Digital Commons Network^™

Using Machine Learning And Graph Mining Approaches To Improve Software Requirements Quality: An Empirical Investigation, Maninder Singh

Computer Science

Software development is prone to software faults due to the involvement of multiple stakeholders especially during the fuzzy phases (requirements and design). Software inspections are commonly used in industry to detect and fix problems in requirements and design artifacts, thereby mitigating the fault propagation to later phases where the same faults are harder to find and fix. The output of an inspection process is list of faults that are present in software requirements specification document (SRS). The artifact author must manually read through the reviews and differentiate between true-faults and false-positives before fixing the faults. The first goal of this …

User-Behavior Trust Modeling In Cloud Security, Maryam Alruwaythi

Computer Science

With the cloud computing increasing in popularity by providing a massive number of services such as recourses and data center, the number of attacks is increasing. Security is a basic concern in cloud computing, and threats can occur both internally and externally. Users can access the cloud infrastructure for software, operating systems, and network infrastructure provided by the cloud service providers (CSPs). Evaluating users’ behavior in the cloud-computing infrastructure is becoming more important for both cloud users (CSs) and the CSPs that must ensure safety for users accessing the cloud. Because user authentication alone is not enough to ensure the …

From Meme To Memegraph: The Curious Case Of Pepe The Frog And White Nationalism, Fernando Ismael Quinones Valdivia

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis explores Pepe the Frog, a comic book character that became a meme, then went mainstream, and then became appropriated by the Alt-Right in support of the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Users in the Internet have declared this meme a god, others have claimed it as a piece of crypto-art, while White Nationalists use it to propagate their ideology. I draw on McGee’s notion of the ideograph to argue that, in a networked environment characterized by limited attention and heightened speed of circulation, memes have the capacity to ideologically condense publics. This gives rise to what I …

Perception Of Preservice Teachers On The Implementation Of Multicultural Education, Winnie Esther Akinyi

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the study was twofold:

(1) To examine perceptions of preservice teachers on the implementation of multicultural education; and

(2) To investigate the extent to which preservice teachers are willing to implement multicultural education.

Snowball sampling method was used to find the participants for this research study because part of the sample for the study was very rare or limited to a very small subgroup of the population (minorities and seniors). Three preservice school teachers participated in the interview process, the results were audio recorded.

The results indicated preservice school teachers of different demographic characteristics held different beliefs …

Preschool Teachers' Beliefs And Actions Concerning Creativity In The Classroom, Latisha Lynn Smith

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to examine preschool teachers’ beliefs and actions associated with creative pedagogy. This study partially replicated a study by Cheung (2017) and allowed for comparisons among American, Greek, and Chinese preschool teachers. This qualitative study used case studies to examine preschool teachers’ beliefs related to the definition of creativity, effective creative pedagogy, and contextual factors related to promoting creativity. Participants included three preschool teachers in rural settings in the Midwestern United States. Data included an initial interview, the completion of the Early Childhood Creative Pedagogy Questionnaire (Cheung & Leung, 2013), two lesson observations, and reflection …

Early Hour, Golden Hour: An Exploration Of Slovenian Older People’S Meaningful Occupations, Tanja Križaj, Anne Roberts, Alison Warren, Anita Slade

School of Health Professions

No abstract provided.

(And I Can't Stress This Enough) In My Mouth: Extradiegetic Affect As Material, C. Klockner

Theses and Dissertations

(and i can’t stress this enough) in my mouth: Extradiegetic Affect as Material is a non-linear exploration into the structures of feeling that exist in relation to cinema in its role as a technology for generating subjectivity. In the development of this research, a proposal of cinema’s likeness to the ecological circulation of microplastics is drawn in order to illustrate cinema’s materiality and nearly invisible ubiquity. The notion of extradiegetic affect is outlined as a post-cinematic condition in which lived experience becomes secondary to cinematic representation and which, simultaneously, becomes directly shaped by engaging with these representations.

