli, and categorized the children's and adult's disyllabic tones. Acoustic analysis was performed on selected accurate child and adult productions and on …

Hiding Out: Creative Resistance Among Anonymous Workbloggers, Abigail Schoneboom

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anonymous workbloggers—employees who write online diaries about their work—are often simultaneously productive workers and savage critics of the corporate cultures in which they toil. Writing under an assumed identity, these workers create satirical portraits of their supervisors and colleagues, rail against management gurus and corporate buzzwords, celebrate time-wasting capers, and daydream about quitting. Their irreverent and fictionalized accounts of work, which are shielded from the gaze of co-workers and supervisors, reveal how office workers critically negotiate a labor process that, increasingly, demands their hearts and minds.

This study, which comprises an overview of media and organizational responses to the phenomenon, …

Predicting Within-Source Agreement In Multisource Feedback Ratings: An Examination Of Characteristics Of The Rater Group And The Focal Manager, Christine Schrader Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Multisource feedback (MSF) involves gathering information about a manager's effectiveness from his or her boss, peers, and subordinates. Researchers typically average MSF ratings within rating sources (e.g., peers or subordinates), which assumes that agreement within rating sources is relatively high. However, there is little prior MSF research that has addressed the issue of within-source agreement, and the extant studies have often used inappropriate statistical techniques such as reliability indices. Moreover, this research often focuses on assessing the mean level of agreement or reliability within rating sources but has ignored the variability surrounding these indices. The purpose of the present study …

Turning Space Into Place In The Sprawling “New City”: Shrinking Space, Visions Of Place, Homeowners In Conflict, Lael Leslie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Was there a "real place" to be found in the sprawling "new city" landscape? This interview study considers the categories of sprawl as a placeless, apolitical space, and of the suburban white middle class, to explore how "place" is variously understood by homeowners confronting rapid spatial reconfiguration. The interviewees are residents of a municipality located in one of New Jersey's "growth corridors." Emphasis is on homeowners' experiences, and on what they view as problems related to rapid growth.

Given the long settlement history of this northeastern seaboard region, this study finds that relations among homeowners had changed over time in …

Use Of Palm Trees As A Sleeping Site By Hamadryas Baboons In Ethiopia, Amy Schreier, Larissa Swedell

Publications and Research

Hamadryas baboons sleep on cliffs throughout their range, and this can be attributed to the safety cliffs provide against predators in the absence of tall trees. In this paper, we report the first documented occurrence of hamadryas baboons sleeping in doum palm trees rather than on cliffs. Data derive from a study of hamadryas baboons at the Filoha site in lowland Ethiopia. During all-day follows, data were collected on travel patterns, band activity, and location. Variation in the baboons’ home range was characterized using vegetation transects. We discovered that one band in this population, Band 3, occasionally slept in doum …

Science Fiction And Postmemory Han In Contemporary Korean American Literature, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In this essay, Seo-Young Chu explores representations of a specifically Korean American type of postmemory that she calls "postmemory han."

An Argument For Joint Custody As An Option For All Family Court Mediation Program Participants, Joy S. Rosenthal

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Pickering To Ceballos: The Demise Of The Pubic Employee Free Speech Doctrine, Jessica Reed

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

It Takes A Village To Save A Life: A Statewide Model For Indigent Capital Defense, Alexa Woodward

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Health Campaigns To Change Industry Practices That Damage Health: An Analysis Of 12 Case Studies, Nicholas Freudenberg, Sarah Picard Bradley, Monica Serrano

Publications and Research

Industry practices such as advertising, production of unsafe products, and efforts to defeat health legislation play a major role in current patterns of U.S. ill health. Changing these practices may be a promising strategy to promote health. The authors analyze 12 campaigns designed to modify the health-related practices of U.S. corporations in the alcohol, automobile, food and beverage, firearms, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries. The objectives are to examine the interactions between advocacy campaigns and industry opponents; explore the roles of government, researchers, and media; and identify characteristics of campaigns that are effective in changing health-damaging practices. The authors compared campaigns …

College Senate Minutes December 6, 2007, Bronx Community College Senate

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the College Senate on December 6, 2007.

A Quantitative Synthesis Of The Medicinal Ethnobotany Of The Malinké Of Mali And The Asháninka Of Peru, With A New Theoretical Framework, Nathaniel Bletter

Publications and Research

Background: Although ethnomedically and taxonomically guided searches for new medicinal plants can improve the percentage of plants found containing active compounds when compared to random sampling, ethnobotany has fulfilled little of its promise in the last few decades to deliver a bounty of new, laboratory-proven medicinal plants and compounds. It is quite difficult to test, isolate, and elucidate the structure and mechanism of compounds from the plethora of new medicinal plant uses described each year with limited laboratory time and resources and the high cost of clinical trials of new drug candidates.

