Digital Commons Network^™

Review: Unwell Writing Centers: Searching For Wellness In Neoliberal Educational Institutions And Beyond, Aurora Matzke

The Writing Center Journal

“Unwell Writing Centers: Searching for Wellness in Neoliberal Educational Institutions and Beyond” blends narrative, mixed methods research, and rhetorical analysis to make a case for the possibilities inherent in homegrown wellness practices that are “communal, political, and rooted in defiance of white supremacy.”

An Exploratory Study Of Mindsets, Sense Of Belonging, And Help-Seeking In The Writing Center, Traci Freeman, Steve Getty

The Writing Center Journal

In this exploratory study, we took as our point of departure Lori Salem’s (2016) call to investigate the factors that affect students’ decisions to visit the writing center. Rather than exploring student decision-making through a sociological lens, as Salem does, we drew on insights from social psychology to understand students’ motivations. We explored two self-theories drawn from social psychology that are associated with students’ academic achievement and with students’ help-seeking: (1) implicit beliefs about intelligence or “mindsets”; and (2) sense of belonging. Using questions from previously validated scales, we measured first-year students’ mindsets and sense of belonging and tested the …

Timely, Relevant, Practical: A Study Of Writing Center Summer Institute Alumni Perceptions Of Value And Benefits, Julia Bleakney, Mark Hall, Kelsey Hixson-Bowles, Sohui Lee, Nathalie Singh-Corcoran

The Writing Center Journal

Since its inception in 2003, the IWCA Summer Institute (SI) has been understood within the writing center field to be an important professional development opportunity for new and experienced writing center professionals (WCPs). Publications on the SI to date have focused on anecdotal perceptions of the benefits to leaders and participants or on a single outcome, such as research output. Thus, the writing center field knows little about how and in what ways participants perceive the SI’s benefits across cohorts and across a variety of professional areas. By gathering quantitative and qualitative data from every SI cohort from 2003 to …

Writing Centers And Neocolonialism: How Writing Centers Are Being Commodified And Exported As U.S. Neocolonial Tools, Brian Hotson, Stevie Bell

The Writing Center Journal

In this paper, we explore the complicity of writing centers in the Global North in global neocolonialism despite its resounding rejection within Western writing center scholarship, in which Romeo García contends that writing tutors can be “decolonial agents.” We show that higher education is used by governments in the Global North as a neocolonial tool and situate international U.S. writing center initiatives within this context. Writing centers have remained complicit in global neocolonialism involving the commodification and exportation of American English as well as Western-style institutions, curricula, and pedagogies. This is most explicit in recent writing center initiatives undertaken by …

Effectively Affective: Examining The Ethos Of One Hbcu Writing Center, Karen Keaton Jackson, Amara Hand

The Writing Center Journal

Over the past several decades, writing center scholarship has evolved to include multiple theories and pedagogies that led to widely used best practices. As is the case in many disciplines, often writing centers at large, research PWIs are most often cited and highlighted within the scholarship. While many of those readings do offer helpful strategies for working with students at all levels, often they do not account for the unique contexts and diverse student populations that make up many HBCUs. As a result, more research from a variety of writing centers is needed so practitioners see there are multiple ways …

Accidental Outreach And Happenstance Staffing: A Cross-Institutional Study Of Writing Center Support Of First-Generation College Students, Beth A. Towle

The Writing Center Journal

First-generation students (FGS) make up a significant percentage of college populations. However, they experience hardships that are less common for their continuing-generation peers. They struggle to understand the “rules” of college and lack the cultural capital that can help students succeed through generations of knowledge about how to navigate college. Writing centers attempt to lessen these burdens by providing outreach to marginalized student populations, including FGS. However, there has been a lack of cross-institutional research that examines exactly how writing centers support FGS. This article presents a mixed-methods study that begins to close that knowledge gap and demonstrate common patterns …

Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for Writing Center Journal 41.3.