Rape Narratives & Survival Within Counter-Geographies: (Dis)Pleasure In Disrupting Globalized Universals, Monica Reyes

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

There is already significant scholarship (Heaton; Hesford, Huggan, Powell) which demonstrates that metanarratives, largely produced and consumed by Western audiences contribute to the rhetorical choices of the subaltern’s stories as well as listeners’ interpretation/ validation of place-based experiences. This paper further contributes to this work by examining how humanitarian narratives which utilize rape as a means of rhetorical agency within counter-geographies (Sassen) is a starting place for postcolonial conversations about pathways for mindful, global intervention within local contexts. I briefly examine two cultural representations of humanitarian rape narratives (human interest news story and fiction) to illustrate the complex rhetorics of …

When Archaeology Interacted With The Bible: A Study Of The Search For The City Of Raamses Of Exodus 1:11 In The Searcher's Socio Political Context, Georg Filippou

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, I will research what a selected group of authors and scholars has stated regarding their search for the biblical city of Raamses. 3 This step will involve research of the motive of those researchers who attempted to match Raamses of Exod 1:11 with geographical locations in Egypt, to follow their search within the social and political context of these scholars. Second, based on these scholars’ research, I will attempt to discover what happened when Bible and archaeology interacted in the search for the city of Raamses.

The study begins with some pages …

“More Than Just A Box”: The Co-Creation Of Social Identity Within Hispanic-Caucasian Multiethnic Family Systems, Anna-Carrie H. Beck

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Approximately 15% of all new marriages in the United States in 2010 were between spouses that shared different racial or ethnic backgrounds from one another. Socha and Diggs (1999) began to examine race as both an outcome of family communication as well as a factor that influences children's communication development in families because of the social pressure multiethnic families endure to fit a nuclear family model. This study utilized dyadic interviews of eleven multiethnic parent couples (N = 22 individuals; 11 dyads) in order to gain a deeper understanding of Hispanic-Caucasian multiethnic family systems. Communication in families plays a foundational …

A Descriptive Analysis Of Health Influencer Videos On Youtube In The Ostomy Community, Sarah Irenke Sophia Bell

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The expansion of YouTube into the mainstream media and its place as the second most-used website in the world makes it a prime place for health information seeking. However, content can be created and uploaded by anyone and thus, the threat of misinformation on YouTube is high. Medical researchers have established that videos created by health professionals on YouTube promote accurate information whereas videos by non-professionals promote generally inaccurate or misleading information. Yet, videos created by non-professionals have more views and higher relevance rankings on YouTube. To begin to understand this phenomenon, a descriptive study is used to lay a …

Reporting Certainty, James Macleod

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Patient Involvement In Healthcare Projects: A Mixed Method Study On The Perspectives Of Project Staff In Western Australian (Wa) Public Hospitals And Health Services, Melanie Wright

Theses

Background: the benefits of patient involvement in clinical care and research is well described in the literature; but there is little evidence to suggest that involving patients in the planning and delivery of healthcare projects is beneficial to the outcomes of the project.

Purpose: this study explores the perspectives of staff who were specifically employed to lead and manage healthcare projects in Western Australian (WA) public hospitals and health services, regarding patient involvement in their projects and the perceived benefits and barriers of this involvement.

Study design: the study was designed using a sequential mixed method approach in three phases …

Associations Between Expressed Emotion, Mental Health, And Functioning In Families: Child Asthma Status As A Moderator, Katherine W. Dempster

Theses and Dissertations

Expressed emotion (EE), the affective attitudes and behaviors of one toward another, can affect caregivers’ behaviors toward their child. Research examining associations between EE and child/family outcomes is mixed; these associations may be affected by other influences such as the presence of a chronic disease or parent mental health. In this study of families living in an urban area, we examined associations between EE and child outcomes (anxiety/depressive symptoms) and family functioning, with parent anxiety as a covariate. We evaluated child asthma status as a moderator as the presence of a chronic illness may strengthen the association between EE and …

Enchantingly Disenchanted: Failed Interpellation In Darwish And Kafka, Samir Abdalla Taha

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

No abstract provided.

Using Data Mining Algorithms To Discover Regular Sound Changes Among Languages, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

This paper presents a method of using association rule data mining algorithms to discover regular sound changes among languages. The method presented has a great potential to facilitate linguistic studies aimed at identifying distantly related cognate languages. As an experimental example, this paper presents the application of the data mining method to the discovery of regular sound changes between the Hungarian and the Sumerian languages, which separated at least five thousand years ago when the Proto-Sumerian reached Mesopotamia. The data mining method discovered an important regular sound change between Hungarian word initial /f/ and Sumerian word initial /b/ phonemes.

