Digital Commons Network^™

A Social Network Study To Improve Collaborative Partnerships Among The Southeastern Health Equity Council (Shec), Candace Forbes Bright, Hannah Scott, Braden Bagley, Jonathan Dennis

Faculty Publications

This report presents research conducted on the relationships among and attributes of members of the Southeastern Health Equity Council (SHEC, herein Council) to provide recommendations for partnerships, collaboration, and the recruitment of new members. The background, methods, results, and recommendations are outlined in detail throughout this report. Social networks are measured and defined as connections among people, organization, and/or other units. SNA is a valuable and innovative tool for recognizing strengths and weaknesses in collaborative partnerships. The evaluative study presented herein can be replicated in other councils within the Regional Health Equity Councils to improve collaborations not only among SHEC …

A Fishnet-Constrained Land Use Mix Index Derived From Remotely Sensed Data, Yanqing Xu, Lei Wang, Cong Fu, Tim Kosmyna

Faculty Publications

Research works related to public health, transportation and urban planning have called for indices of land use mix (LUM) to support their spatial models. We propose a fishnet-based LUM calculation algorithm that works with the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) land cover data, a high-level product of Landsat satellite images. Comparing to the traditional LUM calculation, the fishnet structure can work at various spatial scales if aggregating to the administrative boundaries. Test results from regression models showed that our method was able to solve the scale problem identified as modifiable area unit problem that caused an unexpected positive correlation of …

#Nodapl: Social Media, Empowerment, And Civic Participation At Standing Rock, Hayley Johnson

Faculty Publications

The struggle for environmental and social justice within American Indian communities is one that has been ongoing since the beginning of United States history, but the main catalyst to effect change and to promote and disperse the American Indian narrative has emerged through the power of social media in today's hyperconnected society. This article examines the power of social media to effect change, as well as a hyperconnected society's ability to empower historically disadvantaged groups that have often been misrepresented within traditional media outlets. The historic movement occurring at Standing Rock, North Dakota, and the #NoDAPL protests illustrates the capacity …

Reflections: Our Research On Political Science Journal Rankings And Why We Chose To Publish In Ps, Micheal Giles, James Garand

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Marriage, Work, And Racial Inequalities In Poverty: Evidence From The United States, Brian C. Thiede, Hyojung Kim, Tim Slack

Faculty Publications

This article explores recent racial and ethnic inequalities in poverty, estimating the share of racial poverty differentials that can be explained by variation in family structure and workforce participation. The authors use logistic regression to estimate the association between poverty and race, family structure, and workforce participation. They then decompose between-race differences in poverty risk to quantify how racial disparities in marriage and work explain observed inequalities in the log odds of poverty. They estimate that 47.7% to 48.9% of Black–White differences in poverty risk can be explained by between-group variance in these two factors, while only 4.3% to 4.5% …

Union Status, Educational Attainment, And Body Mass Index Among Emerging Adults, Rhiannon A. Kroeger

Faculty Publications

This study uses fixed-effects regression modeling and three waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine whether union status and educational attainment interact to influence change in body mass index (BMI) during emerging adulthood. The results support the hypothesis that the effect of union status on change in BMI is smaller for those with more educational attainment. In particular, emerging adults with no college education experience significant increases in BMI associated with both marriage and cohabitation. The increases in BMI associated with marriage and cohabitation are significantly smaller for those with …

Physicians' Moral Dispositions, Role Perceptions, And Patient Interactions: Exploratory Findings From Physicians In The Midwestern United States, Aaron B. Franzen

Faculty Publications

We know that patients and their well-being is important to physicians, but what this means in terms of their practice is not always as clear. One potentially fruitful approach to understanding this variation is to look to physicians' value dispositions and moral foundations. Prior work within the general population has highlighted the place and importance of religion/spirituality, but very little is known about physicians and how moral foundations matter for medicine more broadly. The purpose of this research note is to explore these issues with a sample of physicians in Michigan. We find that individual characteristics are related to physicians' …

Dangerous Crossings: Voices From The African Migration To Italy/Europe, Robert M. Press