Reducing Global Food Loss And Waste Could Improve Air Quality And Lower The Risk Of Premature Mortality, Alessandro Gatto, Maksym Chepeliev

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

While the global food system substantially contributes to environmental degradation and climate change, significant amounts of lost or wasted foods along the food supply chain actively contribute to global air pollution and related health risks. In this study, we use an environmentally-extended input–output model to quantify air pollution embedded in global food loss and waste (FLW) and investigate how FLW reduction policies can mitigate air pollution linked to food consumption, decreasing associated premature mortality risks across global regions. While estimating a positive impact of FLW reduction policies on decreasing air pollution levels (from −1.5% of SO2 emissions to −10.2% of …

Differences In Provider Hepatitis C Virus Screening Recommendations By Patient Risk Status, Alfu Laily, Robert Duncan, Kaitlyn M. Gabhart, Lauren D. Nephew, Shannon M. Christy, Susan T. Vadaparampil, Anna R. Giuliano, Monica L. Kasting

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Providers’ recommendation is among the strongest predictors to patients engaging in preventive care. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare providers’ Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) screening recommendation quality between high-risk and average-risk patients to determine if providers are universally recommending HCV screening, regardless of risk behaviors. This cross-sectional survey of 284 Indiana providers in 2020 assessed provider characteristics, HCV screening recommendation practices (strength, presentation, frequency, timeliness), self-efficacy, and barriers to recommending HCV screening. T-test and Chi-square compared recommendation practices for high-risk and average-risk patients. Prevalence ratios were calculated for variables associated with HCV recommendation strength comparing high-risk and …

Impact Of Weather Factors On Airport Arrival Rates: Application Of Machine Learning In Air Transportation, Robert W. Maxson, Dothang Truong, Woojin Choi

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Weather is responsible for approximately 70% of air transportation delays in the National Airspace System, and delays resulting from convective weather alone cost airlines and passengers millions of dollars each year due to delays that could be avoided. This research sought to establish relationships between environmental variables and airport efficiency estimates by data mining archived weather and airport performance data at ten geographically and climatologically different airports. Several meaningful relationships were discovered from six out of ten airports using various machine learning methods within an overarching data mining protocol, and the developed models were tested using historical data.

2023 Evaluation Of Pumpkin Cultivars In West Virginia, Lewis Jett

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Pumpkins are a popular, commercial vegetable crop in West Virginia. Each year, many new hybrid cultivars are released by commercial seed companies. In 2023, we trialed 16 cultivars. Pumpkins were grown using conventional tillage, and each cultivar was replicated 4 times. ‘Griffin’ ‘Justify’, ‘Hawk’, ‘Bellatrix’ and ‘Hermes’ produced high yields with both fruit count and average weight per pumpkin.

Changes In Adult Well-Being And Economic Inequalities: An Exploratory Observational Longitudinal Study (2002–2010) Of Micro-Level Trends Among Tsimane’, A Small-Scale Rural Society Of Indigenous People In The Bolivian Amazon, Ricardo Godoy, Jonathan Bauchet, Jere R. Behrman, Tomás Huanca, William R. Leonard, Victoria Reyes-García, Asher Rosinger, Susan Tanner, Eduardo A. Undurraga, Ariela Zycherman

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Knowing what happens over time to the lifeways of people in contemporary small-scale non-industrial societies of the rural Global South matters because it helps assess changes in the quality of life of underrepresented groups. It has been hard to answer the question because longitudinal information is rarely collected in such settings. A longitudinal dataset of nine years (2002–2010) from a horticultural-foraging society of Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane’) is used for an exploratory analysis of micro-level trends in indicators of well-being and economic inequalities. We selected 13 Tsimane’ villages (from ∼ 100) that varied in proximity to town …

Machine Embroidery Of Light-Emitting Textiles With Multicolor Electroluminescent Threads, Seungse Cho, Taehoo Chang, Tianhao Yu, Sunland L. Gong, Chi Hwan Lee