Applied Tensional Analysis: Engaging Practitioners And The Constitutive Shift, Jennifer Mease (Also Peeksmease)

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This article introduces applied tensional analysis as a methodological framework that integrates constitutive ontologies (that depict organizations as processes in constant states of emerging or becoming) with the applied need for practitioners to understand and navigate the everyday exigencies of their organizational experiences. Applied tensional analysis centers analysis on tensions as the key to understanding organizational becoming in contrast to approaches that assume organizations are stable entities and consequently focus on patterns, themes, or laws. The applied tensional analysis framework offers four analytical foci (context, tensions, enacted responses, and repertoires) organized into two loops (analytical and change) as guides for …

Nebraska Prevention Center For Alcohol And Drug Abuse — Bibliography Of Publications

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Exploring Predictors Of Sense Of Belonging In Trinidad And Tobago, Elizabeth Niehaus, Letitia Williams, Stephanie Zobac, Miles Young, Adam Fullerton

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, Trinidad and Tobago has promoted explosive expansion of tertiary education. As with many growing postsecondary education systems, this increase in tertiary enrollment has led to the development of student support services (Haddad & Altbach, 2009). The field of student services is growing throughout the Caribbean (Reynolds, 2008), but there is currently little research on the role of student services in fostering students’ sense of belonging specific to the Caribbean cultural context. Using data from over 900 students at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, we examined students’ sense of belonging in the context of T&T. …

Fuzzy Control System For Variable Rate Irrigation Using Remote Sensing, Willians Ribeiro Mendes, Fábio Meneghetti U. Araújo, Ritaban Dutta, Derek M. Heeren

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Variable rate irrigation (VRI) is the capacity to spatially vary the depth of water application in a field to handle different types of soils, crops, and other conditions. Precise management zones must be developed to efficiently apply variable rate technologies. However, there is no universal method to determine management zones. Using speed control maps for the central pivot is one option. Thus, this study aims to develop an intelligent fuzzy inference system based on precision irrigation knowledge, i.e., a system that can create prescriptive maps to control the rotation speed of the central pivot. Satellite images are used in this …

Memory, Language, And Healing, Isabel Velázquez

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

One morning on a spring day not unlike the one during which I write these lines, Dr. Marie Chantal Kalisa came into my office and gifted me with a word. It wasn't a strange occurrence, this. As office neighbors, friends, and fellow members of the order of the culturally dislocated, we were engaging in just an ordinary part of our ongoing conversation on language, memory, cultural (non)transmission, and the many intimate losses and transformations that come as a by-product of geographic displacement. A lovely word it was, its Kirundi vowels bright, shiny, sweet to my ears. A tiny jewel wrapped …

Detection Of Offensive Youtube Comments, A Performance Comparison Of Deep Learning Approaches, Priyam Bansal

Dissertations

Social media data is open, free and available in massive quantities. However, there is a significant limitation in making sense of this data because of its high volume, variety, uncertain veracity, velocity, value and variability. This work provides a comprehensive framework of text processing and analysis performed on YouTube comments having offensive and non-offensive contents.

YouTube is a platform where every age group of people logs in and finds the type of content that most appeals to them. Apart from this, a massive increase in the use of offensive language has been apparent. As there are massive volume of new …

Does Ala Ban Books? Examining The Discourse Of Challenged Books, Sue C. Kimmel, Danielle E. Hartsfield

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The question "Does ALA [American Library Association] ban books?" was found on the ALA's "Frequently Asked Questions" page for Banned Books Week. A critical review of the meanings students were ascribing to the lists of frequently challenged books published by ALA was prompted by the suggestions of two students that the Office of Intellectual Freedom bans books. Was it possible others thought ALA was banning books? This study employed a discourse analysis to closely examine how students talked about the lists and how ALA presents and markets those lists and Banned Books Week. Findings suggest the complexities inherent in the …

Informing Recommended Makerspace Outcomes Through Linguistic Analytics, Kevin M. Oliver, Jennifer K. Houchins, Robert L. Moore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

