Digital Commons Network^™

Disability And Star Trek: Analyzing Half A Century Of Science Fiction, Heather Rose Harris

Student Theses

This Master's thesis looks at the intersection between disability and Star Trek. More specifically, it analyzes the way that disability was represented within Star Trek over the last half century and investigated how shifting disability history, advocacy movements, and general sentiment towards disability within society may have affected the way that Star Trek told disabled stories within their works. The author used three disability groups to perform this analysis - blindness, mental illness, and intellectual disability.

Assessment Literacy: Using Computer Adaptive Test Data, Ogechi Iwuoha Njoku

Theses and Dissertations

This study employed a quantitative research design to examine teacher assessment literacy and its relationship to external and internal factors. The researcher sought to describe the level of assessment literacy that teachers demonstrate when using score report data from computer-adaptive interim assessment and to analyze whether teachers’ assessment literacy seems to be affected by: a) the quality of professional development training received; b) teachers’ level of self-efficacy; c) teachers’ attribution to student effort, that is their perception of the importance of student effort; and d) teachers’ attribution to context, specifically their perception of the importance of tests. For this study, …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Cis/Sta 3920 (Data Mining For Business Analyitics), Vinayak Javaly

Open Educational Resources

Data Mining is the process by which useful information is extracted from large amounts of data. This course is designed to provide students with the necessary tools and techniques to perform data mining and business analytics. This course is intended as an introductory module targeted at individuals who plan to work with data (modeling, data management) as well as towards those who will work with data scientists. While the course will primarily focus on modeling and evaluation, it will also include data preparation and examination. Modeling techniques covered include decision trees, clustering, and other methods. Emphasis will be placed on …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Msc 3032 (Electronic Music), Ted Gordon

Open Educational Resources

This class surveys the musical practices, technological instruments, and scientific concepts associated with electronic music from the 19th century to the present in institutional, amateur, and commercial environments, drawing from a wide range of musical traditions and styles from around the world. It develops practical skills of recording, editing, listening to, analyzing, and writing about music with electronic instruments and media.

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Com 3077 (Interpersonal Communication), Christina Donaldson

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to examine communication issues surrounding interaction between individuals in family, peer, work, and business contexts. Topics include effective verbal and nonverbal communication, communication and perception of self and other, interpersonal conflict resolution, family communication, friendship development, computer-mediated communication, and interpersonal communication in work and business contexts.

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Com 3045 (Communication, Law, And Free Speech), Donovan Bisbee

Open Educational Resources

From pornography to political speech, from the lewd to the libelous, and everywhere in between, the law is forever drawing lines that divide protected speech (what you can say in America) from unprotected speech (what you cannot say in America). This is an interdisciplinary course that draws on philosophical, legal, and rhetorical theories of communication to help explain how those lines are drawn. Readings include famous court cases involving freedom of speech, as well as political and philosophical writings on all sides of the free speech debate. This course is part of the required core for the Communication Studies Major, …

Lgbtq+ And Dental Education: Analyzing The Present And Recommendations For The Future, Colin M. Haley, Diana V. Macri, Herminio L. Perez, Scott B. Schwartz

Publications and Research

LGBTQ+ populations constitute increasing proportions of children, adolescents, and adults in the United States. Compared to their heterosexual counterparts, this group suffers from health inequities, including oral health. The report “Oral Health: Advances and Challenges” identified the LGBTQ+ community as an underserved population which faces significant barriers in accessing oral health care. Coverage of LGBTQ+ topics in formal education settings in both dental schools and dental hygiene programs is scarce, which contributes to inequities within this group. Increasing curriculum content related to LGBTQ+ populations is of utmost importance to promote optimal patient-provider interactions while improving oral health outcomes. Ensuring equity …

Understanding The Global Refugee Crisis [Paralegal Studies], Andrea R. Irias

Open Educational Resources

This assignment was designed to meet the criteria of the Global Learning competency and Written ability rubrics. Although it was created for the Paralegal Program, it was not made to fit one specific course as we are unsure where it fits best in the program. As we continue to experiment with placement, we have piloted this assignment in two different courses (BTP203 and BTP205) with similar results. It was designed for students to complete outside of the classroom as homework with minimal in-class instruction as the content of the assignment did not truly fit in the courses that held it …

Psy 2813: Cross Cultural Psychology, Desiree Byrd

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to cover developmental, social and cognitive psychological processes through the lens of various international and domestic cultural orientations. Process learning will focus on self-exploration of students’ individual cultural identity and developing an understanding and self-awareness of how oppression, prejudice, and bias (explicit and implicit) impact the practice of psychology from personal, professional, and socio- political perspectives.

