Digital Commons Network^™

Puerto Rican Welfare Queens And The Semiotics Ofrespectability: The Language Of Race, Class, Andgender, Mary Beaton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Role Of Standardized Exams In Second Language Programs, Troy L. Cox, Alan V. Brown, Margaret E. Malone

Faculty Publications

Standardized language tests are used for many purposes in pK-12 and higher education, including program admission and placement, certification of language attainment and proficiency, and graduation requirements. Despite the many standardized language tests that exist, many administrators and instructors possess limited understanding of how they are designed, what functions they fulfill, and how to interpret and use the results. The influx of AI in the language testing space has only exacerbated this problem. Key program stakeholders often rely on these tests to make pressure-filled and high-stakes decisions but may be doing so without understanding their limitations. However, the issue is …

Alterity As A Mirror Of Identity: Primo Levi’S Self Representation In Other People’S Trades, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

Primo Levi reveals much about himself in the fifty-one short essays of L’altrui mestiere (Other People’s Trades). This study analyzes L’altrui mestiere as the awareness of the “self” through the observation of “otherness” — other people, but also other living beings which are not human (mammalian animals and insects), others as minerals, and others as hypotheses, theories, writings, microcosmic or macrocosmic conceptions that Levi uses to weave a discourse of “alterity” as a mirror of “identity.” L’altrui mestiere’s narrative pattern revolves around contrasts and comparisons between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the canny and the uncanny, the …

Distribution: Understanding Customer-Facing Logistics In Africa, Emmanuel T. Kodzi

Faculty Publications

Companies seeking to do business in Africa often focus more on challenges they need to address, rather than opportunities presented to them. The need to manage their investments across diverse countries, population profiles, infrastructure development levels, and local capabilities is viewed in terms of complexity. However, improved situational understanding will better inform investment decisions regarding product movements among points of origin, production, and consumption. Several aspects of logistics may be considered in this regard, but we focus on customer-facing logistics. We assume that few companies have the capability and resources to both produce and deliver products to end-buyers in a …

Ethnic-Racial Socialization Experiences Of Mexican American Youth, Katherine J. Bingham, Elizabeth A. Cutrer-Párraga, Timothy B. Smith

Faculty Publications

Research has shown that ethnic–racial socialization (ERS) predicts education and mental health outcomes for adolescents. However, limited research has evaluated the ERS experiences of Latinx students. The current study examined ERS experiences of Mexican American youth in four focus group interviews that were transcribed and analyzed at both the individual and group level using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Main themes included feeling like an outsider, navigating discrimination, encountering social/emotional difficulties, and achieving a positive identity. Each theme contained two to three subcategories that provide further insight into the Mexican Americans' ERS experiences. Participants reported within-group discrimination, motivation to disprove stereotypes, and …

Effects Of Cognitive And Social Demands On Linguistic Production For People With Moderate, Mild, Or No Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Emily Mcdonald, Kyle Steele

Faculty Publications

Background

Most everyday communication occurs in situations where cognitive and social demands are present. These types of situations may compound language deficits for people with aphasia (PWA). An understanding of the language interference that may occur from cognitive and social demands is an important precursor for assessment and intervention that addresses everyday communication situations.

Aims

To determine how cognitively and socially demanding conditions affect micro- and macrolinguistic production for people with moderate, mild, or no aphasia during narrative discourse and to compare effects among groups.

Method

Thirty participants with mild (n = 9), moderate (n = 9), or no (n …

Effects Of Cognitive And Social Demands On Linguistic Production For People With Moderate, Mild, Or No Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Emily Mcdonald, Kyle Steele

Faculty Publications

Background: Most everyday communication occurs in situations where cognitive and social demands are present. These types of situations may compound language deficits for people with aphasia (PWA). An understanding of the language interference that may occur from cognitive and social demands is an important precursor for assessment and intervention that addresses everyday communication situations.