Methods: A new quantitative theoretical framework of mathematical …

Pregnancy Intentions And Happiness Among Pregnant Black Women At High Risk For Adverse Infant Health Outcomes, Susan M. Blake, Michele Kiely, Charlotte C. Gard, Ayman El-Mohandes, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Nih-Dc Initiative

Publications and Research

CONTEXT:Unintended pregnancy is associated with risk behaviors and increased morbidity or mortality for mothers and infants, but a woman's feelings about pregnancy may be more predictive of risk and health outcomes than her intentions.

METHODS: A sample of 1,044 black women who were at increased risk were enrolled at prenatal care clinics in the District of Columbia in 2001-2003. Bivariate and multivariate analyses assessed associations between pregnancy intentions or level of happiness about being pregnant and multiple psychosocial and behavioral risk factors, and identified correlates of happiness to be pregnant.

RESULTS: Pregnancy intentions and happiness were strongly associated, but …

The Ticker, November 12, 2007

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Reasoning About The Behavior Of Aspect-Oriented Programs, Neelam Soundarajan, Raffi Khatchadourian, Johan Dovland

Publications and Research

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) has become increasingly popular over the last few years. At the same time, reasoning about the behavior of these programs poses serious challenges. In this paper, we present a rely-guarantee approach to such reasoning. The rely-guarantee approach has proven useful in reasoning about concurrent and distributed programs. We show that some of the key problems encountered in reasoning about aspect-oriented programs are similar to those encountered in reasoning about concurrent programs; and that the rely-guarantee approach, appropriately modified, helps address these problems. We illustrate our approach with a simple example.

Permanently Failing Organizations? Small Business Recovery After September 11, 2001, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

Small businesses in Lower Manhattan after September 11, 2001, paint a telling portrait of vulnerability after disasters. This qualitative analysis of recovery for small retail and service firms with 50 or fewer employees is based on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and documentary research from September 2001 through 2005. A postdisaster emphasis on place-based assistance to firms conflicted with macro-level redevelopment plans for Lower Manhattan. Small business recovery was impeded as aid programs responded to a new sense of urgency, attachment to place, and prestorm conceptions of the neighborhood at the expense of addressing community-wide economic changes accelerated by the disaster. Ingredients …

The Ticker, October 29, 2007

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Deafness Mutation Mining Using Regular Expression Based Pattern Matching, Christopher M. Frenz

Publications and Research

Background: While keyword based queries of databases such as Pubmed are frequently of great utility, the ability to use regular expressions in place of a keyword can often improve the results output by such databases. Regular expressions can allow for the identification of element types that cannot be readily specified by a single keyword and can allow for different words with similar character sequences to be distinguished.

Results: A Perl based utility was developed to allow the use of regular expressions in Pubmed searches, thereby improving the accuracy of the searches.

Conclusion: This utility was then utilized to create a …

The Ticker, October 22, 2007

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Adverse Effects Of Accounting, Uniformity On Practice, Education And Research, Shyam Sunder

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Ticker, October 15, 2007

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Cracking Silent Codes: Critical Race Theory And Education Organizing, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which “colorblind” laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically, communities of color must challenge the dominant narratives of mainstream institutions with alternative visions of pedagogy and school reform, and community organizing plays an important role in helping communities of color to articulate these alternative counter-narratives. Yet, many in education organizing disagree with CRT's critique of colorblindness. Drawing on five …

The Ticker, October 1, 2007

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Advocate, October 2007, Vol. [19], No. [2], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

PSC Contract Battle Begins; CUNY, Union Far from Agreement (p. 1)

“For Those Whose Deaths Never Made the News.” Roisin O’Connor-McGinn (p. 1)

Health Services Still in Limbo: DSC, VP Seek Interim Solutions (p. 1)

From the Editor’s Desk: The Politics of Personality: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying about [Ahmadinejad] and Love Iran (p. 2)

Graduate Center Technology: GC IT Gets $1M Grant for Net Development (p. 2)

Fax Services for GC Students (p. 3)

Zotero Takes on EndNote and RefWorks (p. 3)

Dispatches from the Front: Not Another Dangerous Minds Story: Challenging the Teacher-as-Savior …