Faculty Publications

Africans continue to migrate across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea, where tens of thousands have drowned. In Libya, many suffer enslavement and other harsh treatment as they flee persecution or poverty, or both. Yet there have been few studies of their journey. This study, based primarily on some sixty interviews by the author in 2014–2016 with African migrants in Italy and France, provides a portrait of resilience, courage, and strategic decisions that differs sharply from media images of helplessness. It suggests reconsidering migrant networks and typologies in view of the breakdown and attempted repair of networks on these journeys, …

Kennan And The Neglected Variable In Post-Socialist Societies: The Loss Of Honest Dialogue And The Need For Empathy, Joan Davison

Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes the symbolism of George Kennan’s famous “X” article relative to the challenges of contemporary post transitions. It unpacks recent political discourse, discussing the critical application of practices such as thinking with your heart, parrhesis of the significance of uncertainty and reflection for question is: What would Kennan write in an X Article to states in transition paper employs both the definition suggested by Michel Foucault who understood it as “fearless speech” and Eric Voegelin who closely follows Plato’s meaning linking it with “heart” (dis)order of representatives of a society.

Child Sexual Abuse And Depression In Late Life For Men: A Population-Based, Longitudinal Analysis, Scott D. Easton, Jooyoung Kong, Matt C. Gregas, Ce Shen, Kevin Shafer

Faculty Publications

Objective: Research investigating long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on mental health for men is vastly underdeveloped. This study strengthened the knowledge base by examining: (a) long-term trajectories of depressive symptoms for men with and without a history of CSA, and (b) moderating effects of social support over time.

Method: We analyzed multiple waves of data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. The sample (N = 2,451) consisted of men with histories of CSA and a stratified, randomly sampled comparison group. Growth curve modeling was employed for analyses.

Results: After controlling for demographic, parental, and health factors, men with …

Measuring Social Interaction During Study Abroad: Quantitative Methods And Challenges, Dan Dewey, Dan Dewey

Faculty Publications

This paper examines ways of measuring (assigning numbers to) social interaction and language use during study abroad. It reviews the development of instruments for such measurement and describes some of the connections that have been made between quantitative measures of social second language use and language development while abroad. Measures addressed include the Language Contact Profile, language logs, the Social Network Questionnaire, the Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire, online social media, photo elicitation, mobile phone surveys, and other computational methodologies. The paper encourages mixed methods for clearer and more elaborate understanding and more detailed documentation of tools and procedures for …

Socioemotional Selectivity And Mental Health Among Trauma Survivors In Old Age, Derek M. Isaacowitz, Timothy B. Smith, Laura L. Carstensen

Faculty Publications

Empirical tests of socioemotional selectivity theory support the contention that the developmental trend in adulthood to focus increasingly on fewer, but emotionally significant, social partners is associated positively with psychological well-being. Tenets of the theory, however, also suggest conditions in which selectivity could instead lead to an increase in negative emotional experiences. In particular, if the socioemotional world of the individual includes emotional distress, selective focus on emotions and close relationships may detract from rather than enhance well-being. In the current study, we examined selectivity and associated well-being in Holocaust survivors, Japanese-American internment camp survivors, and comparably-aged people who lived …

Religion And Esotericism Among Students: A Crosscultural Comparative Study, Franz Höllinger, Timothy B. Smith

Faculty Publications

Analyzing the results of a study on religious and esoteric beliefs and practice among university students from five European and five American countries, we found that the level of religiousness of students depends very much on their cultural environment: the level of religiosity and esoteric beliefs is significantly higher among North- and South-American students than among European students. On the other hand, Asian spiritual techniques and esoteric methods of healing are practiced more frequently by students in North-Western European countries. In the second part of the paper, we examine the relationship between academic discipline and religious worldviews. According to our …

Explaining Software As A Service Outsourcing: Economic And Social Considerations, Yurong Yao, Arnold A. Kamis, Edward Watson

