Digital Commons Network^™

Automatic Categorization Of Lgbt User Profiles On Twitter With Machine Learning, Amir Karami, M. Lundy, F. Webb, H. R. Boyajieff, M. Zhu, D. Lee

Faculty Publications

Privacy needs and stigma pose significant barriers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people sharing information related to their identities in traditional settings and research methods such as surveys and interviews. Fortunately, social media facilitates people’s belonging to and exchanging information within online LGBT communities. Compared to heterosexual respondents, LGBT users are also more likely to have accounts on social media websites and access social media daily. However, the current relevant LGBT studies on social media are not efficient or assume that any accounts that utilize LGBT-related words in their profile belong to individuals who identify as LGBT. Our …

Covid-19 Vaccine And Social Media In The U.S.: Exploring Emotions And Discussions On Twitter, Amir Karami, Michael Zhu, Bailey Goldschmidt, Hannah R. Boyajieff, Mahdi M. Najafabadi

Faculty Publications

The understanding of the public response to COVID-19 vaccines is the key success factor to control the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand the public response, there is a need to explore public opinion. Traditional surveys are expensive and time-consuming, address limited health topics, and obtain small-scale data. Twitter can provide a great opportunity to understand public opinion regarding COVID-19 vaccines. The current study proposes an approach using computational and human coding methods to collect and analyze a large number of tweets to provide a wider perspective on the COVID-19 vaccine. This study identifies the sentiment of tweets using a machine learning …

"Who Can Help Me?'': Knowledge Infused Matching Of Support Seekers And Support Providers During Covid-19 On Reddit, Manas Gaur, Kaushik Roy, Aditya Sharma, Biplav Srivastava, Amit Sheth

Publications

During the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, subreddits on Reddit, such as r/Coronavirus saw a rapid growth in user's requests for help (support seekers - SSs) including individuals with varying professions and experiences with diverse perspectives on care (support providers - SPs). Currently, knowledgeable human moderators match an SS with a user with relevant experience, i.e, an SP on these subreddits. This unscalable process defers timely care. We present a medical knowledge-infused approach to efficient matching of SS and SPs validated by experts for the users affected by anxiety and depression, in the context of with COVID-19. After matching, each SP to …

Introduction: Allan Ramsay's Future, Murray Pittock, Craig Lamont

Studies in Scottish Literature

Presents an overview of the new AHRC-funded edition of the Collected Works of Allan Ramsay, and of related recent scholarly and community activity in relation to Ramsay's public recognition and heritage, both in the Pentlands area south of Edinburgh, near Penicuik and Carlops, and more broadly in Scottish literary history, specifically in relation to the origins of Scottish Romanticism.

Allan Ramsay: Romanticism And Reception, Murray Pittock

Studies in Scottish Literature

Provides a review and interpretation of Allan Ramsay's career and reputation, and of scholarly and critical response to his work, exploring "the foundational nature of his contribution to the language of Scottish literature," reaching a wider audience, for Scots, his dominant role in the history of Scottish song, and the pivotal role of his writing, especially his ballad-opera The Gentle Shepherd, in the formation of Scottish romanticism, and of the wider romantic movement.

'Compylit In Latin': Allan Ramsay And Scoto-Latinity In The Eighteenth Century, Ralph Mclean

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the importance and pervasiveness of Latin, including original Latin verse, in early 18th century Scotland, among Jacobites and in Ramsay's Edinburgh circle, with attention to the work of Archibald Pitcairne, Thomas Ruddiman, and later Robert Fergusson; examines Ramsay's own Scots translations of Horace and his use of the Horatian tradition, and looks also at translations from Ramsay into Latin by Alexander Fraser Tytler; and concludes that Ramsay's Scots poetry "helped to maintain" a Scottish link "to the classical past, by presenting the works of classical authors to new and growing audiences in Scotland in a language which was accessible …

Methodising Scots: The Cases Of Allan Ramsay & Thomas Ruddiman, Jeremy J. Smith

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines the linguistic issues facing editors of two 18th century Scottish editors, Allan Ramsay and Thomas Ruddiman, in modifying or standardizing the language in earlier Scottish poetic manuscripts, arguing that "the editorial process is not—and never has been—“neutral” or “objective” but is rather a hermeneutic act constrained by contemporary conditions of publication and intended audience," and that Ramsay and Ruddiman, like modern editors, were "constrained in quite delicate ways by their historical setting."

