Digital Commons Network^™

'Confounding Powers: Anarchy And International Society From The Assassins To Al Qaeda' By William J. Brennar (Review), Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Italian American Masculinities, Fred L. Gardaphé

Publications and Research

The Italian American man is the result of the interaction of centuries of Italianate masculinities coming into contact with the variety of masculinities that have come to make up the American man. The results of these encounters are more varied and complex than the stereotypical art and media representations of the Latin lover, the brutish bully, and the flashy gangster that have dominated American culture since the early 1920s. Over the years, theories of masculinity have all fallen short of describing the plurality of possiblities of Italian American masculinity, and in fact provide us with nothing more than categories that …

Mapping Student Days: Collaborative Ethnography And The Student Experience, Andrew Asher, Jean Amaral, Juliann Couture, Barbara Fister, Donna Lanclos, M. Sara Lowe, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Research on students’ educational experiences demonstrates the importance of a holistic understanding of the complexity of students’ lives in developing library programs, services, and resources that effectively address undergraduate needs. The “A Day in the Life” (ADITL) Project investigated a typical day for over 200 students at eight diverse higher education institutions in the US. Examining the local and individual expressions of student taskscapes – the ensemble of interrelated social activities across time and space – placed each student’s relationship to their library in a larger description of their academic and personal lives. By exploring the whole student experience, this …

Dismantling Motivational Interviewing: Effects On Initiation Of Behavior Change Among Problem Drinkers Seeking Treatment, Jon Morgenstern, Alexis Kuerbis, Jessica Houser, Sijing Shao, James R. Mckay

Publications and Research

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an efficacious treatment for alcohol use disorders (AUD). MI is thought to enhance motivation via a combination of two therapeutic strategies or active ingredients: one relational and one directional. The primary aim of this study was to examine MI’s hypothesized active ingredients using a dismantling design. Problem drinkers (N=139) seeking treatment were randomized to one of three conditions: MI, relational MI without the directional elements labeled spirit-only MI (SOMI) or a non-therapy control (NTC) condition and followed for eight weeks. Those assigned to MI or SOMI received four sessions of treatment over eight weeks. All participants …

Faculty Visions For Teaching Web Accessibility Within Lis Curricula In The United States: A Qualitative Study, Adina Mulliken, Mireille Djenno

Publications and Research

This qualitative study explores the understanding and perspectives of faculty in US library and information science (LIS) programs about teaching web accessibility. “Web accessibility” can be defined simply as making websites accessible for all, including people with disabilities. Eight LIS professors and two graduate LIS students or recent alumni with interests in accessibility were interviewed for the study. Results showed that, although some faculty were novices, most interviewees thought it would be beneficial to teach web accessibility in a variety of LIS courses. However, despite the seeming consensus, discussion of incorporating web accessibility into curricula was rare. This study explores …

Privacy, Trust, And Data Sharing In Web-Based And Mobile Research: Participant Perspectives In A Large Nationwide Sample Of Men Who Have Sex With Men In The United States, H. Jonathon Rendina, Brian Mustanski

Publications and Research

Background: Modern research is heavily reliant on online and mobile technologies, which is particularly true among historically hard-to-reach populations such as gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Despite this, very little empirical research has been published on participant perspectives about issues such as privacy, trust, and data sharing.

Objective: The objective of our study was to analyze data from an online sample of 11,032 GBMSM in the United States to examine their trust in and perspectives on privacy and data sharing within online and mobile research.

Methods: Participants were recruited via a social networking site …

Educational Neuroscience, Educational Psychology, And Classroom Pedagogy As A System, Alexander Vaninsky

Publications and Research

This paper introduces a view of educational process as a 3-layer system comprising human brain, personality psychology, and classroom pedagogy. It aims to present a classroom as a place where educational neuroscience and educational psychology meet to result in effective pedagogy. The paper demonstrates the advantages of such approach for mathematics education. Among them are understanding of mathematical anxiety as a defensive reaction of the brain on operating memory overflow, finding gifted and talented students objectively, assertion of possible limitations on the educational goals given unfavorable conditions, restricted time of information perception, limited liability of teachers and instructors for the …

Vowels Of Beryozovka Ewen: An Acoustic Phonetic Study, Kang Hijo, Yun Jiwon, Seongyeon Ko