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Advances in electroluminescent threads, suitable for weaving or knitting, have opened doors for the development of light-emitting textiles, driving growth in the market for flexible and wearable displays. Although direct embroidery of these textiles with custom designs and patterns could offer substantial benefits, the rigorous demands of machine embroidery challenge the integrity of these threads. Here, we present embroiderable multicolor electroluminescent threads—in blue, green, and yellow—that are compatible with standard embroidery machines. These threads can be used to stitch decorative designs onto various consumer fabrics without compromising their wear resistance or light-emitting capabilities. Demonstrations include illuminating specific messages or designs …

Utilizing Culturally Responsive Strategies To Inspire African American Female Participation In Cybersecurity, Deanna Bailey, Michel Kornegay, Ladawn Partlow, Charnee Bowens, Karen Gareis, Kevin Kornegay

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The number of African American females participating in cyber fields is significantly low. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education requires a new approach to student engagement to increase African American female participation in cybersecurity. The most common approach to engaging more African American females in STEM is to provide students access to professional images or role models active in STEM; however, more is needed. More race-centered strategies beyond role modeling are necessary to attract and retain African American females in STEM. Research studies show that integrating personal experiences and making cultural connections can help improve student participation in STEM …

Nsf Collaborative Research: Developing Business Communication Skills In Manufacturing Technician Education, Andrew Bell, David Blais, April Bledsoe, James Freygang, Caleb Hale, Jon Hineman, Garrett Middleton, Robert Parker, Jessica Ramos

NSF ATE Project Case Study Collection

No abstract provided.

Using Content Analysis And Text Mining To Examine The Effects Of Asynchronous Online Tutoring On Revision, Susan Lang, Clinton Morrison Jr, Kathleen Brawley

The Writing Center Journal

What do writers do with the feedback they receive? While the answer will vary depending on the writer’s experience and the rhetorical situation, understanding what writers do can provide important information for course redesign and professional development of tutors and instructors. In this first of two manuscripts, the authors examine how first-semester, first-year writing students use responses provided via asynchronous online tutoring (AOT) in revising their assignments. Our primary research question was: What was happening in—and after—those tutorials? We addressed this question by a process of narrowing and refining of data analysis toward increasingly precise inferences as we progressed from …

Slouching Towards Causality: Does Our Writing Center Tutoring Work?, Dennis Paoli, Jack Kenigsberg

The Writing Center Journal

Replicable, aggregable, data-supported (RAD) research has become standard in writing center studies. Choice of research question is determined by local conditions and exigencies, often influenced by institutional assessment policy and national mandates. The methodology of choice in most writing center research is qualitative inquiry, though quasi-experimental quantitative studies, with their inherently difficult protocols and ethical problems, persist in their effort to address the question fundamental to writing center labor: Does writing center tutoring improve student writing? In a quasi-experiment applying propensity score matching to a sample of student users of the Rockowitz Writing Center at Hunter College of the City …

On Linguistic Justice In The Writing Center: A Genesis Story, Ghada Gherwash

The Writing Center Journal

This essay presents a reflective account of the origin story of a linguistics justice initiative within the writing center. It concludes by posing questions aimed at promoting dialogue among writing center practitioners as they consider similar initiatives within their own contexts.

Review: Writing Centers & Racial Justice: A Guidebook For Critical Praxis, Faith Thompson

The Writing Center Journal

Writing Centers & Racial Justice seeks to answer the question many writing center directors seeking to enact antiracism have: “But how do we DO it?” This edited collection is not a how-to guide but offers strategies, suggestions, and even curriculum for writing center administration. It is broken down into five parts, each tackling a different component of writing center work, such as hiring and retention practices as well as tutor education. It calls on readers to look outside the writing center and begin to expand this work through their institutions and communities, as well as directly calling out professional organizations …

Review: A Working Model For Contingent Faculty, Courtney L. Werner

The Writing Center Journal

In his book A Working Model for Contingent Faculty, Robert Samuels presents multiple ideas for helping contingent faculty organize to gain equity on campus: in their careers, working conditions, and pay. Samuels critiques current prominent, negative discourse on contingent faculty, offering instead ways to emphasize contingent faculty’s diverse and positive experiences and opportunities. I offer additional insights spurred from Samuels’s ideas, including connecting with student government and finding ways to make writing center work and research more public and apparent to institutional stakeholders (e.g., students, faculty, donors, administrators, boards/trustees).

