Digital Commons Network^™

Analysis Of Public Sentiment Of Covid-19 Pandemic, Vaccines, And Lockdowns, Devinesh Singh

Master's Projects

CoV-2 pandemic prompted lockdown measures to be implemented worldwide; these directives were implemented nationwide to stunt the spread of the infection. Throughout the lockdowns, millions of individuals resorted to social media for entertainment, communicate with friends and family, and express their opinions about the pandemic. Simultaneously, social media aided in the dissemination of misinformation, which has proven to be a threat to global health. Sentiment analysis, a technique used to analyze textual data, can be used to gain an overview of public opinion behind CoV-2 from Twitter and TikTok. The primary focus of the project is to build a deep …

Abstractive Text Summarization For Tweets, Siyu Chen

Master's Projects

In the high-tech age, we can access a vast number of articles, information, news, and opinion online. The wealth of information allows us to learn about the topics we are interested in more easily and cheaply, but it also requires us to spend an enormous amount of time reading online. Text summarization can help us save a lot of reading time so that we can know more information in a shorter period. The primary goal of text summarization is to shorten the text while including as much vital information as possible in the original text so fewer people use this …

A Process Evaluation Of Intelligence Gathering Using Social Media For Emergency Management Organizations In California, Alan Barner

Master's Projects

When responding to an emergency, correct and timely information is often the difference between a successful response and a potential disaster. The information that emergency managers in California receive from the public often dictates how agencies respond to emergencies. The emergence of social media has presented several benefits to emergency managers regarding intelligence gathering during the emergency response process. Simultaneously, the emergence of social media has raised several concerns for the stakeholders involved. One major issue involves inaccurate information circulating on social media platforms during ongoing disasters. If emergency managers cannot discern incorrect information from correct information, disaster response may …

Adversarial Attacks On Speech Separation Systems, Kendrick Trinh

Master's Projects

Speech separation is a special form of blind source separation in which the objective is to decouple two or more sources such that they are distinct. The need for such an ability grows as speech activated device usage increases in our every day life. These systems, however, are susceptible to malicious actors. In this work, we repurpose proven adversarial attacks and leverage them against a combination speech separation and speech recognition system. The attack adds adversarial noise to a mixture of two voices such that the two outputs of the speech separation system are similarly transcribed by the speech recognition …

“What I Have Learned About Ethnic Studies Is To Love Myself More”: A Look At Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy And Newcomer Students, Lan Nguyen

Master's Projects

Throughout American history, schooling has been used as a tool of settler colonialism, hegemony, and white supremacy. This process of utilizing schooling as a tool of domination has been labeled by theorists as “miseducation”. To attempt to combat the miseducation that students experience in their schooling, I implemented culturally sustaining pedagogy, which necessitates the maintenance and strengthening of students’ relationships with their cultures in schools. In my project, I focused on newcomer students, as immigrant students are often the most underserved population in schools, and also are the most vulnerable to assimilationist teachings. This project utilized classroom observations, student work, …

An Unconventional Pathway: A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Experience Of Racial Minority Transfer Students, Hanh My Mai Tran

Dissertations

Transfer students’ success is increasingly being discussed in higher education. A large population of transfer students includes racial minority, low-income, and first-generation college students. Due to the multiple layers of students’ identities, it has been difficult for educational leaders in institutions to grasp the essential elements needed to serve these students. As a result, this qualitative study contributes to this discussion and efforts to support the transfer student’s success. In this study, qualitative methods, including interviews with 14 students from 4-year universities and community colleges and a survey, were used to identify the steps and resources associated with supporting transfer …

Culturally Responsive School Leadership In Continuation High Schools: An Alternative Approach In Leadership Styles, Roberto C. Portillo

Dissertations

Continuation high schools and the students they serve are often invisible and ignored to most Californians. However, state school authorities estimate that over 115,000 California high school students will pass through one of the state's 519 continuation high schools each year, to either graduate with a diploma, or to drop out of school altogether (Austin & Dixon, 2008). Principals in these schools must be exceptional and well prepared. However, principals have been trained to implement culturally responsive school leadership at their sites. Eight continuation high school principals described their experiences regarding their preparation, supports, challenges and successes in implementing culturally …

A Comparative Study Of Immigration Integration Programs For Selected City Governments In California, Oregon, Washington, And Texas, Christelle Lorenzana

Master's Projects

Over the last eight decades, immigration into the United States has increased and has become a prominent political issue in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2015). Although the federal government is responsible for enforcing immigration laws, municipalities work with immigrants directly in a more supportive role. Currently, no national policy focuses on integration or welcoming immigrants to the urban community. In recent decades, the federal government has focused on immigration enforcement, border control, and what to do about the influx of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. However, cities are working to develop their own programs, tools, and policies to …