Publications and Research

This study acoustically analyzes 13,540 vowel tokens of Beryozovka Ewen with the aid of automated post-transcriptional processing technique. The focus of the analysis is on the acoustic correlates of [RTR], which is the harmonic feature of the language. In addition to the first three formants, acoustic values representing spectral tilt such as H1−H2, H1−A2, and B1 are measured as potential acoustic cues of [RTR]. The results show that F1, F3, and B1 are the most reliable cues of the feature and that H1− H2 and H1−A2 are nearly reliable. These acoustic cues are also shown to interact with length and …

Using The Pecha Kucha Speech To Analyze And Train Humor Skills, Don Waisanen

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Digital Surrealism: Visualizing Walt Disney Animation Studios, Kevin L. Ferguson

Publications and Research

There are a number of fruitful digital humanities approaches to cinema and media studies, but most of them only pursue traditional forms of scholarship by extracting a single variable from the audiovisual text that is already legible to scholars. As an alternative, cinema and media studies should pursue a mostly-ignored "digital surrealism" that uses computer-based methods to transform film texts in radical ways not previously possible. This article describes one such method using the z-projection function of the scientific image analysis software ImageJ to sum film frames in order to create new composite images. Working with the fifty-five feature-length films …

Metacognitive Reading And Study Strategies And Academic Achievement Of University Students With And Without A History Of Reading Difficulties, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

University students who report a history of reading difficulties have been demonstrated to have poorer word reading and reading comprehension skills than their peers; yet, without a diagnosed learning disability, these students do not have access to the same support services, potentially placing them at academic risk. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of first-year academic achievement for students with a history of reading difficulties (n = 244) compared to students with no such history (n = 603). We also examine reported use of metacognitive reading and study strategies and their relations with GPA. Results indicate that students with a …

The Role Of Metalinguistic And Socio-Cognitive Factors In Reading Skill, Hélène Deacon, Rebecca Tucker, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

We present here a review of recent research on the role of metalinguistic and socio-cognitive factors in reading skill. We first review research how morphological awareness and orthographic processing impact the acquisition of reading skill. We show that the first might account for change over time, and the second may not. We then turn to our new studies examining the interplay between these two factors in reading development. In each of these domains, we test predictions of theories of reading development. Finally, we turn to research on a very different set of variables, which we term socio-cognitive. We explore the …

Large-Scale Surveillance Of Captive Naked Mole-Rat Colonies Shows Caste Differences In Space Utilization, Michael Kress, Edward F. Meehan, Dan Mccloskey

Publications and Research

African naked mole-rats are eusocial mammals that provide unique opportunity to study complex mammalian social behavior and large-group dynamics in a controlled vivarium setting. Previous reports of captive and wild naked mole-rats have identified a division of labor among non-reproductive colony members along a size polyethism, with large animals specializing in defense behaviors, and small animals performing foraging, nest building, and caretaking functions. This study utilized radio frequency identification (RFID) and advanced computational approaches to monitor the activity patterns and place preferences of all members in two naked mole-rat colonies (N = 36 and 37 animals) for a period of …

Testing Cross-Sectional And Prospective Mediators Of Internalized Heterosexism On Heavy Drinking, Alcohol Problems, And Psychological Distress Among Heavy Drinking Men Who Have Sex With Men, Alexis Kuerbis, Ethan Mereish, Marie Hayes, Christine Davis, Sijing Shao, Jon Morgenstern

Publications and Research

Objective: Minority stress theory is often used as a causal explanation for substance use among lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations. This study tested whether drinking to cope with stress (DTC), loneliness, and gay community participation (GCP) mediated the relationship between one type of minority stress (i.e., internalized heterosexism, IH) and behavioral health outcomes. Method: Utilizing secondary data analysis and the PROCESS procedure, relationships between IH, the mediators (DTC, loneliness, and GCP), and outcomes (heavy drinking, alcohol problems, and psychological distress) were explored, both cross-sectionally and in a lagged manner, among both treatment seeking and non-treatment seeking problem drinking men who …

Verbal Behaviors During Employment Interviews Of College Students With And Without Asd, Dennis James Bublitz, Katherine Fitzgerald, Maria Alarcon, Joanne D'Onofrio, Kristen Gillespie-Lynch

Publications and Research

BACKGROUND: Even well-educated people with ASD struggle with obtaining employment, partially due to social difficulties during interviews. Although increasing numbers of individuals with ASD are entering college, little research focuses on this population. Particularly little is known about how to help college students with ASD obtain jobs.

OBJECTIVE: This study attempts to identify challenges with verbal communication during employment interviews that are specific to college students with ASD.