Material Characterization And Determination Of Mepdg Input Parameters For Indiana Superpave 5 Asphalt Mixtures, Seonghwan Cho, Tandra Bagchi, Jongmyung Jeon, John E. Haddock

JTRP Technical Reports

Superpave 5 (SP 5) has the ability to slow asphalt binder aging in asphalt pavements, which is why the SP 5 mix with optimum asphalt binder content to yield 5% air voids has recently been used in Indiana roads. INDOT also uses the AASHTOWare Pavement ME design software in pavement design, and the current asphalt aging prediction model in Pavement ME was developed based on the conventional Superpave asphalt mixture (design air voids 4%) design method. For the successful use of the SP 5 mixture design method with Pavement ME, the input level and input parameters play a significant role. …

Origin-Destination Vehicle Counts In Weaving Area Utilizing Existing Field Data, Stanley Chien, Lauren Christopher, Yaobin Chen, Mei Qiu, Wei Lin

JTRP Technical Reports

Vehicle weaving describes the vehicle lane changes in areas between consecutive merge and diverge ramp junctions. During heavy traffic, vehicle weaving will slow down traffic, cause congestion, and increase the possibility of crashes. It is desirable to automatically capture the weaving information using camera videos in the weaving areas. The currently existing weaving area analysis is very tedious and labor-intensive. This report describes a novel system that uses the videos simultaneously captured at the entry and exit of the weaving area to find the number and percentage of vehicles from each lane on the entry to each lane on the …

Updating Cost Allocation And Revenue Attribution, Isaiah C. Mwamba, Deepak Benny, Ajuna P. John, David O. Holguin Mejia, Dongyoon Song, Jelin Sabu, Jiqian Dong, Mohammadhosein Pourgholamali, Sashank Modali, Richard O. Ajagu, Bismark R. Agbelie, Matthew Volovski, Konstantina Gritzka, Kumares C. Sinha, Samuel Labi

JTRP Technical Reports

This report presents a synopsis of the results from the 2024 study commissioned by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) in fall 2023 at the request of the Indiana General Assembly.

Expenditures: Lighter vehicle classes saw their share of cost responsibility decline between 2015 and 2024, while the heavier vehicle classes saw their responsibilities increase within this period. This change is explained by a diametric shift in expenditure type patterns between the two eras from construction-dominant to maintenance-dominant expenditures. In this context, it is worth noting that these expenditure types have different ratios of attributable costs to common costs.

Revenues: …

Full-Scale Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer And Pilot Project Implementation, Oscar Moncada, Zainab Imran, Connor Vickers, Konstantina Gkritza, Steven Pekarek, Dionysios Aliprantis, Aaron Brovont, Behnam Jahangiri, John E. Haddock

JTRP Technical Reports

Considering the challenges hindering the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and heavy-duty electric vehicles(HDEVs), the integration of dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT) technology into roadways has gained interest. By embedding DWPT components into pavement, electrical power can be delivered to an EV or HDEV as they are in motion. Yet, large-scale implementation depends on further in-depth research, both to explore optimal construction methods and to understand the impact of embedment on the pavement’s resultant behavior. The objective of this project was trifold: (1) design and evaluate a transmitter-receiver topology for DWPT, (2) enhance the understanding of the interaction between …

New Repair Strategies For Life-Cycle Extension Of Corroded Steel Girder Bridges, Anna Tarasova, Deven Kanakamedala, Jungil Seo, Amit H. Varma, Robert J. Connor

JTRP Technical Reports

Steel girder ends are susceptible to corrosion damage due to deicing salts, water, and other contaminants leaking from failed expansion joints. When corrosion becomes significant, it leads to a reduction in the sectional properties of steel girders and consequently reduces bearing and shear resistance. Conventional repair methods, although effective, require substantial time and resources to complete, causing public inconvenience from necessary traffic closures. Therefore, there is a need for practical, rapid, and robust repair methods suitable for implementation by local Department of Transportation (DOT) maintenance personnel. In this study, five innovative repair methods were systematically evaluated through a selection process …

