Digital Commons Network^™

Misogyny Detection And Classification In English Tweets: The Experience Of The Itt Team, John Cardiff, Elena Shushkevich

Conference Papers

The problem of online misogyny and women-based offending has become increasingly widespread, and the automatic detection of such messages is an urgent priority. In this paper, we present an approach based on an ensemble of Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, and Naïve Bayes models for the detection of misogyny in texts extracted from the Twitter platform. Our method has been presented in the framework of the participation in the Automatic Misogyny Identification (AMI) Shared Task in the EVALITA 2018 evaluation campaign.

Examining A Hate Speech Corpus For Hate Speech Detection And Popularity Prediction, Filip Klubicka, Raquel Fernandez

Conference papers

As research on hate speech becomes more and more relevant every day, most of it is still focused on hate speech detection. By attempting to replicate a hate speech detection experiment performed on an existing Twitter corpus annotated for hate speech, we highlight some issues that arise from doing research in the field of hate speech, which is essentially still in its infancy. We take a critical look at the training corpus in order to understand its biases, while also using it to venture beyond hate speech detection and investigate whether it can be used to shed light on other …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of A Social Constructivist Teaching Approach, Based On Trigger Questions, Through Measures Of Mental Workload And Efficiency, Federico Gobbo, Luca Longo, Declan O'Sullivan, Giuliano Orru

Conference papers

Social constructivism is grounded on the construction of information with a focus on collaborative learning through social interactions. However, it tends to ignore the human mental architecture, pillar of cognitivism. A characteristic of cognitivism is that instructional designs built upon it are generally explicit, contrarily to constructivism. This position paper proposes a novel learning task that is aimed at combining both the approaches through the use of trigger questions in a collaborative activity executed after a traditional delivery of instructions. To evaluate this new task, a metric of efficiency based upon a measure of mental workload and a measure of …

A Comparison Of Classical Versus Deep Learning Techniques For Abusive Content Detection On Social Media Sites, Hao Che, Susan Mckeever, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

The automated detection of abusive content on social media websites faces a variety of challenges including imbalanced training sets, the identification of an appropriate feature representation and the selection of optimal classifiers. Classifiers such as support vector machines (SVM), combined with bag of words or ngram feature representation, have traditionally dominated in text classification for decades. With the recent emergence of deep learning and word embeddings, an increasing number of researchers have started to focus on deep neural networks. In this paper, our aim is to explore cutting-edge techniques in automated abusive content detection. We use two deep learning approaches: …

Validation Of Tagging Suggestion Models For A Hotel Ticketing Corpus, Bojan Bozic, Andre Rios, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

This paper investigates methods for the prediction of tags on a textual corpus that describes hotel staff inputs in a ticketing system. The aim is to improve the tagging process and find the most suitable method for suggesting tags for a new text entry. The paper consists of two parts: (i) exploration of existing sample data, which includes statistical analysis and visualisation of the data to provide an overview, and (ii) evaluation of tag prediction approaches. We have included different approaches from different research fields in order to cover a broad spectrum of possible solutions. As a result, we have …

An Investigation Into Factors Which Explain The Scores And Voting Patterns Of The Eurovision Song Contest., Oisín Leonard

Dissertations

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is an annual international television song competition. Participating countries send a group or individual artist to perform an original song at the competition. The winner is decided by all participating countries using a voting system that incorporates both a public televote and an expert jury vote. Countries are excluded from voting for their entry and the country with the highest score wins. A high scoring performance and the voting patterns of the ESC can be explained by a complex set of factors. These factors can be divided into three groups; performance factors, competition factors and …

Image Classification Using Bag-Of-Visual-Words Model, Kaiqiang Huang

Dissertations

Recently, with the explosive growth of digital technologies, there has been a rapid proliferation of the size of image collection. The technique of supervised image clas sification has been widely applied in many domains in order to organize, search, and retrieve images. However, the traditional feature extraction approaches yield the poor classification accuracy. Therefore, the Bag-of-visual-words model, inspired by Bag-of Words model in document classification, was used to present images with the local descriptors for image classification, and also it performs well in some fields. This research provides the empirical evidence to prove that the BoVW model outperforms the traditional …

The Oral Writing-Revision Space: Identifying A New And Common Discourse Feature Of Writing Center Consultations, Melody Denny

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

"Tell Me Exactly What It Was That I Was Doing That Was So Bad": Understanding The Needs And Expectations Of Working-Class Students In Writing Centers, Harry Denny, John Nordlof, Lori Salem