Contributors To Ssl 46.2

Studies in Scottish Literature

Brief biographical notes on contributors

December 2, 2020 Faculty Senate Minutes, University Of South Carolina

Faculty Senate

No abstract provided.

Identifying Depressive Symptoms From Tweets: Figurative Language Enabled Multitask Learning Framework, Shweta Yadav, Jainish Chauhan, Joy Prakash Sain, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Amit P. Sheth, Jeremiah Schumm

Publications

Existing studies on using social media for deriving mental health status of users focus on the depression detection task. However, for case management and referral to psychiatrists, healthcare workers require practical and scalable depressive disorder screening and triage system. This study aims to design and evaluate a decision support system (DSS) to reliably determine the depressive triage level by capturing fine-grained depressive symptoms expressed in user tweets through the emulation of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) that is routinely used in clinical practice. The reliable detection of depressive symptoms from tweets is challenging because the 280-character limit on tweets incentivizes the …

Medical Knowledge-Enriched Textual Entailment Framework, Shweta Yadav, Vishal Pallagani, Amit P. Sheth

Publications

One of the cardinal tasks in achieving robust medical question answering systems is textual entailment. The existing approaches make use of an ensemble of pre-trained language models or data augmentation, often to clock higher numbers on the validation metrics. However, two major shortcomings impede higher success in identifying entailment: (1) understanding the focus/intent of the question and (2) ability to utilize the real-world background knowledge to capture the context beyond the sentence. In this paper, we present a novel Medical Knowledge-Enriched Textual Entailment framework that allows the model to acquire a semantic and global representation of the input medical text …

Promoting Reading Achievement In Children With Developmental Language Disorders: What Can We Learn From Research On Specific Language Impairment And Dyslexia?, Suzanne M. Adlof

Faculty Publications

Purpose Specific language impairment (SLI; see also developmental language disorder) and dyslexia are separate, yet frequently co-occurring disorders that confer risks to reading comprehension and academic achievement. Until recently, most studies of one disorder had little consideration of the other, and each disorder was addressed by different practitioners. However, understanding how the two disorders relate to each other is important for advancing theories about each disorder and improving reading comprehension and academic achievement. The purpose of this clinical focus article is to integrate research on SLI and dyslexia as well as advocate for the consideration of comorbidities in future research …

Joint Identities?: A Self-Case Study Of The Professional Identity Development Of J.D./Ph.D. Professionals In Education Law, Raquel Muniz, Dwayne Wright, Rafael E. Alvarado, Vanessa Miller, J. Queen Mcgrew

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

Immoral Trademarks After Brunetti, Ned Snow

Faculty Publications

For more than a century, marks that were vulgar, profane, and obscene could not receive trademark protection. In 2019, however, the Supreme Court in Iancu v. Brunetti invalidated the statutory provision that had prevented such marks from receiving protection—the bars to “immoral” and “scandalous” marks. Those bars violated the First Amendment because they enabled the government to judge whether ideas in marks were inappropriate. Similarly, two years prior to Brunetti, the Court in Matal v. Tam struck down a bar to marks that could “disparage” others. The Court reasoned that to disparage is to offend, and the ability to offend …

Talkin’ Black And Sounding Gay: An Examination Of The Construction Of A Multiplex Identity Via Intraspeaker Variation, Brianna R. Cornelius

Theses and Dissertations

Gay African-American men hold membership in at least three groups – Gay, Black, and Male – that are grounded in ideologies and which provide linguistic resources that are complex and potentially conflicting. As such, these men exist at the cross-section of socio-cultural groups whose perspectives and presentations are often framed in opposition to one another. This dissertation seeks to explore the ways in which such complex identities are created through the use of language. Specifically, this project will investigate how a Gay Black man (GBM) constructs his complex identity over the course of several interviews/conversations in which topic and interlocutor …

Exploring The Needs, Practices, And Attitudes Toward Technology Integration Of Community College Esol Instructors: Recommendations For Professional Development Through Action Research, Courtney Cunningham