Aims: To determine how cognitively and socially demanding conditions affect micro- and macrolinguistic production for people with moderate, mild, or no aphasia during narrative discourse and to compare effects among groups.

Method: Thirty participants with mild (n = 9), moderate (n = 9), or no (n …

Assessing Virtual Reality’S Influence On Honesty In Reporting, Jeffrey Pickerd, Nathan Waddoups, David A. Wood, Xiaomei (Grazia) Xiong

Faculty Publications

Organizations, businesses, and society are exploring and adopting virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). VR is expected to boost the global economy by $1.5 trillion by 2030. In this study, we focus on the effect of VR on an important accounting variable—reporting honesty. We examine reporting honesty across two tasks, various measures, and various populations, that are commonly used in existing research. In our initial experiment, participants misreported more in a dice rolling task when performing it in a VR setting than in a non-VR setting. However, in a second and third experiment attempting to replicate and extend our …

Tribes,States, And Sovereigns' Interest In Children, Emily Stolzenberg

Faculty Publications

Haaland v. Brackeen, the unsuccessful SCOTUS challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), trumpeted a critique made consistently over the statute’s 45-year history: that ICWA harms Indian children by subordinating their interests to their tribes’ interests, unlike State family law, which pursues the “best interests of the child.” This critique is likely to underpin future challenges to ICWA—and it is wrong in both fact and theory. Not only does ICWA generally benefit Indian children. More fundamentally, a tribe’s interest in Indian children corresponds directly to an interest States regularly pursue vis-à-vis all children: the political community’s interest in self-perpetuation. …

Sound Marks, Deborah R. Gerhardt, Jon J. Lee

Faculty Publications

A lion roars just before a film rolls. A doughboy giggles. A giant green man laughs a hearty, "Ho, Ho, Ho." These iconic sounds are all federally registered as trademarks. They identify specific brands and distinguish their products and services from the competition. Human brains treat sounds like these as categorization tools and cognitive shortcuts—ideal trademark symbols. But what about the sounds your favorite toys or electronic devices make? Or those made by a fictional character in the latest blockbuster?

This Article tackles these issues and others. We push back against the widely-held belief that all unconventional trademarks—product designs, colors, …

"What Is A Wave But 1000 Drops Working Together?": The Role Of Public Libraries In Addressing Lgbtqia+ Health Information Disparities, Vanessa Lynn Kitzie, A. Nick Vera, Valerie Lookingbill, Travis L. Wagner

Faculty Publications

Purpose. This paper presents results from a participatory action research study with 46 LGBTQIA+ community leaders and 60 library workers who participated in four community forums at public libraries across the US. The forums identified barriers to LGBTQIA+ communities addressing their health questions and concerns and explored strategies for public libraries to tackle them.

Design/methodology/approach. Forums followed the World Café format to facilitate collaborative knowledge development and promote participant-led change. Data sources included collaborative notes taken by participants and observational researcher notes. Data analysis consisted of emic/etic qualitative coding.

Findings. Results revealed that barriers experienced by LGBTQIA+ communities are structurally …

Youth Identity And Postsecondary Decision Making In A Rural State: Evidence Of A College For All Master Narrative, Jayson Seaman, Cindy L. Hartman, Andrew D. Coppens, Erin H. Sharp, Sarah Jusseaume, Molly Donovan

Faculty Publications

This study examined the normative messages that inform youth postsecondary decision making in a predominantly rural state in the northeastern U.S., focusing on the institutionalization and circulation of identity master narratives. Using a multilevel, ecological approach to sampling, the study interviewed 33 key informants in positions of influence in educational, workforce, and quality of life domains. Narrative analysis yielded evidence of a predominant master narrative – College for All – that participants described as a prescriptive expectation that youth and families orient their postsecondary planning toward four-year, residential baccalaureate degree programs. Both general and domain-specific aspects of this master narrative …

Appendices For Designing Authentic Language Learning Simulations To Support Student Engagement, Cherice Montgomery, Jon Balzotti, Derek L. Hansen

Faculty Publications

Appendices for article titled "Designing Authentic Language Learning Simulations to Support Student Engagement."