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Toward A Theory Of Work: Personal Responsibility, Self-Regulation, And Identity In The Age Of America’S Work Crisis, Katrina Newsom

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

TOWARD A THEORY OF WORK: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, SELF-REGULATION, AND IDENTITY IN THE AGE OF AMERICA’S WORK CRISIS

by

KATRINA NEWSOM

May 2018

Advisor: Dr. Sarika Chandra

Major: English

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Toward a Theory of Work: Personal Responsibility, Self-Regulation, and Identity in the Age of America’s Work Crisis examines how American culture grapples with work in the Postfordist era of production, particularly in the areas of ethnic, working-class, cultural, and literary studies. Specific to these areas are ideas of (personal) responsibility that take shape in concepts of self-regulation invented to function as both a direct and indirect redress …

Tomorrows Disability Officer - A Cornerstone On The Universal Design Campus ‘There Are No Strangers Here – Only Friends You Haven’T Met Yet” - W B Yeats, Mary Quirke, Patricia Mccarthy, Declan Treanor, Conor Mc Guckin

Papers

This paper will explore the evolution of one of the key roles on campus for students with a disability in the context of Universal Design for Learning - that of the Disability Officer. The role of Disability Officer, while neither a teacher or a learner – is primarily occupied with all those engaged in making learning accessible. It is a role that is very much part of the learning experience for any student with a disability. The challenge for Disability Officers on a UDL campus is that while they are part of the learning environment on campus they - similar …

Tennessee Esl Teachers' Self-Efficacy: A Predictive Correlational Study, Anna Carrie Flynt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this quantitative, predictive correlational study was to examine variables that arecorrelated with Tennessee K-12 English as a second language teachers self-efficacy. With the changes stipulated by the Every Student Succeeds Act recently approved by the Tennessee Department of Education, there is a need to examine possible factors associated with ESL teachers self-efficacy because teacher self-efficacy has been linked to teacher effectiveness and, in turn, student learning. Using social cognitive theory as a framework, predictor variables were identified and included route to licensure, practicum hours, presence of mentor, years of teaching experience prior to ESL, years of experience …

The Linguistic Turn In Composition History And Students' Right To Their Own Language, Elizabeth 1. Baddour

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Elizabeth Baddour, Ph.D. The University of Memphis. May 2018. The Linguistic Turn in Composition History and Students’ Right to Their Own Language. Professor: Joseph Jones, Ph.D. “The Linguistic Turn in Composition History and Students’ Right to Their Own Language” examines the seventeen-year period of 1957 to 1974 to explore the role of what has been come to be known as the linguistic turn in making way for the acceptance of alternative dialects, affirmed with the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s (CCCC) Students’ Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL) Resolution in 1974. Linguistics was instrumental in enriching the ways writing …

Investigating L2 Writers' Investment Toward Constructing A Successful Writer Identity: Case Studies Of Arab Students From Saudi Arabia Studying In U.S., Badreyya Rashed Alkhanbooli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This study focused on how three Saudi students at a University of Memphis in the U.S. constructed their academic writer identities. The purposes of this study, grounded in sociocultural, constructivism, and discourse theory, were to (a) understand how similar or different were the discourse writing practices in their L1 community (Saudi Arabia) to those writing practices in the L2 community (United States), (b) determine their individual investment in writing academic papers according to writing convention of the L2 community, and (c) elicit aspects of writer identity in their different academic papers written for different courses. I conducted a qualitative case …

Three Voices, One Goal: A Narrative Study Of High School Facilitators' Experience In A Community Of Practice, Ebony Briggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Special education and general education teachers must work collaboratively in a single classroom that serves the diverse needs of all children due to federal regulations such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004. Evidence-based practices that foster collaboration are scarce. The purpose of this narrative inquiry research was to explore the perceptions of a team of educators which consists of a general education teacher, special education teacher, and an administrator on how their experience of participating in a community of practice is beneficial to addressing collaboration needs of team …

Are We Lovin' It?: The Edtpa And The Mcdonaldization Of Music Teacher Training, Ellen Koziel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This qualitative study addresses the growing body of research about the implementation and impact of edTPA on the training and assessment of music teacher candidates at the college/university level from the viewpoint of 12 music education teacher trainers in the state of Tennessee. Ritzers four dimensions of McDonaldization (efficiency, calculability, predictability and control) provided the sociological framework used to explore the lived experiences of the music teacher trainers. Constructivist grounded theory was used to analyze the 12 semi-structured qualitative interviews with the goal of determining themes and patterns. Out of 12 respondents, two were in support of continuing the use …