Indot Project Change Orders: Root Causes And Recommendations, Suyash Padhye, Aishwarya Sharma, Hesam Arefkhani, Deepak Benny, Konstantina Gkritza, Samuel Labi, Makarand Hastak

JTRP Technical Reports

This study analyzed the historical trends in change orders (COs) associated with the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) highway contracts. It also investigated correlations between COs and base factors (district, project type, contract type, award amount, geographical area (rural vs. urban)), and sought to understand the effect of the root causes but not to predict CO based on root causes. Unlike the base factors, the root causes are unknown prior to construction. The study developed models that forecasted CO characteristics—CO likelihood, CO frequency (count), and CO severity (magnitude) and CO impacts (cost overrun and schedule delay). To address these research …

Anomaly Detection In Traffic Patterns Using The Indot Camera System, Lauren Christopher, Stanley Chien, Yaobin Chen, Mei Qiu, William Reindl, Liya Koshy

JTRP Technical Reports

The Transportation and Autonomous Systems Institute (TASI) of Purdue University Indianapolis (PUI) and the INDOT Traffic Management Center worked together to develop a system that monitors traffic conditions using INDOT CCTV video feeds. Computer vision-based traffic anomaly detection has been studied for the past 20 years, and a thorough state-of-the-art analysis was produced in a recent survey paper. Although AI has contributed to improving anomaly detection, several major challenges remain, such as tracking errors, illumination, weather, occlusion handling, camera pose, and perspective. In addition, the lack of real-life datasets makes the effectiveness of anomaly detection techniques unclear. This project builds …

Business Processes To Prioritize Traffic Signal Retiming And Assess The Impact Of Retiming Activities, Enrique D. Saldivar-Carranza, Tom Platte, Terri Wills, James Sturdevant, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) manages over 2,000 traffic signals in the State. It is unfeasible to identify systemwide improvement opportunities by evaluating the performance of thousands of traffic signals on monitoring dashboards. This report describes how a scalable technique based on connected vehicle (CV) trajectory data systematically evaluates performance at the movement level to prioritize retiming and maintenance activities. In total, eleven timing changes were implemented at nine traffic signals over various time-of-day (TOD) periods using the proposed approach. The method achieved average control delay and split failure reductions of up to 53 sec/veh and 30%, respectively. A …

Development Of Latitude/Longitude (And Route/Milepost) Model For Positioning Traffic Management Cameras, Jijo K. Mathew, Haydn Malackowski, Yerassyl Koshan, Christopher Gartner, Jairaj Desai, Howell Li, Edward Cox, Ayman Habib, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

Traffic Incident Management (TIM) is a FHWA Every Day Counts initiative with the objective of reducing secondary crashes, improving travel reliability, and ensuring the safety of responders. Agency roadside cameras play a critical role in TIM by helping dispatchers quickly identify the precise location of incidents when receiving reports from motorists with varying levels of spatial accuracy. Reconciling position reports that are often mile-marker based with cameras that operate in a Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) coordinate system relies on dispatchers having detailed knowledge of hundreds of cameras and perhaps some presets. During real-time incident dispatching, reducing the time it takes to identify …

Geometric Constraints And Visual Field Related To Speed Management, Jiachen Jiang, Jiabei Wu, Jue Zhou, Yaobin Chen, Vincent G. Duffy, Renran Tian

JTRP Technical Reports

This study investigates the challenges inherent in rural arterial roads and highways connecting small towns and cities in Indiana. Despite their pivotal role in transportation and development, these roads often experience a high frequency of traffic accidents attributed to speeding, particularly at transition areas from high-speed to low-speed roads. To address this issue, this study investigated cost-efficient and effective speed management countermeasures. This study emphasized the importance of considering cost-efficient and effective speed management strategies, with a focus on roadside vegetation and lane widths near small-town entrances on arterial roads and highway ramps. Proposing four countermeasures for each scenario—such as …