Digital Commons Network^™

The Labour Of Austerity: Absurdity, Performative Resistance, And Cultural Transformation, Nora Almeida

Publications and Research

This essay explores the social-psychic toll of prolonged austerity on academic librarians and the range of strategies that have (or could) serve as tools of resistance. Using a combination of theoretical analysis and autoethnography, I examine the emotional impact of bottomless and invisible labour imposed by austerity and the ways institutions use emotional coercion to promote self-surveillance, meta-work, and hyper-productivity. Following this analysis, I discuss the ways that oppressive institutional cultures silence dissent and absorb common resistance tactics advocated by educators. Finally, I introduce several examples of performance-based resistance projects and explore how creative, personal, and absurd forms of protest …

Elucidation Of Putative Binding Partners For The Protein Encoded By Orf149 Of Cyprinid Herpesvirus 3 In Goldfish (Carassius Auratus), Simon Menanteau–Ledouble, Michael Gotesman, Ebrahim Razzazi‐Fazeli, Sven M. Bergmann, Mansour El‐Matbouli

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Teaching A Broad Discipline: The Critical Role Of Text Based Learning To Building Disciplinary Literacy In Architectural Education, Jason Montgomery

Publications and Research

Architecture is a demanding discipline with multiple, complex concerns and identities shaping the profession. The discipline requires analysis of complex and multifaceted issues and synthesizing broad knowledge through a focused creative process. While twenty-first-century education may leverage many sources to educate students of architecture, texts remain the primary repository par excellence of the rich and diverse body of knowledge and ideas that continue to inspire and ground architects, theorists, historians, planners, and policy makers tied to the discipline. Perusing and engaging with the diverse body of architectural literature is a strong approach to support one’s learning to think, speak, and …

A New Frontier Facing Attorneys And Paralegals: The Promise & Challenges Of Artificial Intelligence As Applied To Law & Legal Decision-Making, Marissa Moran

Publications and Research

Artificial Intelligence/AI invisibly navigates and informs our lives today and may also be used to determine a client’s legal fate. Through executive order, statements by a U.S. Supreme Court justice and a Congressional Commission on AI, all three branches of the United States government have addressed the use of AI to resolve societal and legal matters. Pursuant to the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct[i] and New York Rules of Professional Conduct (NYRPC), [ii] the legal profession recognizes the need for competency in technology which requires both substantive knowledge of law and competent use of technology for …

The Incoherence Of Moral Relativism, Carlo Alvaro

Publications and Research

This paper is a response to Park Seungbae’s article, “Defence of Cultural Relativism”. Some of the typical criticisms of moral relativism are the following: moral relativism is erroneously committed to the principle of tolerance, which is a universal principle; there are a number of objective moral rules; a moral relativist must admit that Hitler was right, which is absurd; a moral relativist must deny, in the face of evidence, that moral progress is possible; and, since every individual belongs to multiple cultures at once, the concept of moral relativism is vague. Park argues that such contentions do not affect moral …

Protecting Public Health, Susan H. Davide, Christine Macarelli, Anty Lam

Publications and Research

In light of declining vaccination rates, oral health professionals need to be knowledgeable about current vaccine recommendations so they can best advise their patients and support public health.

Mabou Mines’ Dead End Kids And Performing Artists For Nuclear Disarmament, Hillary Miller

Publications and Research

Performance studies scholar and theater historian Hillary Miller offers a new study of the 1980 production of Dead End Kids: A History of Nuclear Power by the New York-based avant-garde theater collective, Mabou Mines. Through a close reading of the play, Miller explores the relationship between this production and the little researched organization, Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament (PAND), revealing the correlations between collaboratively-generated theater practices and concurrent protest movements.

Just A Bit Of Physics Can Tell So Much: A Unique Story Of The Start Of The Earth-Moon System, Fred J. Cadieu

Publications and Research

The start of the Earth-Moon system has been studied to show that this was an exceptionally violent event. One result was that Earth became the terrestrial planet with the highest average density. Another result was that Earth acquired enough mass and radioactive elements that it is expected to maintain a molten core region and magnetic field for the expected life of the Earth. Earth alone of the terrestrial planets was then able to develop plate tectonics as a long term energy release mechanism. The dipole magnetic field of the Sun reverses periodically, currently at the rate of about every 11 …

Is Lying Contagious? Spatial Diffusion Of High-Yield “Satellites” During China’S Great Leap Forward, Hongwei Xu, Geng Tian

Publications and Research

Situated in China’s Great Leap Forward (GLF) campaign in 1958, this study examines the spatial diffusion of “launching high-yield satellites”— exaggerating grain yields, which contributed to the 1959–61 GLF famine that claimed millions of human lives. The authors conceptualize exaggerating grain yields as a political innovation adopted by local cadres to endorse the GLF and signal political loyalty to their superiors. Using geocoded county-level event history data from historical newspaper archives, the authors found that the diffusion of exaggerating grain yields across the country was primarily driven by the interaction between geographic proximity and political proximity.