Human Exposure To Air Toxics In Urban Environments: Health Risks, Sociodemographic Disparities, And Mixture Profiles, Zhuqing Xue

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Exposure to air toxics in urban environments may be of significant health concern because populations and emission sources are concentrated in the same geographic area. The overall objective of this study is to characterize the sources, variations, and mixture profiles of ambient air toxics in urban environments, and examine the sociodemographic disparities in exposures to air toxics in a typical U.S. metropolitan area.A model-to-monitor comparison was performed to evaluate the validity of modeling air toxics data using national datasets. Modeled concentrations in the 2011 National-scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) moderately agreed with monitoring measurements, and a sizable portion showed underestimation. …

Relations Between Reading Motivation And Reading Skills In Students With A Reading Disability, Jennifer Maria Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of the present study was to examine the short-term longitudinal relations between two constructs of reading motivation (reading self-concept and value of reading) and two aspects of reading (reading fluency and reading comprehension) in a clinical sample of elementary school students diagnosed with a SLD in reading. Skills in reading fluency and comprehension were assessed by the Gray Oral Reading Tests, Fifth Edition (GORT-5; Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012) and reading motivation was assessed by the Motivation to Read Profile- Revised (MRP-R; Malloy, Marinak, Gambrell, & Mazzoni, 2013). A cross-lag panel analysis was used to examine autoregressive paths (the …

Female Saudi Dependent Students And Language Learning Investment And Resistance: A Case Study Of Four Female Muslim Saudi Students In The Us, Nada Abdulaziz Alshabibi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Driven by Nortons (2012) concept of investment and the role of agency and identity in second language acquisition, this study investigated the relationship between religion, cultural identity, and language learning investment among four female Saudi dependent students in an intensive English institute (IEI) in the US. The study examined how students invested their agency as mothers and wives to learn English and how such factors as their Islamic garb, co-educational classes, family, friends, teachers, and class activities increased or decreased their learning opportunities.Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with each participant. Two had dropped out of the IEI, and two …

Teachers' Practices And First-Year Students' Perspectives On Peer Review In Academic Writing Classes, Rashad Ali Qaed Ahmed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Supported by many theoretical frameworks that include the collaborative learning theory, process writing, and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, activity theory, and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), this study examined the use of peer review in first-year academic writing classes at a mid-south university in the United States. The study involved native and non-native speakers of English as well as writing instructors. The total number of participants consisted of 124 native speakers of English (NSOE) and 18 non-native speakers (NNSOE). The teacher sample consisted of 20 full time instructors and teaching assistants. The majority of the teachers were NSOF (90%) with only …

The Effect Of Educational Background On Second Language Reading, Hammad Alshammari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Alshammari, Hammad Ali M., Ph.D. The University of Memphis. August, 2018. The Effect of Educational Background on Second Language Reading. Major Professor: Emily Thrush, Ph.D. An increasing number of studies in the field of L2 reading have found that Saudi ESL learners are more likely to encounter reading difficulties in the US (e.g., Khan, 2011), and Saudi learners have demonstrated the lowest reading scores on the TOEFL and IELTS standardized language tests worldwide (as cited in Al-Qahtani, 2016). This study explored the effects of educational background on L2 reading by interviewing eight Saudi ESL learners with different reading proficiency levels. …

Place, Identity, And Language Learning: The Transformative Role Of Place-Based English Language Instruction, Daniel Scott Harper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This study examines the intersections of place and second language learning. Learner identity has been found to be an important construct in second language learning. In recent years, place and space have become central topics in the study of sociolinguistics and identity. One area of place and language that has not been studied in depth, however, is whether place plays a role in second language learning. This study begins to fill this gap by examining the second language learning experiences of thirteen Japanese study abroad students who were enrolled in an eight-week, content-based language course. The content of the course …

Pragmatic Developmental Pathways By Saudi Learners Of English During Study Abroad, Fahad Alzahrani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Recently, it has become increasingly popular among Saudi students to study abroad. There are, for example, currently 58,726 Saudi students studying at the university level in the United States. During their study abroad (SA) journey, when they wish to say something to someone, they need to determine the situationally-appropriate utterances: What can be said, to whom, where, when, and how. From the interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) perspective, the SA context is assumed to provide more opportunities to communicate with native speakers, and these opportunities are believed to lead to pragmatic gains (Kinginger, 2008, 2009).Guided by five research questions, this study investigated …

