Digital Commons Network^™

Information Literacy And Blind And Visually Impaired Students, Rebecca Schiff

Publications and Research

In the summer of 2007, as part of the City University of New York PeopleTech Summer Institute held at Baruch College, the author taught a class in information literacy to a group of blind and visually impaired students, using assistive technology to access the resources of the college library. Despite considerable preparation and experience, teaching the class presented unexpected difficulties, detailed in this paper. Rapid advances in information literacy technology present unusual challenges for the average student—challenges that are magnified when the intermediate assistive technology is itself not easy to master. The author explores the pertinent literature.

It's All Happening At The Zoo: Children's Environmental Learning After School, Jason A. Douglas, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

Pairing dynamic out-of-school-time (OST) programs with zoos can encourage young people's relationships with and sense of responsibility for animals and the environment. The project presented in this article, Animal Rescuers, gave the authors the opportunity to examine how such a pairing can work. OST programs enable learning in settings that are generally unavailable during school time (Honig & McDonald, 2005). They provide space for collaboration among students, teachers, and others such as program visitors or outside educators. Taking advantage of the flexibility, location, and educational playfulness of an OST setting, the authors worked intensively with a small number of 10-12-year-old …

Testimony Of Jeremy Travis, President Of John Jay College Of Criminal Justice, Before The U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Appropriations, Subcommittee On Commerce, Justice, Science, And Related Agencies, On “What Works” For Successful Prisoner Reentry, Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Lip-Reading Aids Word Recognition Most In Moderate Noise: A Bayesian Explanation Using High-Dimensional Feature Space, Wei Ji Ma, Xiang Zhou, Lars A. Ross, John J. Foxe, Lucas C. Parra

Publications and Research

Watching a speaker's facial movements can dramatically enhance our ability to comprehend words, especially in noisy environments. From a general doctrine of combining information from different sensory modalities (the principle of inverse effectiveness), one would expect that the visual signals would be most effective at the highest levels of auditory noise. In contrast, we find, in accord with a recent paper, that visual information improves performance more at intermediate levels of auditory noise than at the highest levels, and we show that a novel visual stimulus containing only temporal information does the same. We present a Bayesian model of optimal …

To See Or Not To See: Prestimulus Α Phase Predicts Visual Awareness, Kyle E. Mathewson, Gabriele Gratton, Monica Fabiani, Diane M. Beck, Tony Ro

Publications and Research

We often fail to see something that at other times is readily detectable. Because the visual stimulus itself is unchanged, this variability in conscious awareness is likely related to changes in the brain. Here we show that the phase of EEG α rhythm measured over posterior brain regions can reliably predict both subsequent visual detection and stimulus-elicited cortical activation levels in a metacontrast masking paradigm. When a visual target presentation coincides with the trough of an α wave, cortical activation is suppressed as early as 100 ms after stimulus onset, and observers are less likely to detect the target. Thus, …

Environmental Tobacco Smoke Avoidance Among Pregnant African-American Nonsmokers, Susan M. Blake, Kennan D. Murray, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Marie G. Gantz, Michele Kiely, Dana Best, Jill G. Joseph, Ayman El-Mohandes

Publications and Research

Background—Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure during pregnancy contributes to adverse infant health outcomes. Limited previous research has focused on identifying correlates of ETS avoidance. This study sought to identify proximal and more distal correlates of ETS avoidance early in pregnancy among African-American women. Methods—From a sample of low-income, black women (n=1044) recruited in six urban, prenatal care clinics (July 2001–October 2003), cotinine-confirmed nonsmokers with partners, household/ family members, or friends who smoked (n=450) were identified and divided into two groups: any past-7-day ETS exposure and cotinine-confirmed ETS avoidance. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses identified factors associated with ETS …

Nonknowledge: The Bibliographical Organization Of Ignorance, Stupidity, Error, And Unreason: Part One, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Starting with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom paradigm in information science it is possible to derive a model of the opposite of knowledge having hierarchical qualities. A range of counterpoints to concepts in the knowledge hierarchy can be identified and ascribed the overall term “nonknowledge.” This model creates a conceptual framework for understanding the connections between topics such as error, ignorance, stupidity, folly, popular misconceptions, and unreason by locating them as levels or phases of nonknowledge. The concept of nonknowledge links heretofore disconnected discourses on these individual topics by philosophers, psychologists, historians, sociologists, satirists, and others. Subject headings provide access to the categories …