Vicks In The Classroom: A Study On The Effects Of Teacher Cultural Awareness On Hispanic/Latinx Student Discipline, Arthur A. Maldonado

Dissertations

With the booming Hispanic/Latinx populations nationwide, particularly in the state of California, the disproportionate disciplining of this student population for minor infractions such as defiance is an issue that has persisted for many decades. Therefore, to better inform this phenomenon, a historical perspective and critical look into the cultural awareness of teachers was examined throughout this research. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the relationship between middle school teacher cultural awareness and the disciplining of Hispanic/Latinx students in the schools being studied. The findings in this study reveal cultural perceptions from teachers that current body of research …

“I Think I’Ve Always Thought I Have To Prove Myself”: Interpretations, Perceptions, And Teacher Sensemaking At A Distance, Rafael Zavala

Dissertations

This grounded theory, constant comparative method study provides a Critical Race Institutional Logics Perspective account of Latina teacher sensemaking of distance learning. Distance learning—while not a particularly new school initiative, school reform effort, or organizational change—brought forth an organizational change that unmasked racist systems and deficit policy models perpetuating persistent, pervasive, disproportionate, low academic achievement for Latinx students. This study looked at how Latina teachers made sense of and enacted distance learning from their own personal values, beliefs, perceptions, and or impressions. Particularly, this study analyzed the role of race and its effects in shaping Latina teacher practice through these …

Tracking The Functions Of Ai As Paradata & Pursuing Archival Accountability, Jeremy Davet, Babak Hamidzadeh, Patricia Franks, Jenny Bunn

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

While a familiar term in fields like social science research and digital cultural heritage, 'paradata' has not yet been introduced conceptually into the archival realm. In response to an increasing number of experiments with machine learning and artificial intelligence, the InterPARES Trust AI research group proposes the definition of paradata as 'information about the procedure(s) and tools used to create and process information resources, along with information about the persons carrying out those procedures.' The utilization of this concept in archives can help to ensure that AI-driven systems are designed from the outset to honor the archival ethic, and to …

Ecstasy, Confession, Image, And Silence In Buber, Bergman, And Godard, Karl E. Toepfer

Open Educational Resources

This essay discusses the contrasting attitudes toward ecstatic experience as described in Martin Buber's book Ekstatische Konfessionen (1909). Ingmar Bergman's film Persona (1966), and Jean-Luc Godard's film Weekend (1967). The attitude toward ecstasy depends heavily on the use of language and confidence in language to represent ecstatic experience. Buber, Bergman. and Godard share little, if any, perception on the relation between language, speech, and ecstasy.

An Automated Classifier For Child-Directed Speech From Lena Recordings, Janet Y. Bang, George Kachergis, Adriana Weisleder, Virginia A. Marchman

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Initial Cognitive Load To Predict User Response To Complex Visual Tasks, Reem Albaghli, Yaman Jandali, Sarah Almahmid, Nada Attar

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In this study, we were able to show how cognitive load measurement during the initiation of a complex visual task can predict user response. We measured cognitive load using pupil size and microsaccade rate. The initial phase of task was defined as the first 25 percent of the trial Reaction Time (RT), which was variable up to 50 seconds. The complex visual task entailed a set of twelve words that could be grouped based into 1, 2, or 3 categories or sets, e.g., the words bed, pillow, headboard, etc. can be grouped into a single set that is bedroom. We …

On The Possibility Оf A Dual-Natured Self, Anand Jayprakash Vaidya

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In this paper I examine compatibilism and incompatibilism about whether the self can be both a subject and an object in the same awareness at the same time. While this is an old debate that many traditions of philosophy have contributed to, my point of departure is the work of A.C. Mukerji (an Indian philosopher of the modern era) who worked on the possibility of self-awareness by articulating, what he called, the paradox of ego-centricity. I also consider Patañjali (an Indian philosopher of the classical era), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (a phenomenologist), and Arindam Chakrabarti (a contemporary Indian and Analytic philosopher) on …

Spanish-Speaking Caregivers’ Use Of Referential Labels With Toddlers Is A Better Predictor Of Later Vocabulary Than Their Use Of Referential Gestures, Janet Y. Bang, Manuel Bohn, Joel Ramírez, Virginia A. Marchman, Anne Fernald

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Variation in how frequently caregivers engage with their children is associated with variation in children's later language outcomes. One explanation for this link is that caregivers use both verbal behaviors, such as labels, and non-verbal behaviors, such as gestures, to help children establish reference to objects or events in the world. However, few studies have directly explored whether language outcomes are more strongly associated with referential behaviors that are expressed verbally, such as labels, or non-verbally, such as gestures, or whether both are equally predictive. Here, we observed caregivers from 42 Spanish-speaking families in the US engage with their 18-month-old …