Conflict Dynamics In Scale-Free Networks With Degree Correlations And Hierarchical Structure, Eduardo Jacobo-Villegas, Bibiana Obregón-Quintana, Lev Guzmán-Vargas, Larry S. Liebovitch

Publications and Research

We present a study of the dynamic interactions between actors located on complex networks with scale-free and hierarchical scale-free topologies with assortative mixing, that is, correlations between the degree distributions of the actors. The actor’s state evolves according to a model that considers its previous state, the inertia to change, and the influence of its neighborhood. We show that the time evolution of the system depends on the percentage of cooperative or competitive
interactions. For scale-free networks, we find that the dispersion between actors is higher when all interactions are either cooperative or competitive, while a balanced presence of interactions …

The Importance Of Low Iq To Early Diagnosis Of Autism, Kristina Denisova, Zhichun Lin

Publications and Research

Abstract
Some individuals can flexibly adapt to life’s changing demands while others, in particular those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), find it challenging. The origin of early individual differences in cognitive abilities, the putative tools with which to navigate novel information in life, including in infants later diagnosed with ASD remains unexplored. Moreover, the role of intelligence quotient (IQ) vis-à-vis core features of autism remains debated. We systematically investigate the contribution of early IQ in future autism outcomes in an extremely large, population-based study of 8000 newborns, infants, and toddlers from the US between 2 and 68 months with over …

Serving Behind The Screen: Practical Recommendations For Best Practices On Social Media For Government Practitioners, Livianette Cabrera

Student Theses and Dissertations

The usage and importance of social media continues to grow in our everyday life, however, governments lag on using the platforms to the fullest extent. This study aimed at learning what best practices should government practitioners exercise to meet constituents needs and provide services and information online. Through oral histories conducted with a small pool of participants, four themes emerged which helped to answer the research question. Findings illustrated four main traits/themes were essential if social media managers wanted to excel at their job: Competent Strategic Senior Management, Effective Community Management, Mission and Value Alignment, and Customized Curation. Through an …

Sustainability Matters: Advocating For The Establishment And Continuation Of Peer-Led Team Learning, A.E. Dreyfuss

Publications and Research

The successful dissemination of the Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) model at multiple institutions of higher education, in the United States and other countries, is reflected in the number of publications (see www.pltlis.org). However, many PLTL campus programs are no longer active or exist. This may be due, more recently, to the COVID pandemic and its disruptions. Historically, programs no longer exist because grant funding that supported the initiative ended; other reasons include the promotion, retirement, or even death of the practitioners whose work championing their PLTL program ended. What can sustain a campus PLTL program so that its benefits …

New Approaches To Peer Leader Training, Nadia Kennedy

Publications and Research

This paper describes a Peer Leader training course that has been modified to include innovative components focusing on developing content and pedagogical knowledge, practicing rehearsals, generating action research projects, doing poster presentations, and writing a reflective letter to new Peer Leaders. Through these innovations, four types of reflection–on relevant research and theory, on students’ experiences, on peer practice, and on one’s own practice–have been incorporated into the course. The new course components promise to offer more opportunities for trainees to practice peer leading in a structured and safe environment in which immediate and supportive feedback is available, and group practice …

Effectiveness And Safety Of Apixaban Vs Warfarin Among Venous Thromboembolism Patients At High-Risk Of Bleeding, Alexander T. Cohen, Janvi Sah, A. D. Dhamane, Theodore Lee, Lisa Rosenblatt, Patrick Hlavacek, Birol Emir, Allison V. Keshishian, Huseyin Yuce, Xuemei Luo