METHODS: We administered mock employment interviews to 16 college students with ASD and 14 college students without disabilities. Responses to interview questions were coded for content and timing.

RESULTS: Students with ASD …

Impartiality, Close Friendship And The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

This paper explores the relationship between friendship and morality. Two ideas have been influential in the history of moral philosophy: the impartial standpoint and close friendship. These two perspectives on thought and action can conflict, however, and such a case is presented.

In an attempt to resolve this tension, and understand the assumptions that give rise to it, I explore an alternative conception of moral conduct and friendship suggested by early Confucian thought. Within this account, moral conduct is that which aims at harmony, understood as the appropriate blending of different elements. This suggests a conception of friendship, ‘event friendship’, …

On The Depressive Nature Of The “Burnout Syndrome”: A Clarification, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Pierre Vandel, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Key theoretical arguments and empirical findings converge to suggest that the burnout construct captures a depressive phenomenon. The reluctance to consider burnout a depressive condition may be due to (a) a neglect of the stress–depression relationship and (b) a difficulty coordinating dimensional and categorical approaches to psychopathology in burnout research. The dimensions and categories constitute two ways of describing (psychopathological) phenomena. Thus, dimensions and categories should be heuristically combined rather than opposed: burnout and depression can be studied both as ‘‘processes’’ or ‘‘end-states’’. Clarifying what burnout actually is matters in terms of conceptual parsimony, theoretical integration, nosological consistency, interventional effectiveness, …

Physician Burnout Is Better Conceptualised As Depression, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Ronald Epstein and Michael Privitera reported that burnout affects more than half of practising physicians. The authors additionally warned against confusing burnout with depression. For two reasons we are concerned with the validity of these conclusions. First, there is now robust evidence that burnout is a depressive condition. Second, the published estimates of burnout’s prevalence rely on clinically groundless criteria, cobbled together without any rationale.

Can We Trust Burnout Research?, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Banerjee et al. recently attempted to estimate the ‘prevalence’ of burnout among European oncologists.Studies of burnout’s ‘prevalence’ are flourishing in the medical literature, with their cortege of arbitrary estimates. We think that it is high time to reconsider the way burnout is conceived and assessed, in order to avoid a trivialization of the job stress phenomenon and allow for a more rational allocation of our (limited) interventional resources. Recasting burnout as a work-related depressive condition may be a critical step in this process.

Religious Studies Encyclopedism: A Recent History, Mark E. Eaton

Publications and Research

As academic reference librarians, we need to historically situate the reference sources we use within changing scholarly disciplines. Mircea Eliade’s Encyclopedia of Religion, for example, is an important text in religious studies, but it is not a neutral text. Rather, it clearly reflects certain intellectual commitments and discursive strategies that need to be situated within histories of scholarship. Failure on the part of librarians to contextualize the perspectives of a reference source is problematic, as it leaves the assumptions of the text unchallenged. More constructively, librarians need to problematize the agendas of reference sources, and make salient their discursive …

Learning Styles Of Students Enrolled In Fashion Classes: Academic Level, Geographic Region, And Major, Harrison Qiu, Diana Saiki, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Training Pharmacists In The Stage-Of-Change Model Of Smoking Cessation And Motivational Interviewing: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Pasquale Caponnetto, Jennifer Dipiazza, Maria Rosaria Aiello, Riccardo Polosa

Publications and Research

This study evaluated the effect of training pharmacists in the stage-of-change model for smoking cessation and motivational interviewing on smoking cessation outcomes. A training based on the stage-of-change model for smoking cessation and motivational interviewing was introduced to pharmacists. Pharmacists were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. The control group attended a 3-hour training session, whereas the intervention group also attended a further 6-hour training session. At week 24, 12.2 percent of the smokers quit smoking in the intervention group, whereas 1.6 percent of the smokers quit smoking in the control group. The findings of this study showed …

Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide To Lecturing, Presenting, And Engaging Students, Norman Eng

Publications and Research

Your students aren’t reading. They aren’t engaged in class. Getting them to talk is like pulling teeth. Whatever the situation, your reality is not meeting your expectations. Change is needed. But who’s got the time? Or maybe you’re just starting out, and you want to get it right the first time.