Theses and Dissertations

Research has established both the importance of integrating technology in English language learning and of properly training teachers in order to integrate technology effectively. Inadequate teacher and learner training prevent technology from being utilized to its fullest potential in the English language classroom. A portion of the problem is due to lack of training for practicing teachers. While this is true for English as a second language teachers in all contexts, there is a strong need for instructors working with adult learners to utilize technology and be properly trained in technology integration. Professional development is a way to overcome barriers …

Pushing The Limits Of Black Atlantic And Hispanic Transatlantic Studies Through The Exploration Of Three U.S. Afro-Latio Memoirs, Julia Luján

Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation project I intend to push the boundaries, by placing them in dialogue with each other, of both the Black Atlantic and the Hispanic Transatlantic Studies while exploring the cultural production of two groups that are generally excluded from the scholarly research done on the African Diaspora: U.S. Afro-Latinos and Afro-Argentines. While Black Atlantic Studies focuses on the Anglophone world and Hispanic Transatlantic Studies focuses on the Spanish-speaking world, they both ignore the two groups mentioned above as they complicate the boundaries of these fields by sitting at the intersections of race, language, and location.

Furthermore, I explore …

Exploring The Impact Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy On African American Students’ Attitudes Toward Reading In A Pre-Kindergarten Classroom: An Action Research Study, Janet Brantley

Theses and Dissertations

In U.S. schools, the academic needs of many African American students are not being adequately met. This alarming trend has prompted many educators to recognize the need to make changes in their knowledge base and instructional practices in order to better serve African American students. Culturally relevant pedagogy--a multifaceted approach to teaching that utilizes students’ cultural experiences to facilitate cultural competence, social justice, and student learning-has been identified as a method that may create more positive learning outcomes among African American students and diverse learners.

This study investigated the impact of culturally relevant pedagogy on African American students’ attitudes towards …

Finding Their Strengths, Dreams And Struggles: A Narrative Inquiry Of High School Students Independent Reading Habits, Tori T. Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to read and understand texts are important to student’s success in school and life. However, many secondary students enter without the skills needed to handle the rigor and amount of reading they will meet as they matriculate high school. Yet, this is not the case for those who struggle to read most. Allington (2013) found that students who struggle the most to read are also those who given the least amount of time to reading and the most to worksheets (p. 526). Therefore, this study hopes to better understand the reading histories of three high school students and …

Collegiate And Post-Undergraduate Experiences Among African American Stem Alumni At The University Of South Carolina, Baindu Nallo

Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to explore the undergraduate and post-undergraduate experiences of African American STEM alumni from the University of South Carolina from a strengths-perspective. The method utilized for this qualitative study was phenomenological analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 African American alumni who graduated between 2010 and 2020 and majored in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). Critical Race Theory and community cultural wealth served as theoretical frameworks for this research. The findings indicate that African American students: 1) want to smoothly transition from high school to college curriculum being equally exposed to collegiate materials at the high …

The Literacies Of Adolescents With International Experiences, Caitlin Hanzlick Rasmussen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports the findings of a study on how international experiences impact adolescents. Data were gathered from interviews with and writing samples from seven participants with varying international experiences. A critical perspective and existing research in New Literacy Studies (NLS), on study abroad programs, and on transnationalism framed the study and predicted much of what was found about the literacies of adolescents with international experiences. However, five new findings emerged as significant about adolescents’ utilitarian, oral, geolingual, critical, and cosmopolitan literacies uniquely impacted by travel. From these findings, new insights emerged about the importance of embracing multiple forms of …

“Virtually A Sisterhood” Virtual Collaboration And Its Impact On Social Connectedness Among A Group Of Culturally Diverse Women, George Banks-Weston

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the impact of virtual collaboration on social connectedness among a group of culturally diverse women participating in an online business strategy course. This study was guided by three research questions (1) How and to what extent does virtual collaboration impact social connectedness among a group of culturally diverse women participating in an online business strategy course? (2) How and to what extent does a group of culturally diverse women use virtual collaboration tools for activities in an online business strategy course? (3) What are the experiences of culturally diverse women …