Publications and Research

This study evaluated effectiveness and safety of apixaban versus warfarin among venous thromboembolism patients at high-risk of bleeding (defined as having at least one of the following bleeding risk factors: ≥75 years; used antiplatelet, NSAIDs, or corticosteroids; had prior gastrointestinal bleeding or gastrointestinal-related conditions; late stage chronic kidney disease). Adult venous thromboembolism patients initiating apixaban or warfarin with ≥1 bleeding risk factor were identified from Medicare and four commercial claims databases in the United States. To balance characteristics between apixaban and warfarin patients, stabilized inverse probability treatment weighting was conducted. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the risk …

Entrepreneurship, Ouafaa Hmaddi

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for ECO 41250 Entrepreneurship

Elementary Students' Engineering Design Process: How Young Students Solve Engineering Problems, Euisuk Sung, Todd R. Kelley

Publications and Research

With the increasing importance of teaching STEM to young students, the engineering design process (EDP) has become a popular learning platform in K-12 STEM education. The engineering design process guides students in solving engineering problems, but there is a lack of understanding of how students utilize this process. In this study, we explored how iterative design activities form procedural patterns of the engineering design process using sequential analysis. We videotaped 48 engineering design sessions via the Concurrent Think-Aloud (CTA) protocol from elementary students grades 3–6 in the USA. The data was coded using Halfn’s codes. The sequential analyses identified the …

Female Inmates: Coping With Imprisonment And Separation From Family And Friends, Katarzyna Celinska, Irina Fanarraga, Michael Cronin

Publications and Research

In this study coping with imprisonment among female inmates, and how it relates to experiencing separation from family and friends, is being explored. Data was collected via a survey of 194 female inmates in a Northeastern state correctional facility for women. The self-reported data included the Brief COPE assessment, as well as demographic and “contact” variables: visits, phone calls, and letter writing. The findings indicate that female prisoners tend to utilize adaptive coping methods to deal with their imprisonment. Specifically, letter writing was found to be positively associated with adaptive coping. However, visits from family members and from children were …

Supporting Women’S Research In Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions: Experiences With A National Science Foundation Advance Institutional Transformation Award, Vita C. Rabinowitz, Virginia Valian

Publications and Research

This paper describes the Gender Equity Project (GEP) at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), funded by the U. S. NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award (ITA) program. ADVANCE supports system-level strategies to promote gender equity in the social and natural sciences, but has supported very few teaching-intensive institutions. Hunter College is a teaching-intensive institution in which research productivity among faculty is highly valued and counts toward tenure and promotion. We created the GEP to address the particular challenges that faculty, especially White women and faculty of color, face in maintaining research programs and advancing in their …

Toward Informatics-Enabled Preparedness For Natural Hazards To Minimize Health Impacts Of Climate Change, Jimmy Phuong, Naomi O. Riches, Luca Calzoni, Gora Datta, Deborah Duran, Asiyah Yu Lin, Ramesh P. Singh, Anthony E. Solomonides, Noreen Y. Whysel, Ramakanth Kavuluru

Publications and Research

Natural hazards (NHs) associated with climate change have been increasing in frequency and intensity. These acute events impact humans both directly and through their effects on social and environmental determinants of health. Rather than relying on a fully reactive incident response disposition, it is crucial to ramp up preparedness initiatives for worsening case scenarios. In this perspective, we review the landscape of NH effects for human health and explore the potential of health informatics to address associated challenges, specifically from a preparedness angle. We outline important components in a health informatics agenda for hazard preparedness involving hazard-disease associations, social determinants …

Demonstration Speech Guidelines, Anuradha K. Herath

Open Educational Resources

Assignment guidelines for a student assignment on delivering a demonstration speech.