Application Of Value Stream Mapping In E-Commerce: A Case Study On An Amazon Retailer, Yanfang Qin, Hongrui Liu

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In recent years, the e-commerce market has grown significantly, and the online retail market has become very competitive. Online retailers strive to improve their supply chain operations to reduce costs and to improve customer satisfaction. Value stream mapping (VSM), a tool created by the lean production movement to identify and reduce errors, losses, and lead time and to improve value-added activities, has been proven to be effective in many manufacturing processes. In this study, we investigate the application of value stream mapping (VSM) in the supply chain of an e-commerce retailer on Amazon. By visualizing the entire supply chain with …

“Don't Downvote A$$$$$$S!!”: An Exploration Of Reddit's Advice Communities, Emily Cannon, Bianca Crouse, Souvick Ghosh, Nicholas Rihn, Kristen Chua

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Advice forums are a crowdsourced way to reinforce cultural norms and moral behavior. Sites like Reddit contain massive amounts of natural language human interaction, with rules and norms unique to each individual subreddit community. To explore this data, we created a dataset with top 1000 posts from each of two such forums, r/AmItheAsshole and r/relationships, and extracted natural language features including sentiment, similarity, word frequency, and demographics using both algorithmic and manual methods. Further, we developed a method to extract demographic information from the subreddits, examined how the post authors' self-disclosures reflect the unique communities in which their posts are …

Benchmarking Compositionality With Formal Languages, Josef Valvoda, Naomi Saphra, Jonathan Rawski, Adina Williams, Ryan Cotterell

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Recombining known primitive concepts into larger novel combinations is a quintessentially human cognitive capability. Whether large neural models in NLP can acquire this ability while learning from data is an open question. In this paper, we investigate this problem from the perspective of formal languages. We use deterministic finite-state transducers to make an unbounded number of datasets with controllable properties governing compositionality. By randomly sampling over many transducers, we explore which of their properties contribute to learnability of a compositional relation by a neural network. We find that the models either learn the relations completely or not at all. The …

Availability And Accessibility As Determinants Of Use Of Electronic Reference Sources Among Secondary School Teachers In Ekiti State Nigeria, Adesanmi Mathew Farukuoye, Olayinka Folorunso, Elizabeth Bukunola Lateef

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Availability of information resources plays a major role in teaching and learning. For effective teaching to take place information resources must be provided and teachers must have access to various types of resources particularly in their areas of specialization. This will not only broaden their knowledge base but also prepare them ahead of the challenges that may face them in the course of imparting knowledge. A variety of activities that are performed by teachers in the course of carrying out their professional duties is hinged on close interaction with the various reference sources in their areas of specialization. These …

School Library Resources For Inclusive Online English Language Learning: Teachers’ Perspectives About Differentiating Instruction In The Context Of English As Second Language, Angela Eze, Charity N. Onyishi

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

In an inclusive education setting, learners with and without disabilities are guided to study in the same classrooms with adaptable facilities and equipments. With this arrangement in place, assistive technology becomes an absolute requirement, and the school library is a medium for providing and using inclusive resources. In the current education system where online learning is speedily overtaking face-to-face learning modalities, school Library resources are indispensable for the effective inclusion of all learners through differentiated instruction. Such is critically essential for English language learning, especially in Nigeria, where English is learned as a Second Language. However, little is known …

Digitization Of World Heritage Sites Of Iran As A Tool For Facilitating Online Access During Worldwide Pandemic: Case Study Of Pasargadae World Heritage Site, Farzaneh Gerami, Nadim Akhtar Khan, Zohreh Hosseini

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Purpose

Cultural heritage digitization facilitates the preservation of culturally valuable objects, entities, or items into a digital form allowing more comprehensive and concurrent access to such objects. It becomes more significant for overcoming the constraints associated with physical access, especially during turmoil, disasters, and pandemics like COVID-19, where physical interactions are almost restricted. Covid-19 restrictions and resultant social distancing protocols impacted nearly every facet of human life. Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums, and heritage sites across the globe were also affected as they were closed for the general public.