Digital Archives: How Western Newspapers Frame Our Remembrance Of The Gezi Park Protest, Nihar Sreepada, Ahmet Aksoy

Faculty Publications

We analyze the coverage of the Gezi Park protests by two major Western newspapers - The New York Times and The Guardian - through the lens of media framing, rhetoric, and collective memory. We argue that these digital archives frame Turkey's Gezi Park protests as a challenge to an authoritarian government by promoting the themes of unrest as a conflict of ideologies, oppression of citizens, and the park as a site of memory. In a concluding section, we focus on the significance of digital archives as repositories of collective memory and the role of media framing in shaping these reconstructions …

Do Contributing Files Provide Information About Oss Newcomers' Onboarding Barriers?, Felipe Fronchetti, David C. Shepherd, Igor Wiese, Christoph Treude, Marco Aurélio Gerosa, Igor Steinmacher

Faculty Publications

Effectively onboarding newcomers is essential for the success of open source projects. These projects often provide onboarding guidelines in their 'CONTRIBUTING' files (e.g., CONTRIBUTING.md on GitHub). These files explain, for example, how to find open tasks, implement solutions, and submit code for review. However, these files often do not follow a standard structure, can be too large, and miss barriers commonly found by newcomers. In this paper, we propose an automated approach to parse these CONTRIBUTING files and assess how they address onboarding barriers. We manually classified a sample of files according to a model of onboarding barriers from the …

Feasibility Of An Abstract Verb Naming Treatment For Aphasia, Dallin J. Bailey, Lisa Bunker, Julie L. Wambaugh

Faculty Publications

Purpose

Verb production impairments in aphasia have important implications for sentence production and communication in general. Verbs with low concreteness may be especially important for certain functional uses, and yet limited data regarding their response to treatment are available. This study was designed to examine a novel behavioral treatment approach to improve low concreteness verb naming in persons with aphasia.

Method

Three persons with nonfluent aphasia participated in a single-subject experimental design research study examining the feasibility of the novel treatment. The treatment was based on approaches that target the verb as the central node of meaning during sentence construction. …

A New Rough Ordinal Priority-Based Decision Support System For Purchasing Electric Vehicles, Sadik Kucuksari, Dragan Pamucar, Muhammet Deveci, Nuh Erdogan, Dursun Delen

Faculty Publications

This study proposes a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model based on a rough extension of the Ordinal Priority Approach (OPA) to determine the order of importance of users' perspectives on Electric Vehicle (EV) purchases. Unlike conventional methods that rely on predefined ranks for criteria weighting coefficients, the proposed rough OPA method employs an aggregated rough linguistic matrix, enabling a more precise and unbiased calculation of interval values. Moreover, the model addresses inherent uncertainties by incorporating nonlinear aggregation functions, accommodating decision makers' risk attitudes for flexible decision-making. To validate the model's efficacy, a large-scale post-EV test drive survey is conducted, enabling …

Telling Stories In Noise: The Impact Of Background Noises On Spoken Language For People With Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Brenna Scadden Nelson, Christopher Dromey, Kirsten Dixon Clawson

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Determine how different background noise conditions affect the spoken language of participants with aphasia during a story retell task.

Method: Participants included 11 adults with mild to moderate aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants retold stories in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (conversation, monologue, phone call, cocktail, pink noise). Dependent measures of speech acoustics (fundamental frequency, mean intensity), speech fluency (speech rate, disfluent words), and language production (correct information units, lexical errors, lexical diversity, and cohesive utterances) were compared between groups and across conditions.