Do Autistic People’S Support Needs And Non‑Autistic People’S Support For The Neurodiversity Movement Contribute To Heightened Autism Stigma In South Korea Vs. The Us?, So Yoon Kim, Kristen Gillespie‑Lynch

Publications and Research

We examined stigma towards vignette characters representing diverse autistic characteristics (social, non-speaking, or repetitive interests or restricted behaviors; RIRB) among 259 South Korean and 240 American participants (age range=18~74).Within each domain, participants were randomized to read a vignette depicting low or high support needs. Koreans reported greater stigma towards autistic characteristics and less awareness of and support for the neurodiversity movement thanAmericans. Autistic characters’ support needs and rater characteristics (autism knowledge, neurodiversity endorsement, and contact quantity) predicted stigma in at least one domain, and after accounting for these variables, participants’ nationality was suggestively associated only with stigma towards social characteristics …

The ‘Ezel Project’ Inquiry: Mesotransformative Praxis To Decenter Whiteness In Racialized Organizations And Schools, Justin Gerald

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, a Black scholar in the midst of understanding his neurodivergence and his identity as someone who has been dis/abled reacts to the prodding of white peers by creating a course on decentering whiteness. The scholar then interviews ten of the participants in said class to understand how they came to select such a course and what they might have accomplished in attempting to challenge the structure of whiteness in their institutions. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, Critical Whiteness Studies, Dis/Crit, and in particular the work of Victor Ray, this work seeks to examine the narratives that brought …

Introduction To Jewish Life And Religion, Dimitry Ekshtut

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for JWST 10000 - Introduction to Jewish Life and Religion, a survey course covering a broad variety of topics in the Jewish Studies Department at City College of New York.

Does Race Still Matter? An Exploration Of Race And Mentoring Relationships From The Perspective Of Early Career Teachers Of Color And Mentors, Franchesca R. Ho Sang

Theses and Dissertations

Mentoring has been attributed to lowering attrition rates of teachers. At present, the majority of teachers in the United States are White and female. The national teacher workforce does not represent the student body. Although there have been recent initiatives to improve the diversity within the teacher workforce, by explicitly recruiting teachers of color (TOC), the attrition rates of these teachers are negating the effects of recruitment efforts. Previous research has pointed to the need to consider race in novice TOC mentee and mentor matches, as cultural capital theory suggests common knowledge and experience may lead to stronger mentor relationships …

Experiencing Sonic Change: Acoustic Properties As Form- And Meter-Bearing Elements In Popular Music Vocals, Kristi D. Hardman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes sound qualities in popular music vocals and examines the relationship between sound qualities and other musical structures, including beat, meter, and form. I use the term sound qualities to refer to those aspects of a sound that help us distinguish one sound from another. In this dissertation, I focus specifically on loudness, noisiness, brightness, and vowel quality. Listeners often attend to the vocals while singing along to their favorite popular song. Additionally, the voice is extremely malleable, which means that sound qualities regularly fluctuate in the vocals. This makes popular music vocals a good case study for …

Illustration, Lynne S. Foster

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Digital Imaging And Illustration, Lynne S. Foster

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

The Making Of A Bilingual University In The 21st Century, Michael Mena

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the southernmost tip of Texas, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) opened its doors on August 31, 2015 as a ‘bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate’ campus—the only one of its kind and at a scale never before attempted in the United States. This is a categorical achievement in the near 200 year-long quest for the educational advancement of Latinxs in Texas—a state historically structured by white supremacist ideologies, violent economic and political disenfranchisement, as well as a racially segregated education system designed to maintain exploitative labor practices (Montejano 1987; González 1990, 2013, 1999; Blanton 2004). This constitutes the …

Pervasive Nonarbitrariness: Meaning From Form In Natural Language, David J. Neely

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is generally assumed that the expressions of a natural language are largely arbitrary. That is, any expressions that display a nonarbitrary connection between what their utterances sound like and what they mean are small in number and of no real theoretical importance.

This thesis challenges such a position. I argue that nonarbitrariness is a pervasive feature of natural language and that understanding the sound/meaning connections that exist in language is necessary if to appreciate how languages work.

I begin, in Chapter 1, by showing that many theorists are committed to the idea that nonarbitrary sound/meaning connections are of little …