Learning Strategies And Metacognition In Adults With Dyslexia, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

In this chapter, we review the literature on learning and study strategies of university students with reading disabilities. Increasing numbers of students with reading disabilities attend post-secondary education, and while there, many experience academic challenges related to their remaining reading problems. We propose that learning and study strategies are important compensatory mechanisms for these students, but conclude not much is currently known about the learning and study strategies that students with reading disabilities employ in post-secondary education. As a way forward, we identify measurement and sampling issues in existing studies as potentially responsible for the varied results and discuss the …

Mode Discrimination In Dissipatively Coupled Laser Arrays, Jiajie Ding, Mohammad-Ali Miri

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Association Of Genetic Risks With Autism Spectrum Disorder And Early Neurodevelopmental Delays Among Children Without Intellectual Disability, Nagahide Takahashi, Taeko Harada, Tomoko Nishimura, Akemi Okamura, Damee Choi, Toshiki Iwabuchi, Hitoshi Kuwabara, Shu Takagai, Yoko Nomura, Nori Takei, Kenji J. Tsuchiya

Publications and Research

IMPORTANCE Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is highly heritable, and modest contributions of common genetic variants to ASD have been reported. However, the association of genetic risks derived from common risk variants with ASD traits in children from the general population is not clear, and the association of these genetic risks with neurodevelopment in infants has not been well understood.

OBJECTIVE To test whether a polygenic risk score (PRS) for ASD is associated with neurodevelopmental progress at age 18 months and ASD traits at age 6 years among children from the general population.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In this cohort study, …

A Review Of Small Molecule Inhibitors And Functional Probes Of Human Cathepsin L, Dibyendu Dana, Sanjai Kumar

Publications and Research

Human cathepsin L belongs to the cathepsin family of proteolytic enzymes with primarily an endopeptidase activity. Although its primary functions were originally thought to be only of a housekeeping enzyme that degraded intracellular and endocytosed proteins in lysosome, numerous recent studies suggest that it plays many critical and specific roles in diverse cellular settings. Not surprisingly, the dysregulated function of cathepsin L has manifested itself in several human diseases, making it an attractive target for drug development. Unfortunately, several redundant and isoform-specific functions have recently emerged, adding complexities to the drug discovery process. To address this, a series of chemical …

Sperm Storage Reduces The Strength Of The Mate-Finding Allee Effect, María V. Jiménez-Franco, Andrés Giménez, Roberto C. Rodríguez-Caro, Ana Sanz-Aguilar, Francisco Botella, Jose D. Anadon, Thorsten Wiegand, Eva Graciá

Publications and Research

Mate searching is a key component of sexual reproduction that can have important implications for population viability, especially for the mate-finding Allee effect. Interannual sperm storage by females may be an adaptation that potentially attenuates mate limitation, but the demographic consequences of this functional trait have not been studied. Our goal is to assess the effect of female sperm storage durability on the strength of the mate-finding Allee effect and the viability of populations subject to low population density and habitat alteration. We used an individual-based simulation model that incorporates realistic representations of the demographic and spatial processes of our …

Prevalence Of Left-Handedness In China 2011: Small-Area Estimates, Hongwei Xu

Publications and Research

Nationally representative survey data and small-area estimation techniques are used to assess the geographic prevalence of left-handedness in China 2011. Measures of individuals’ handedness are their self-reported dominant hand and their hand grip strength, which yield four estimates of left-handed prevalence, and these statistics are recorded at the provincial level. These estimates concord with one another. There are several geographic clusters of high-prevalence rates of left-handers located in ethnic minority-designated autonomous areas or historically revolutionary base areas, which may reflect a deep-rooted sense of defiance to authorities and promote such cultural values as individual autonomy and equality among local people.