The Generalizability Of Two Rating Scales Of Executive Function Across Parent And Self-Reports In A School-Based Adolescent Sample, Leah Singh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This study examined the reliability, validity, and generalizability of test scores obtained from parents and adolescents reports across two rating scales of executive function. Forty-two adolescents ages 12 to 17 enrolled in a rural public school and one of their parents participated in the study. For each adolescent-parent dyad, 2 total scores of executive function and 6 subscale scores hypothesized to measure the same theoretical constructs were calculated and scores were submitted to several Generalizability theory analyses to evaluate the instrument effect, rater effect, dimension effect, and all interactions on total scores and subscale scores. The resulting dependability coefficients were …

Improvement Of Power Quality Of Hybrid Grid By Non-Linear Controlled Device Considering Time Delays And Cyber-Attacks, Sagnika Ghosh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Power Quality is defined as the ability of electrical grid to supply a clean and stable power supply. Steady-state disturbances such as harmonics, faults, voltage sags and swells, etc., deteriorate the power quality of the grid. To ensure constant voltage and frequency to consumers, power quality should be improved and maintained at a desired level. Although several methods are available to improve the power quality in traditional power grids, significant challenges exist in modern power grids, such as non-linearity, time delay and cyber-attacks issues, which need to be considered and solved. This dissertation proposes novel control methods to address the …

Non-Violent Resistance: Counter-Discourse In Irish Culture, Agnés Maillot, Jennifer Bruen

Books

Counter-discourses express new and alternative views of the world, in contrast with more established discourses which embody mainstream values, norms, beliefs and attitudes. The essays in this volume assess the role of counter-discourses as non-violent forms of resistance to the status quo in core domains of Irish social, cultural and political life. These domains encompass the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process; law enforcement, policing and surveillance; parliamentary debate and obstructionism; identity formation, marriage, divorce and the family; and institutional abuse, authoritarianism and the Catholic Church. The discourses are drawn from a diverse range of media including political and parliamentary …

Generating Diverse And Meaningful Captions: Unsupervised Specificity Optimization For Image Captioning, Annika Lindh, Robert J. Ross, Abhijit Mahalunkar, Giancarlo Salton, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

Image Captioning is a task that requires models to acquire a multi-modal understanding of the world and to express this understanding in natural language text. While the state-of-the-art for this task has rapidly improved in terms of n-gram metrics, these models tend to output the same generic captions for similar images. In this work, we address this limitation and train a model that generates more diverse and specific captions through an unsupervised training approach that incorporates a learning signal from an Image Retrieval model. We summarize previous results and improve the state-of-the-art on caption diversity and novelty.

We make our …

Attaining Scientific Literacy Through A Rhetoric Of Science Composition Pedagogy, Stephen C. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

For the past sixty years, acquiring scientific literacy has proven to be a daunting task in education, especially for undergraduate nonscience majors. Although some education scholars have recognized the importance and use of arguments to teach science, these pedagogical practices often are aimed at primary school children rather than college students or involve reporting science experiments rather than actually studying or constructing arguments about issues related to science.However, in this dissertation, I contend that educators often neglect a more available tool that not only examines arguments concerning scientific issues but also demonstrates the very heart of scientific literacy: critical thinking. …

A Close Reading Of Albert Cleage Jrs The Black Messiah: A Study In Rhetorical Hermeneutics, Black Prophetic Rhetoric And Radical Black Politics, Earle J. Fisher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The physical and rhetorical presentations in Albert Cleage Jrs 1968 publication, The Black Messiah, had an enormous impact on the theological and rhetorical landscape of the late 1960s and continues to echo into the early part of the 21st century. This book of 20 sermons preached at the height of the black power movement in Detroit was disruptive to a white supremacist religious consciousness that plagued the mainstream religious arena and general American public. The Black Messiah has contributed substantially to the change in public discourse about Jesus, Christianity, Black Power, and what it meant to the Christian then (and …

Understanding Why Women Stay: Examining Persistence Factors Of Women Majoring In Science And Technology Programs In Public Ethiopian Universities Using A Mixed Methods Design, Meseret Hailu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Amongst African nations, Ethiopia is a unique case in many respects. The country has the second largest population on the continent, is currently experiencing an economic boom, and is a relatively stable nation in the geopolitically volatile "Horn of Africa" region. In the past two decades, the higher education sector in Ethiopia has experienced rapid growth, as evidenced by an increase in both student enrollment and the number of universities. Amongst the various types of higher education institutions, public universities are especially important because they receive the greatest financial support from the Ministry of Education. Moreover, science and technology programs …