Right Hemispheric Contributions To Fine Auditory Temporal Discriminations: High-Density Electrical Mapping Of The Duration Mismatch Negativity (Mmn), Pierfilippo De Sanctis, Sophie Molholm, Marina Shpaner, Walter Ritter, John J. Foxe

Publications and Research

That language processing is primarily a function of the left hemisphere has led to the supposition that auditory temporal discrimination is particularly well-tuned in the left hemisphere, since speech discrimination is thought to rely heavily on the registration of temporal transitions. However, physiological data have not consistently supported this view. Rather, functional imaging studies often show equally strong, if not stronger, contributions from the right hemisphere during temporal processing tasks, suggesting a more complex underlying neural substrate. The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the human auditory evoked-potential provides a sensitive metric of duration processing in human auditory cortex and lateralization …

Using The Lure Of Gang Life To Teach Interpersonal And Group Attraction, Gordon Alley-Young

Publications and Research

Course: Small Group Communication

Objective: Students will apply group and interpersonal attraction theories to discover the factors impacting a young man's small group membership choices in The Lure of Gang Life; this short story illustrates the forces that attract individuals to different small groups across their lives.

Writing Across The Curriculum: Professional Communication And The Writing That Supports It, Andrea Mcardle

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Judicial Deference To Legislative Fact-Finding, Caitlin Borgmann

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Meaning Of Life: Belief And Reason In The Abortion Debate, Caitlin Borgmann

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Domestic Violence Services And Advocacy, Julie Goldscheid

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Therapeutic Reproduction And Human Dignity, Richard Storrow

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Problem Method: No Simple Solution, Shirley Lung

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Broken Lives From Broken Windows: The Hidden Costs Of Aggressive Order-Maintenance Policing, K. Babe Howell

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Trust, Rebecca Bratspies

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

School-Based Screening To Identify At-Risk Students Not Already Known To School Professionals: The Columbia Suicide Screen, Michelle A. Scott, Holly C. Wilcox, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Mark Davies, Roger C. Hicks, J. Blake Turner, David Shaffer

Publications and Research

Objectives.Wesought todeterminethedegreeofoverlapbetweenstudents identified through school-based suicide screening and those thought to be at risk by school administrative and clinical professionals. Methods. Students from7 high schools in theNewYorkmetropolitan area completed the Columbia Suicide Screen; 489 of the 1729 students screened had positive results. The clinical status of 641 students (73% of those who had screened positive and 23%of thosewho had screened negative) was assessedwithmodules from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. School professionals nominated by their principal and unaware of students’ screening and diagnostic status were asked to indicate whether they were concerned about the emotional well-being of each participating student. …

Attitudes Of Gifted Children, Christy Folsom

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

A Reflective Teaching Journal: An Instructional Improvement Tool For Academic Librarians, Elizabeth K. Tompkins

Publications and Research

This paper explores the practice of keeping a reflective teaching journal to improve classroom instruction. Reflective practice and journaling have a rich tradition in the teacher education field. Accordingly, the teacher education literature provides the starting point for this case study of keeping a reflective teaching journal for library sessions given to first semester freshmen enrolled in a learning community. The journaling process proved useful by helping to improve instruction while also providing a mechanism to link theory with practice.

Playing With A Different Sex: Academic Writing On Women In Rock And Pop, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

This annotated bibliography of academic writing on women in rock in pop should provide an overview of most of the scholarly literature on the topic and reflects my personal interest in methodology. When I returned to graduate school in the late 1990s to study American studies and popular culture, I discovered that academe had changed considerably from my undergraduate days when I studied history of art. Although traditional academic disciplines continue, I found that in the humanities and social sciences, there were no longer neat categories for disciplines and disciplines no longer were isolated from each other.