The Effects Of Project-Based Learning In The Intermediate World Language Classroom, Steven Tanner Tucker

Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this action research study was to further examine the reluctance of intermediate language learners in speaking production in their second language. Additionally, with emerging strategies such as project-based learning, the study explored the efficacy of this strategy, specifically in terms of the students’ volition and motivation to produce the spoken language during classroom activities. The goal was to assist educators in discovering new social and constructivist techniques that could potentially foster student engagement and language acquisition, especially in regard to speaking competencies in the foreign language. Undoubtedly, action research was the appropriate method for the current …

Recognizing Art As A Semiotic Mode: Revelations Of An Adolescent Mind, Catherine Elizabeth Deaton

Theses and Dissertations

The following gallery is predicated on the belief that a complete high school curriculum must be responsive to the needs of students as they navigate the stresses of living in isolation during a pandemic and always. High school students with minimal directions or guidance were charged with submitting a photo of a piece of art they had constructed to capture their perceptions of living through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The results give a candid view of how these students give purpose to the process of creating art as they construct and convey a sense of “being in the world.” …

Designing Vocabulary Instruction For English Language Learners In A Kindergarten Classroom, Loretta C. Ayers

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of instructional practices used to teach vocabulary to English Language Learners in a kindergarten classroom. The central question of the study was: what instructional practices in a classroom support vocabulary acquisition of ELLs? The purpose was to determine the impact of an intervention on vocabulary acquisition with a focus on directional prepositions and rhyming word vocabulary. Students were given whole group direct instruction, small group targeted instruction, and integrated peer play opportunities over the course of the study as vocabulary interventions. Data for this study included pre- and …

Digesting Gender: Gendered Foodways In Modern Chinese Literature, 1890s–1940s, Zhuo Feng

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I investigate Han Bangqing (1856–1894), Lao She (1899– 1966), and Su Qing’s (1914–1982) works to study the literary representations of how people purchased, prepared, shared, and ate food in different social contexts allowing them to adapt to new gender norms. I contend that the intersection of food, gender and literature stages the process through which people reconciled different and sometimes conflicting gender norms through their everyday eating practices. When encountering new cooking and eating practices in these literary works, people reflect upon their past lives and, wittingly or unwittingly, begin to accept different gender norms, and modify …

Games And Play Of Dream Of The Red Chamber, Jiayao Wang

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation examines the games derived from Cao Xueqin’s novel Dream of The Red Chamber during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1880s-1920s) through its various literary and textual representations. In brief, the games create a sense of otherworldliness for players to imagine their mode of being in a space that is set apart from the daily grinds of the historical transition. Dramatic and literary sources have been a constant motif or theme for traditional games in China. However, it was after the publication of Dream of Red Chamber that the characters, the themes and motifs of the novel …

September 9, 2020 Faculty Senate Minutes, University Of South Carolina

Faculty Senate

No abstract provided.

Cyber Social Threats 2020 Workshop Meta-Report: Covid-19, Challenges, Methodological And Ethical Considerations, Ugur Kursuncu, Yelena Mejova, Jeremy Blackburn, Amit Sheth

Publications

Online platforms have been increasingly misused by ill-intentioned actors, affecting our society, often leading to real-world events of social significance. On the other hand, recog-nizing the narratives related to harmful behaviors is challeng-ing due to its complex and sensitive nature. The Cyber SocialThreats Workshop 2020 aimed to stimulate research for thechallenges on methodological and ethical considerations indeveloping novel approaches to analyze online harmful con-versations, concerning social, cultural, emotional, commu-nicative, and linguistic aspects. It provided a forum to bringtogether researchers and practitioners from both academiaand industry in the areas of computational social sciences, so-cial network analysis and mining, natural language process-ing, …

Origins Of Religion: A Comparison Between The United States And Germany, Dawson Adams, Alexander Lorenz

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

This research paper discusses the origins of religion in the nations of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. For the United States, the first religions were those of the European settlers. They brought with them Christianity, both Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as Judaism. Then, as immigration ramped up in the 19th and 20th centuries, many more religions arrived to America, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, as well as many more Christian followers. These immigrants came mostly from China, Africa, the Middle East, and southern and eastern Europe. As for Germany, a significantly older nation than the …