If so, Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide to Lecturing, Presenting, and Engaging Students is the blueprint. Written for early career instructors, this easy-to-implement guide teaches you to:

• Think like advertisers to understand your target audience—your students
• Adopt the active learning approach of the best K-12 teachers
• Write a syllabus …

T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars Of Wisdom And The Erotics Of Literary History: Straddling Epic., Václav Paris

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Consequences Of Job Stress For The Psychological Well-Being Of Teachers, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi, Peter Luehring-Jones

Publications and Research

This chapter examines research on the relationship between job stressors and mental health (depressive symptoms, burnout, and mental disorders such as depression) in teachers. Teachers are exposed daily to job stressors (e.g., student disruptiveness) that have been linked to adverse mental health effects. Epidemiologic research indicates that when compared to members of other groups, teachers experience higher rates of mental disorder, although some studies question that conclusion. Large-scale studies indicate when compared to members of other occupational groups, teachers are at higher risk for exposure to workplace violence, with its adverse mental health consequences. Longitudinal research has linked teaching-related stressors …

Dynamical Systems Modeling To Identify A Cohort Of Problem Drinkers With Similar Mechanisms Of Behavior Change, Kidist Maxwell, Rebecca Everett, Sijing Shao, Alexis Kuerbis, Lyric Stephenson, H. T. Banks, Jon Morgenstern

Publications and Research

One challenge to understanding mechanisms of behavior change (MOBC) completely among individuals with alcohol use disorder is that processes of change are theorized to be complex, dynamic (time varying), and at times non-linear, and they interact with each other to influence alcohol consumption. We used dynamical systems modeling to better understand MOBC within a cohort of problem drinkers undergoing treatment. We fit a mathematical model to ecological momentary assessment data from individual patients who successfully reduced their drinking by the end of the treatment. The model solutions agreed with the trend of the data reasonably well, suggesting the cohort patients …

Online, Blended And Technology-Enhanced Learning: Tools To Facilitate Community College Student Success In The Digitally-Driven Workplace, Dawn Levy

Publications and Research

Community colleges have embraced distance education as a means to provide increased flexibility and access to their large numbers of non-traditional students. Retention rates and student achievement measures alone may not reflect all of the benefits and opportunities that online learning, blended or hybrid learning, and technology enhanced learning may afford these students. Online learning resources should be viewed as a tremendous value added benefit for community college students, not only for the content conveyed, but also for fostering the digital readiness, cultivating the professional personas, and encouraging the self-directed learning needed to succeed in the digitally-driven workplace.

Women In The Public Sector: Getting Creative With Networking And Mentoring, Nicole Elias, Maria J. D'Agostino

Publications and Research

In academia, we often think of networking and mentoring activity as a means to an end. Networking and mentoring can be exciting and considered beneficial in helping to produce opportunities for new research projects, collaborative events, and personal/professional development. Alternatively, these practices could be seen as unavoidable for the tenure file or "necessary evils" to satisfy service requirements or some other obligation. Regardless of your view or the external demands placed on your networking and mentoring activity, we find that networking and mentoring can be positive and rewarding if you are able to be a bit creative and devote some …

The Crime Kaleidoscope: A Cross-Jurisdictional Analysis Of Place Features And Crime In Three Urban Environments, Jeremy D. Barnum, Joel M. Caplan, Leslie W. Kennedy, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

Research identifies various place features (e.g., bars, schools, public transportation stops) that generate or attract crime. What is less clear is how the spatial influence of these place features compares across relatively similar environments, even for the same crime. In this study, risk terrain modeling (RTM), a geospatial crime forecasting and diagnostic tool, is utilized to identify place features that increase the risk of robbery and their particular spatial influence in Chicago, Illinois; Newark, New Jersey; and Kansas City, Missouri. The results show that the risk factors for robbery are similar between environments, but not necessarily identical. Further, some factors …

Crime In Context: Utilizing Risk Terrain Modeling And Conjunctive Analysis Of Case Configurations To Explore The Dynamics Of Criminogenic Behavior Settings., Joel M. Caplan, Leslie W. Kennedy, Jeremy D. Barnum, Eric L. Piza

Publications and Research

Risk terrain modeling (RTM) is a geospatial crime analysis tool designed to diagnose environmental risk factors for crime and identify the places where their spatial influence is collocated to produce vulnerability for illegal behavior. However, the collocation of certain risk factors’ spatial influences may result in more crimes than the collocation of a different set of risk factors’ spatial influences. Absent from existing RTM outputs and methods is a straightforward method to compare these relative interactions and their effects on crime. However, as a multivariate method for the analysis of discrete categorical data, conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC) can …