Using Motivation Design Principles To Teach Screencasting In Online Teacher Education Courses, John Ranelucci, Bradley W. Bergey

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

“Does It Have To Be A Real Story?” A Social Semiotic Assessment Of An Emergent Writer, Ted Kesler

Publications and Research

Standardized writing assessments based in linear progressions position teachers for deficit views of young children’s emergent writing development. Consequently, the researcher videorecorded a writing assessment of his son, Daniel, at age 5 years, 4 months, as he composed a story across pages of a blank book, using an assortment of writing tools. Data sources included the transcription of the writing session and Daniel’s final product. The researcher first used open coding then coding based in systemic functional linguistics. Based in ecological and social semiotic perspectives, the researcher shows how Daniel’s writing development was expressed interpersonally, with the emerging text functioning …

Self-Acceptance Of Adolescent Latino Students With Disabilities, Diane Rodriguez, Kenneth J. Luterbach, Sara B. Woolf, Sabino Peralto Rivera

Publications and Research

This study examines the relationship of 165 adolescent students who self-identity as Latino and have been identified as having a disability. The participants completed the Perceived Stigma in People with Disabilities (PSPID) and Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanics (SASH) questionnaires to examine factors that may affect the academic engagement of adolescent Latino students with disabilities. The researchers investigated self-acceptance as a factor that may positively predict the academic engagement of adolescent Latino students with disabilities.

Learning And Motivation For Rewards In Schizophrenia: Implications For Behavioral Rehabilitation, Victoria Martin, Alexandra Brereton, Jicheng Tang

Publications and Research

Purpose of review: Impaired reward processing and amotivation are well documented in schizophrenia. We aim to review the current state of neuroimaging and behavioral research addressing components of motivational deficits in this complex and impairing syndrome. Evidence will be integrated to inform the ongoing development of effective strategies for behavioral rehabilitation. Recent findings: While striatal dopamine and aberrant reward prediction errors have been connected to amotivation in schizophrenia, they are not sufficiently full explanations of reward processing impairments. Frontal dysfunction and associated cognitive control deficits also have evidenced involvement in atypical reward prediction, learning, and valuation. Ongoing work supports the …

Book Review: Hatians, The People That Will Not Go Away, François Pierre-Louis Jr.

Publications and Research

Reviews three books:

• Matthew J. Smith. Liberty, Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica after Emancipation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.

• Toni Pressley-Sanon. Istwa across the Water: Haitian History, Memory, and the Cultural Imagination. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017.

• Victor Figueroa. Prophetic Visions of the Past: Pan-Caribbean Representations of the Haitian Revolution. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015.

Pandemics And Methodological Developments In Epidemiology History, Alfredo Morabia

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Keynesian Uncertainty: The Great Divide Between Joan Robinson And Paul Samuelson In Their Correspondence And Public Exchanges, Harvey Gram, G. C. Harcourt

Publications and Research

Joan Robinson and Paul Samuelson found little to agree upon in a correspondence which began in 1946, shortly after the death of Keynes, and ended a year prior to Robinson’s death in 1983. One way to read the correspondence is to keep in mind that Keynesian uncertainty was central to Robinson’s understanding of how capitalist economies function. Samuelson, never impressed by Keynes’s handling of uncertainty, understood capital theory—if not capitalism—in terms of dynamic programming, with its perfect foresight entailments. This is evident throughout his letters to Robinson, although rarely acknowledged in a straightforward way, particularly during the period from 1971 …

Validating And Developing The User Engagement Scale In Web-Based Visual Information Searching, Qiong Xu

Publications and Research

Guided by the theoretical frameworks of interactive information searching and user engagement (UE), this study proposed sense discovery (SD) as a UE attribute and suggested a refined four-factor user engagement scale (UES) model for the measurement of users’ psychological involvement in web-based visual information searching. Using a mixed-methods approach based on a survey, this study confirmed the inter-item reliability of the original six-factor UES in three visual contexts—a general visual context, image searching on Google (ISG), and video searching on YouTube (VSY). Principal component analyses (PCA) partially confirmed the internal consistency of the original six UE subscales and suggested conceptual …

Emotional Intelligence And Knowledge Management: A Necessary Link?, Isabel Rechberg

Publications and Research

This theoretical paper studies the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) on individuals' participation in knowledge management (KM) practices. Individuals are the sources of knowledge, and EI may advance individuals' self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship-management skills, which in turn positively impacts their knowledge processing behavior. The argument is made that knowledge creation is enabled through individuals' ability to recognize and correctly interpret emotional and environmental clues. Knowledge sharing is facilitated through individuals' interpersonal, communication, and team-working skills, enabled through self-awareness and social awareness. Knowledge is retained in organizations where EI enacts individuals' corporate citizenship behavior, adaptability, and job satisfaction. Where …