Results: Background noise resulted in higher fundamental frequency (F_{0 …}

Physiological Arousal, Attentiveness, Emotion, And Word Retrieval In Aphasia: Effects And Relationships, Tyson G. Harmon, Angela Johnson, Vivian Ward, Shawn Nissen

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To (a) compare physiological arousal and attentiveness during a confrontational naming task between participants with aphasia and a control group across four conditions that varied according to emotionality of presented stimuli and (b) explore relationships among physiological arousal, attentiveness, perceived arousal, and naming performance. We hypothesized that participants with aphasia would show lower levels of arousal and attentiveness than control participants and that emotional conditions would lead to increased physiological arousal and attentiveness.

Method: Eight participants with aphasia and 15 control participants completed a confrontational naming task under positive, negative, and neutral conditions and rated their perceived arousal after …

Word Choice: A Neglected But Key Skill For Ell Writers, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

With all of the urgent, critical issues confronting education in general, and literacy practices in particular, why write a column on something as obscure as word choice? Word choice (sometimes called vocabulary choice or diction) often drops to the bottom of the “To Do” list for English as a Second Language (ESL), English, bilingual, and language arts teachers. Even when teachers are able to focus on writing to begin with (writing development is often the first thing cut when lessons run over), teachers of English language learners (ELLs) are too preoccupied with teaching grammar, spelling, organization, syntax, genres, and building …

Relational Sanctification, Communal Coping, And Depression Among African American Couples, Antonius D. Skipper, Andrew H. Rose, Noel A. Card, Travis James Moore, Debra Lavender-Bratcher, Cassandra Chaney

Faculty Publications

Despite the common use of religious buffers, African Americans are disproportionately affected by depressive symptoms. Communal coping may serve as one factor in helping religious African American couples alleviate the symptoms of depression. This study examines the association between relational sanctification and depressive symptoms as mediated by the communal coping of 467 African American married and cohabiting couples. Data from the sampled couples were analyzed using a common fate model, and analyses revealed higher scores on the measure of sanctification were associated with more communal coping; more communal coping was associated with fewer depressive symptoms among women and men, and …

El Español En La Repúblida Dominicana, Orlando Alba

Faculty Publications

Este capítulo presenta un panorama general del español en la República Dominicana desde dos perspectivas: la percepción y la actuación de los hablantes. Desde la perspectiva subjetiva, se examina la inseguridad lingüística que exhibe gran parte de la población, que piensa que su español es inferior al de otros lugares. Por otra parte, se analizan los rasgos objetivos que caracterizan el dialecto. Se describen los procesos fonéticos de la variación consonántica, subrayando el avanzado estado del proceso de reducción de la /s/, la variación de las líquidas /r, l/ y de la /d/ intervocálica. En el terreno sintáctico, se discuten …

Pattern-Based Target Selection For Treatment Of Irregular Past Tense: A Single-Case Experimental Design For Children With Dld, Kirsten M. Hannig Russell, Amy Wilder, Julie L. Wambaugh

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) demonstrate difficulty inflecting irregular past tense verbs. We evaluated using phonological-based patterns (i.e., schemas) to select targets for treatment of irregular verb inflection for children with DLD. We hypothesized this approach would result in acquisition of treated verbs, generalization to untreated verbs within the same phonological schema, and increased use of correct irregular verbs in naturalistic contexts.

Method: Treatment was provided to three 7-year-old participants with DLD in the context of multiple baseline design across behaviors and participants. Phonological schemas included vowel change, final alveolar, and dual change irregular verbs. Treatment was …

A Delayed Intervention Start Randomized Controlled Trial Of High- And Low-Tech Communication Training Approaches For School-Age Autistic Children With Co-Occurring Intellectual Disability, Shawn P. Gilroy, Joseph P. Mccleery, Geraldine Leader