Therefore, the study explores the importance of making diverse cultural heritage information …

Investigating Religious Education Students’ Awareness And Use Of Theological Commons For Term Paper Writing And Research: Implications For Improving Students’ Research Skills, Leonard Chidi Ilechukwu, Christopher Eje Ogar, Ndubuisi Eze Chukwu, Faith O. Mesagan, Theresa Olunwa Oforka

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study investigated religious education students' awareness and use of theological commons for term paper writing and research in the federal universities in southeast Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design to investigate 96 male students and 86 female students. The statistical analysis was done using an independent t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The finding of this study showed that there is no significant difference in the awareness of theological commons among religious education students for term paper writing and research by gender. The finding of this study also showed that there is a gender difference in the …

Creating Community Of Young Readers During Covid-19 Lockdown: A Comprehensive Study Of A Digital Reading Platform: Storyweaver, Shaveta Azad, Rupak Chakravarty Prof.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Reading stories to children when they are young is the most effective way to keep them creatively engaged. Children in multilingual countries require free access to story repositories for leisure reading. In India, a country with hundreds of mother tongues, books are largely published in English and Hindi, owing to market economics. Various studies have shown that learning and reading become more important in one's mother tongue and that when a child reads in two or more languages during early years, gains a deeper understanding of language and its effective use.

In this paper, the researchers have tried to discover; …

Utilization Of Bibliotherapy Among Public Primary School English Language Teachers: Implications For Teaching Library Reading Skills, Gloria Chikasiemobi Ugwu Phd, Cajetan Ikechukwu Egbe Phd, Clara Odozi Ifelunni Phd

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study was conducted to find out the extent to which guidance counsellors are aware of bibliotherapy as a library reading skills intervention service, and the extent they utilize it in public primary schools in Nsukka Local Government Education Authority of Enugu State, Nigeria. Four research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study in line with the specific purposes of the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study and population of 101 school guidance counsellors in the public primary schools were used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire of 28 items which …

Documentation Of Nigerian Indigenous Knowledge System: The Role Of The Library, Christopher Agbeniaru Omigie Dr., Theresa Osasu Makinde Mrs., Ademola Victor Adeniran Mr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper is on documentation of Nigerian indigenous knowledge system (IKS) as a national heritage through the role of the library as catalyst. The paper used literature analysis, recognizance survey and observations to explicitly describe the concept of IKS and its various sustainable ethos; it illustrates the components of the Nigerian IKS including the encompassed spiritual and physical sustainable elements that helps to promote its long time survival. Also treated in the paper are the relevance of IKS to the Nigerian national development; the challenges of IKS development in the country and the role of the library for sustainable collection …

Perceived Role Of Digital Theological Library And Term Paper Counselling In Undergraduate Religious Education Students’ Academic Success: Implications For University Librarians, Leonard Chidi Ilechukwu, Rowland C. Uwakwe, Christopher Eje Ogar, Ndubuisi Eze Chukwu, Faith O. Mesagan, Theresa Olunwa Oforka

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study investigated the perceived role of digital theological library and term paper counselling in undergraduate religious education students' academic success in the federal universities in southeast Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. A structured questionnaire developed by the researchers was used for data collection. 166 undergraduate religious education students were chosen as respondents in this research. The results showed that items on the perceived role of digital theological library and term paper counselling were all accepted by the students as means of achieving academic success. There was a significant difference in the perceived role of the digital …

Blended Or Differentiated Instruction For Inclusive Education During Post-Covid-19 Era: The Need For Upgrading School Libraries In Nigeria, Charity Onyishi

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

With the socio-educational challenges posed by COVID-19, teaching-learning is gradually moving from face-to-face to digital and online distance learning across the world. This makes it generally challenging to meet the needs of all learners in the context of inclusive education. Increasing evidence tends to show that for effective inclusive learning, the hybrid blended approaches to learning should be differentiated. Further still is the fact that school libraries need to be upgraded with resources that meet the needs of diverse learners, and speak to the present hybridization in pedagogy and learning. A major impairing problem is the documented lack of …

Indigenisation Of Nigerian Librarianship Through Indigenous Knowledge: Exploring Its Possibilities, Abdulakeem Sodeeq Sulyman,, Basirat Omolara Amzat, Muritadho Abiodun Taiwo

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Knowledge cannot be separated from the people holding it and the best way to make it appreciated is to present it in a way that represents the beliefs, customs and norms of its origin. This submission makes this paper attempts to find the perfect word between indigenisation and decolonisation as a way of developing Indigenous Librarianship in Nigeria. It settles for indigenisation because indigenisation focuses on the exploitation of the native, local resources to create, share, transform and retain knowledge. It ponders on the historical antecedents of Librarianship in Nigeria to proof that the Nigerian library practices were purely nurtured …

Creolizing Modern Buddhism: A Reply To Yarran Hominh & A. Minh Nguyen, Evan Thompson

Comparative Philosophy

In reply to Hominh and Nguyen, I argue that “creolizing” methods in the study and practice of Buddhism should not be opposed to historicist and contextualist modes of investigation and understanding. Rather, historicism and contextualism can and should inform creolizing approaches.