Faculty Publications

Software as a service (SaaS) offers an innovative way to deliver software over the Internet to distributed organizations. While more and more SaaS providers are joining the market and competition among providers becomes more intense, we need to understand the considerations of potential clients. Built on transaction cost theory and social exchange theory, this study empirically investigates, with a national survey of IT/IS executives, the role of economic factors and the impact of social relationships on the economic factors in firms’ deciding to adopt SaaS. We found that cost savings are a critical consideration in SaaS and that social relationships …

How Should Faculty Public Engagement Count?, Paul A. Djupe

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Preparing Mental Health First Responders: College Counselors Supporting Residence Life Professionals, Matthew Paylo, Jake Protivnak, Kyoung Choi, Matthew Walker

Faculty Publications

Mental health issues are on the rise on college campuses (Gallagher & American College Counseling Association, [ACCA], 2014).  Residence life professionals are often first responders to these issues.  College counselors are in a unique position to support these professionals by (a) preparing the residence environment, (b) planning and providing programming on mental health issues, (c) using basic crisis skills, and (d) making referrals. This paper will provide college counselors with the rationale, benefits, and processes for supporting residence life professionals to be mental health first responders

Low-Income Childless Young Adults' Marriage And Fertility Frameworks, Heather M. Rackin, Christina M. Gibson-Davis

Faculty Publications

The authors investigated how low-income young adults without children understand marriage and fertility. Data come from the Becoming Partners and Parents Study (N = 69), a qualitative study of African American adults aged 18 to 22 in a mid-size southern city. This is the first study to analyze young, low-income, childless, and unmarried Black respondents' frameworks (i.e., internal understandings of the world) of marriage and fertility. In contrast to research conducted on parents, this research on childless adults indicated a narrative in which there were close connections between marriage and fertility and an economic bar adhered to both marriage and …

Patient Or Physician Centered Care?: Structural Implications For Clinical Interactions And The Overlooked Patient, Aaron B. Franzen

Faculty Publications

Patient-centered care is widely supported by physicians, but this wide-spread support potentially obscures the social patterning of clinical interactions. We know that patients often want religious/spiritual conversations in the context of medical care but the provision is infrequent. As there is regional variance in religiosity, a gap in the literature exists regarding whether patient populations’ religiosity is connected to physicians’ self-reported religious/spiritual interactions. Using a national sample of U.S. physicians linked to county-level measures, the author test whether both physicians’ background and patient population characteristics are related to religious/spiritual interactions. Specifically, do physicians in more religious locations report more frequent …

[Review Of] Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity, Anne Fountain

Faculty Publications

[Review of] Cuba - Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity. By Tanya L. Saunders . Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. 390. $90.00 cloth; $29.95 paper.

Socio-Structural Intergroup Characteristics As Predictors Of Intention To Join University Alumni Association, Gideon Mazambani, Stephen Reysen, Shonda Gibson, Lavelle Hendricks

Faculty Publications

We examined the association between socio-structural intergroup characteristics (i.e., permeability of group boundaries, legitimacy of status difference between ingroup and outgroups, stability of status difference) and students’ intention to join the university alumni association. Prior theory and research suggests that group members assess the intergroup context to direct identity management strategies (e.g., leave group, collective action). College students in their last semester at a university were asked to rate the perceived socio-structural characteristics of the ingroup (compared to other universities) and their intention to join the alumni association. The results showed that perceiving one’s ingroup as legitimately high status and …

The Affirmative Action Policy: A Tale Of Two Nations And The Implementation Conundrum, Kwame B. Antwi-Boasiako

Faculty Publications

The enforcement of affirmative action programs such as quotas has not only generated endless debate in many countries but has also encountered resistance from those, usually conservatives, who question the fairness of such a program or policy. Brazil and the United States of America are two of the destinations for enslaved people of African descent who were, on their arrival to their new countries, treated as second-class citizens and had to endure institutional, political, and legalized structural racism and discrimination in high education. This paper provides some of the definitions of affirmative action found in the literature and discusses the …

We’Ll Never Be Royals, But That Doesn’T Matter, Art Carden, Sarah Estelle, Anne Bradley