Improving Law Enforcement’S Victim-Centric Responses To Sexual Assault: Global Best Practice Catalog, Ayesha Ashraf, Sebastián Galleguillos Agurto, Frederick Geyer, Kamela Gjoka, Jasmine Hwang, Stanley Montinat, Jessica Moor, Pierre Reyes, Tara Ventimiglia, Hongda Xu

Publications and Research

This catalog was compiled as part of a U.S. State Department Diplomacy Lab Project entitled “Improving Law Enforcement’s Victim-Centric Responses to Sexual Assault,” in fall semester of 2019, for American Citizens Services, US Embassy Bangkok. It is intended to cover best practices in law enforcement response to sexual assault across the globe, including laws, policies and programs.Ten multilingual graduate students in the capstone seminar of the Master of Arts Degree Program in International Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) established criteria for inclusion and standardized elements for each entry in this catalog. The ultimate aim …

Say You Want A Renovation: Using Instagram To Document A Library Renovation At Lehman College, John P. Delooper, Michelle Ehrenpreis

Publications and Research

This paper discusses how the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College is documenting its renovation via the social media platform Instagram. It discusses the origin of project, why we chose Instagram and how we chose to highlight that social media platform on our Library’s web page. We explain what choices we have made and what strategies we chose to effectively document the renovation. We also discuss the challenges we have encountered, and how we overcame those challenges to reach student audiences in new and engaging ways.

Community-Based Responses To Negative Health Impacts Of Sexual Humanitarian Anti-Trafficking Policies And The Criminalization Of Sex Work And Migration In The Us, Heidi Hoefinger, Jennifer Musto, P.G. Macioti, Anne E. Fehrenbacher, Nicola Mai, Calum Bennachie, Calogero Giametta

Publications and Research

System-involvement resulting from anti-trafficking interventions and the criminalization of sex work and migration results in negative health impacts on sex workers, migrants, and people with trafficking experiences. Due to their stigmatized status, sex workers and people with trafficking experiences often struggle to access affordable, unbiased, and supportive health care. This paper will use thematic analysis of qualitative data from in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with 50 migrant sex workers and trafficked persons, as well as 20 key informants from legal and social services, in New York and Los Angeles. It will highlight the work of trans-specific and sex worker-led initiatives …

The Free Education Project: Higher Education Funding, E2 Implementation, And Crowdsourcing Crypto Development, Louis Carter, John R. Ziegler, Ovidui Purice, Edward Lehner Ph.D.

Publications and Research

This short paper, written in three different sections, explores how a cryptocurrency’s issuance and network effects could fund higher education. Synthesizing research from the Bronx Community College Cryptocurrency Research Lab, Bernard Lietaer’s notion of creating money for the needs of society, lessons learned by Galia Benartzi and the Hearts Project, and an exploration of how communities coalesce around open-source cryptocurrency projects, the authors provide an overview of the problem of funding higher education, the ways in which money that is needed could be created, and the key components to building a highly effective developer community. These three distinct yet vitally …

Dark-Binding Process Relevant To Preventing Photosensitized Oxidation: Conformation-Dependent Light And Dark Mechanisms By A Dual-Functioning Diketone, Sarah J. Belh, Niluksha Walalawela, Stas Lekhtman, Alexander Greer

Publications and Research

Few photosensitizers function in both light and dark processes as they usually have no function when the lights are turned off. We hypothesized that light and dark mechanisms in an α-diketone will be decoupled by dihedral rotation in a conformation- dependent binding process. Successful decoupling of these two functions is now shown. Namely, anti- and syn-skewed conformations of 4,4′-dimethylbenzil promote photosensitized alkoxy radical production, whereas the syn conformation promotes a binding shutoff reaction with trimethyl phosphite. Less rotation of the diketone is better suited to the photosensitizing function since phosphite binding arises through the syn conformer of lower stability. The …

A Bifunctional Atpase Drives Tad Pilus Extension And Retraction, Courtney K. Ellison, Jingbo Kan, Jennifer L. Chlebek, Katherine R. Hummels, GaёL Panis, Patrick H. Viollier, Nicolas Biais, Ankur B. Dalia, Yves V. Brun

Publications and Research

A widespread class of prokaryotic motors powered by secretion motor adenosine triphosphatases (ATPases) drives the dynamic extension and retraction of extracellular fibers, such as type IV pili (T4P). Among these, the tight adherence (tad) pili are critical for surface sensing and biofilm formation. As for most other motors belonging to this class, how tad pili retract despite lacking a dedicated retraction motor ATPase has remained a mystery. Here, we find that a bifunctional pilus motor ATPase, CpaF, drives both activities through adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP) hydrolysis. We show that mutations within CpaF result in a correlated reduction in the rates of …