An after-school maker club collected student reflections on makerspace projects in different formats over two years: private written reflections captured in the 3D GameLab gamification platform and video-recorded reflections posted in the more social FlipGrid platform. Club mentors selected these documentation platforms on the basis of their motivational affordances thought to encourage club members to document their work. Transcribed documentation was analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to generate linguistic profiles for comparison. Differences between written and video-recorded documentation suggest: private, written documentation is more likely to capture evidence of cognitive processing and achievement- or risk-oriented drives, but …

Setting The Pace: Examining Cognitive Processing In Mooc Discussion Forums With Automatic Text Analysis, Robert L. Moore, Kevin M. Oliver, Chuang Wang

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Learning analytics focuses on extracting meaning from large amounts of data. One of the largest datasets in education comes from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that typically feature enrollments in the tens of thousands. Analyzing MOOC discussion forums presents logistical issues, resulting chiefly from the size of the dataset, which can create challenges for understanding and adequately describing student behaviors. Utilizing automatic text analysis, this study built a hierarchical linear model that examines the influence of the pacing condition of a massive open online course (MOOC), whether it is self-paced or instructor-paced, on the demonstration of cognitive processing in a …

Never Seen Before--Again: Aesthetic Adaptation And Transmedia Storytelling Networks In The Age Of Digital Cinema, Mike Mccleary

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The primary purpose of this study is to re-evaluate the theorization of the narrative/non-narrative divide in cinema because there is still far too much rich information that is being lost in the chasm left between these two positions, particularly when it comes to the study of spectacular imagery. Working beyond the binary construction of a narrative/non-narrative divide allows for a more nuanced and dynamic analysis of the information that is conveyed by the cinematic image and, more specifically, by way of its aesthetic design. By no means is this study championing image over story or any other such formulation; rather …

The Influences Of Culture And The Self On Children’S Memory Encoding And Delayed Retrieval, Hongyuan Qi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Culture and the self form a dynamic system that shapes children’s memories. However, how these two constructs influence specific memory processes still requires further investigation. The present dissertation contains four studies that examined the influences of cultural backgrounds and self-views on children’s memory encoding and delayed retrieval. Participants across four studies were recruited in the year range of 2016 to 2018. A total of 243 Grade 1 and 2 (the younger group) and Grade 3 and 4 (the older group) children participated, with an age range of seven to ten years. Specifically, 121 Chinese children were from Mainland China and …

Using Social Media To Engage Toronto Communities For Resiliency And Stress Planning, Martha Ta

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As Toronto’s low-income areas grow, the city’s neighbourhoods experience a segregation by low- and high-income, contributing to chronic stress as environmental determinants and leading to negative health outcomes and chronic diseases. This study identified Crescent Town as one of the Toronto neighbourhoods with potentially high levels of chronic emotional stress through an analysis of emotions indicated by Tweets, as well as triangulation with administrative data describing relevant neighbourhood indicators. Crescent Town community members (n=23) were engaged using concept mapping to identify existing neighbourhood stressors and assets and empowered to strategize solutions. The ten-cluster solution created with six clusters describing neighbourhood …

Blurred Lines: A Phenomenological Study Of Maternal-Child Interconnection., Laura Macgregor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of maternal-child interconnection among 12 mothers raising children, of any age, with developmental disabilities as well communication challenges. During semistructured interviews, mothers told stories of maternal-child interconnection that described a sacred, mutual, and unique interpenetration of experiences between mother and child that was nurtured and sustained by ongoing togetherness. Mothers also shared that their unique mother-child interconnection was difficult to articulate, and often poorly understood beyond the mother-child dyad.

Maternal-child interconnection allowed mothers to understand their children’s unique, often non-verbal communication. As a result, mothers of children with significant communication challenges were able …

Second Language Acquisition And Acculturation Differences Between Immigrants And Refugees, Ali Jasemi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The main difference between refugees and immigrants lies in the reason for their migration. Economic immigrants migrate to other countries voluntarily, while refugees are forced to leave their countries due to fear of death or persecution (UNHCR, 2018). Such fears may lead to psychological trauma among refugees. Research has shown that the presence of trauma can negatively impact language learning (Iversen, Sveaass, & Morken, 2014), which may have important implications for both second language (L2) acquisition and acculturation, particularly in refugees. In addition, strong linguistic abilities in a first language (L1) may be beneficial to acquire other languages (Cook, 2003). …