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sanctions And Efficacy In Analytic Jurisprudence, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

Legal theory has long grappled with the question of what features a rule system must have for it to be considered 'law." Over time, a consensus has emerged that might seem counterintuitive to most people: a legal system does not require punishment for the disobedience of its rules (sanctions"), nor must it be obeyed by the people it purports to apply to (it need not have "efficacy'). In this Article, I do not challenge these conclusions, but instead stake out an attempt to reconcile these claims with other intuitions about law. I argue that while neither sanctions nor efficacy are …

Searching For The Center Of Adventist Theology: What Can Sanctuary, Ritual, And Theology Add To This Search?, Gerald A. Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Interpersonal Conflict Among Caribbean Couples In Jamaica, Guyana And The United States, Krim K. Lacey, Letroy O. Cummings, Karen Powell Sears, Niki Matusko, Rohan D. Jeremiah, James S. Jackson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Subjective Reactions To International Research Participation: An Illustration Of Ethical Considerations With Women Heading Households In Sri Lanka, Jessica E. Lambert, Alyssa Banford Witting, Lakmal Ponnamperuma, Thulitha Wickrama

Faculty Publications

There are unique ethical considerations in conducting international research with war and disaster-affected populations that are important for ensuring adequate protection of participants. Of particular importance is the distress that participants may experience as a result of being asked about traumatic stressors, psychological symptoms, and life problems. In this study, trauma-affected Tamil women in Eastern Sri Lanka were asked to report on their research-participation experience after taking part in a larger study on risk and resiliency. Results indicated that most participants experienced emotional upset as a result of taking part in the study. However, the degree of distress was generally …

Using The Anti-Racism Digital Library And Thesaurus To Understand Information Access, Authority, Value And Privilege, Anita Coleman

Faculty Publications

The new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, specifically the six threshold concepts about information mirror the experiences of the author as a researcher studying the representation of anti-racism in bibliographic information systems. Anti-racism, in general, is a great concept to use when teaching information literacy and the paper discusses how antiracism information literacy can be taught and learned as part of theological and religious studies education. Since the conference is in Atlanta, the article begins with two stories about the scholar Dubois who lived there and that illustrate some of the IL concepts discussed.  

Toxoplasma Gondii Moderates The Association Between Multiple Folate-Cycle Factors And Cognitive Function In U.S. Adults, Bruce L. Brown, Andrew N. Berrett, Shawn D. Gale, Lance D. Erickson, Dawson W. Hedges

Faculty Publications

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a microscopic, apicomplexan parasite that can infect muscle or neural tissue, including the brain, in humans. While T. gondii infection has been associated with changes in mood, behavior, and cognition, the mechanism remains unclear. Recent evidence suggests that T. gondii may harvest folate from host neural cells. Reduced folate availability is associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and cognitive decline. We hypothesized that impairment in cognitive functioning in subjects seropositive for T. gondii might be associated with a reduction of folate availability in neural cells. We analyzed data from the third …

The New Handshake: Where We Are Now, Amy J. Schmitz, Colin Rule

Faculty Publications

The internet has empowered consumers in new and exciting ways. It has opened more efficient avenues for consumers to buy just about anything. Want proof? Just pull out your smartphone, swipe your finger across the screen a few times, and presto – your collector’s edition Notorious RBG bobblehead is on its way from China. Unfortunately, however, the internet has not yet delivered on its promise to improve consumer protection.

The Characteristics Of Interpersonal Networks In Disaster Response*, Christopher Kenny, Christopher Weber, Kathleen Bratton

Faculty Publications

It is well established that discussion networks have meaningful consequences for a variety of sociopolitical attitudes and behavior. In this project, we explore how social structure shapes reactions to disaster; in particular, the 2010 BP oil spill. We address the questions of how networks are relied upon following community-wide disaster, and to what extent these networks mirror social structures in other domains. To examine these questions, we analyze data that experimentally vary the commonly employed discussion “name-generator” questions to see if oil spill discussants are fundamentally different from important matters discussants. Relative to “important matters” discussants, we find strong support …