Faculty Publications

The researchers designed a delayed intervention start randomized controlled trial to compare improvements in functional communication following augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions. The study compared outcomes from function-based applied behavior analytic (ABA) and eclectic non-ABA forms of classroom-based communication strategies (waitlist control) as well as from high- and low-tech forms of AAC. High-tech AAC consisted of tablet-based communication, and low-tech AAC used an exchange of picture cards. The community-based sample consisted of 29 autistic children with a co-occurring intellectual disability. Participants were randomized to groups (AAC, waitlist control), and each group received approximately 3 months of communication intervention. Multilevel …

“And God Blessed The Seventh Day And Sanctified It”: The Sabbath At Creation, Dedications, And Christ’S Theophany In 3 Nephi, Dan L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

The Creation narrative, found in various places within the canon of scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, describes the institution of two different types of time. The first type of time is established in the “fourth day” with the placement of the astronomical bodies, which act as markers “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years”—that is, common time (Genesis 1:14; Moses 2:14). The second type of time is established in the “seventh day,” when the Lord rests from his labors. Situated as it was at the conclusion of the physical creation and …

Informal Practices Of Localizing Open Educational Resources In Ghana, Emily Durham Bradshaw, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

Research on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) often notes the potential benefits for users to revise, reuse, and remix OER to localize it for specific learners. However, a gap in the literature exists in terms of research that explores how this localization occurs in practice. This is a significant gap given the current flow of OER from higher-income countries in the Global North to lower-income countries in the Global South (King et al., 2018). This study explores how OER from one area of the world is localized when it is used in a different cultural context.

Findings indicated …

Development And Validation Protocol For An Instrument To Measure Household Water Insecurity Across Cultures And Ecologies: The Household Water Insecurity Experiences (Hwise) Scale, Sera L. Young, Shalean M. Collins, Godfred O. Boateng, Torsten B. Neilands, Zeina Jamaluddine, Joshua D. Miller, Alexander A. Brewis, Edward A. Frongillo Jr., Wendy E. Jepson, Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez, Roseanna C. Schuster, Justin B. Stoler, Amber Wuitch, Hwise Research Coordination Network

Faculty Publications

Introduction A wide range of water-related problems contribute to the global burden of disease. Despite the many plausible consequences for health and well-being, there is no validated tool to measure individual- or household-level water insecurity equivalently across varying cultural and ecological settings. Accordingly, we are developing the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) Scale to measure household-level water insecurity in multiple contexts.

Methods and analysis After domain specification and item development, items were assessed for both content and face validity. Retained items are being asked in surveys in 28 sites globally in which water-related problems have been reported (eg, shortages, excess …

Mathematics Library News, Aaron Lercher

Faculty Publications

Mathematics Library News is an LSU Libraries newsletter for members of the Mathematics and Experimental Statistics Departments, published roughly once each semester.

Latino Paradox Or Black Exception? Race, Ethnicity, And Crime In The 21st Century, Edward S. Shihadeh, Raymond E. Barranco

Faculty Publications

George Floyd’s murder by a Minnesota police officer sparked outrage, protests, and a re-evaluation of racial inequities in America. Within criminology, we argue, that re-evaluation should include the Latino Paradox, the idea that Latino communities are an exception—a paradox—in that, while they face economic deprivation, they also possess a magical something that makes them resistant to social problems like crime. Unfortunately, this compels the more delicate question; what is the deficiency in Black communities that makes them so vulnerable to crime? However, as we argue here, the Latino Paradox forces a false comparison. Its assumptions with respect to crime are …

Semejanzas Y Diferencias Entre El Español Canario Y El Dominicano, Orlando Alba

Faculty Publications

Esta presentación intenta destacar similitudes y discrepancias entre el español de Canarias, especialmente el de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, y el de la República Dominicana. En otras palabras, el objetivo consiste en hacer una descripción parcial de la identidad de ambos modos de hablar con el apoyo, cuando es posible, de ilustraciones orales. En la exposición se comentan, en plan divulgativo, rasgos fonéticos (principalmente la variación de la /s/), algunos hechos sintácticos, y datos del léxico disponible en varios centros de interés.