The topic of …

"Model Mamas": The Domestic Partnership Of Home Economics Pioneers Flora Rose And Martha Van Rensselaer, Megan J. Elias

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Re-Visioning Into Third Space: Autobiographies On Losing Home-And-Homeland, Debbie Sonu, Seungho Moon

Publications and Research

As one Asian and one Asian American both currently living in New York City, we explore the possibilities of transnational experience as a space of the real-and-imagined, as a potential Thirdspace. Moving away from humanist assumptions of dueling dualities in the formation of identity, we seek a place that collapses social and temporal borders and transgresses geographical and physical sites. For us, challenging the essentialisms that con-fine our sense of Asian-ness in America requires that we acknowledge the material and social present, while conceiving of a Thirdspace where all such qualities are inseparable, interdependent, simultaneous, and holistic. We use autobiographies …

Qualitative And Quantitative Methods In Occupational-Stress Research, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Edwin Farrell

Publications and Research

The paper examined the ways in which qualitative and quantitative methods support each other in research on occupational stress. Qualitative methods include (a) eliciting from unconstrained descriptions of work experiences, (b) careful first-hand observations at the workplace, and (c) participant‑observers describing “from the inside” a particular work experience. The paper shows how qualitative research stimulates theory development, hypothesis generation, and the identification of job stressors and coping responses. The limitations of qualitative research, particularly in the area of verification, are also described.

Cookie Monsters: Seeing Young People’S Hacking As Creative Practice, Gregory T. Donovan, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

This paper examines the benefits and obstacles to young people’s open-ended and unrestricted access to technological environments. While children and youth are frequently seen as threatened or threatening in this realm, their playful engagements suggest that they are self-possessed social actors, able to negotiate most of its challenges effectively. Whether it is proprietary software, the business practices of some technology providers, or the separation of play, work, and learning in most classrooms, the spatial-temporality of young people’s access to and use of technology is often configured to restrict their freedom of choice and behavior. We focus on these issues through …

Trust In The Balance: Asymmetric Information, Commitment Problems And Balancing Behavior, Zachary Shirkey, Ivan Savic

Publications and Research

Realists argue that balancing occurs in response to changes to the balance of power. Recent informational approaches have focused primarily on informational asymmetries or commitment problems. The paper combines these two approaches and builds on them by incorporating characteristics of the revisionist state and the potential balancer, as well as the specific challenge to the balance of power. The model confirms that informational asymmetries often lead to commitment problems and that they are a necessary condition for balancing. However, whether or not informational asymmetries create commitment problems depends on both the nature of the challenger’s move and the relative power …

Accessri, Sean Almonte, Mark Anders, Kenneth Comia, Matthew Coogan, Jeff Gerlach, Aileen Gorsuch, Michael Porto, Mary Rocco, James Shaw, Michael Wallin, Laxmi Ramasubramanian

Publications and Research

AccessRI, a studio team comprised of ten graduate students in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, was commissioned by New York State Senator José M. Serrano to identify and provide strategies to address residents’ concerns regarding the quality of life on Roosevelt Island. Roosevelt Island, located between Manhattan and Queens in the East River, is an exceptional place within the varied fabric of New York City. The island provides its residents with an existence apart from the typical hassles associated with urban life, yet its proximity to the rest of the city allows residents to partake …

Manufacturing Kleptomania: The Social And Scientific Underpinnings Of A Pathology, Daisy V. Domínguez

Publications and Research

This paper aims to show the ways in which the kleptomania diagnosis expressed displaced societal fears and led to the ostracism and exculpation of groups based on an interesting mix of gender and class biases.

Weaving Color Lines: Race, Ethnicity, And The Work Of Leadership In Social Change Organizations, Sonia Ospina, Celina Su

Publications and Research

For social change organizations working to address intractable social problems throughout the USA, tackling race may not only be unavoidable; it may represent a way to fully engage stakeholders in social change work. We argue that illuminating the relationship between race and leadership can advance our under- standing of how social change leadership happens in practice. We build upon scholarship that emphasizes the ways in which seemingly essentialist, intractable racial categories are actually mutable, and the simultaneous emergence of academic research calling attention to the constructed and collective dimensions of leadership. Using a constructionist lens to analyze narratives from 22 …

It Takes Two: The Interplay Of Individual And Group Theology On Social Embeddedness, Christopher P. Scheitle, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

Prior research argues that religious homophily in social networks is a product of overlapping interests and activities unintentionally leading to relationships or the intentional seeking of relationships with people of similar religious beliefs. This article advances research on religious homophily by including the role that exclusive theological beliefs play in explaining religious homophily among friends. We lay out three propositions for individual-, congregational-, and cross-level effects on the relationship between exclusive theology and embeddedness within one's congregation. Using multilevel models and data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (USCLS), we find support for our three propositions. We discuss our findings …