Digital Commons Network^™

Reference Guide: Factorial Focus Group Analysis Methods For Studying Social Norm Change, Bettina Shell-Duncan, Amadou Moreau, Katherine Wander, Sarah Smith

Reproductive Health

The factorial focus group methodology described in this guide provides a powerful means of illuminating the social norms that uphold female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), and the ways in which meanings have at times become contested or rejected. The methods described here can be applied to the study of a wide range of behaviors influenced by social norms, such as early marriage, adoption of contraception, and more.

The Rise And Impact Of Premarital Cohabitation: Implications For Christian Higher Education, Heidi Morris, Suzie Macaluso, Prentice Ashford

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

Premarital cohabitation is an increasingly common aspect of relationships today. Despite Christian theology that often frowns on cohabitation, modern students entering institutions of Christian higher education are influenced by this societal trend. For some students, cohabitation does not carry the negative connotation as in previous years. However, how aware are students of the implications of cohabitation on relationship satisfaction? This study examines whether the level of satisfaction within a relationship is affected by having lived in a cohabiting relationship before marriage. Through an analysis of U.S. data from the 2010 Married and Cohabiting Couples survey, levels of relationship satisfaction were …

Eleven Things They Don’T Tell You About Law & Economics: An Informal Introduction To Political Economy And Law, Frank Pasquale

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

Many legal scholars have critiqued the dominant law and economics paradigm. However, important work is all too often neglected because it is not popularized in an accessible form. This Article features experts who synthesize their key insights into memorable and concise vignettes. Our 11 Things project is inspired by the work of the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang, who distilled many facets of his work into a book called 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. That book was a runaway success, translated for markets around the globe, because it challenged conventional economic reasoning with a series of short and …

Growth No. 18 (2019) - Full Issue

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

The full issue of the eighteenth edition of Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development.

Promoting An Ethical Economics Classroom Through Partnership, Simon Halliday

Economics: Faculty Publications

In teaching economics, the instructor scaffolds what they teach on an implicitly assumed or explicitly recognized ethical vision. Such a vision holds true even as economists often separate “positive economics” from “normative economics,” claiming positive economics finds its basis in data and theory whereas normative economics concerns the ought or ethical statements that data or theory may imply (Davis, 2016). Economics, furthermore, suffers from lack of diversity: from white men constituting the majority of researchers and teachers, to textbooks that fail to show the diverse range of real people participating in the economy (Aerni, Bartlett, Lewis, McGoldrick, & Shackelford, 1999). …

Context Matters: Influence Of Organizational, Environmental, And Social Factors On Civic Environmental Stewardship Group Intensity, Michelle L. Johnson, Dexter H. Locke, Erika Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Lynne M. Westphal, Michele Romolini, J. Morgan Grove

Center for Urban Resilience Scholarship

Civic environmental stewardship groups actively take care of their local environment and are known to work in urban contexts. Research on the geographies of this urban environmental stewardship is young. Understanding where stewardship groups work and the associated organizational and neighborhood contexts advances the understanding of the environmental outcomes of stewardship efforts. We examine the organizational, socioeconomic, and environmental contexts associated with the number of stewardship groups at the Census block group and neighborhood scales for four diverse U.S. cities (Baltimore, MD; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; and Seattle, WA). We found relatively consistent and strong relationships with both average …

« More Than Brides Alliance (Mtba) » : Rapport D’Évaluation À Mi-Parcours Au Mali Et Au Niger, Andrea J. Melnikas, Grace Saul, Mouhamadou Gueye, Aissa Diarra, Sajeda Amin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

L’Alliance « Plus qu’une épouse » (More Than Brides Alliance—MTBA) a été formée, rassemblant les forces d’une équipe diversifiée, compétente pour la mise en œuvre et la recherche de programmes destinés aux adolescents. Le volet recherche de l’Alliance MTBA vise à fournir des preuves et des connaissances sur ce qui fonctionne pour retarder le mariage des enfants en Inde, au Malawi, au Mali, au Niger et au Pakistan en évaluant le programme d’intervention de l’Alliance MTBA et en examinant les facteurs spécifiques du mariage des enfants dans chaque contexte. Dans ce rapport, nous visons à évaluer les succès du programme …

The Girl Roster: A Practical Tool For Strengthening Girl-Centered Programming, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This brief describes the Girl Roster^TM, a practical tool designed by the Population Council to help practitioners understand their program areas and elicit foundational information to intentionally link girls—especially highly marginalized adolescent girls—to the vital resources, facilities, and services to which they are entitled but often have limited or no access. The tool is a user-friendly, efficient, and cost-effective way to collect program-relevant information about girls in a community, using a mobile phone–based questionnaire (or, where resources do not permit, paper and pencil). The tool enables users to see a fuller view of girls’ lived realities in defined …

Examining Early Marriage In India: Qualitative Findings, Neelanjana Pandey, Komal Saxena, Andrea J. Melnikas

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The More Than Brides Alliance (MTBA) implements the “Marriage: No Child’s Play” program (2016–20) in India, Malawi, Mali, Niger, and Pakistan. The MTBA is a holistic program that addresses early marriage through multiple strategies, including: sexual and reproductive health and rights, livelihoods, education, and prevalent community social norms around marriage. Furthermore, the program operates at multiple levels (girl, family, community, block, and district) to address individual, familial, and structural barriers to reducing child marriage in these communities. This report first looks at the legal environment in which programs operate by examining participants’ awareness of laws, acts, and programs related to …

More Than A Backdrop: Understanding The Role Of Communities In Programming For Adolescent Girls—Action Guide, Sarah Blake, Miriam Temin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The structural and social features of a girl’s community play a critical role in determining what effects programs for adolescent girls can achieve. Girls’ communities include both the physical spaces girls must navigate and adults and peers who shape their beliefs about marriage, work, and education. This action guide focuses on key questions to ask when designing programs: How many girls live in a given community? Is the community urban, peri-urban, or rural? Is it formal or informal? How stable or cohesive is a community? Who is considered a “community member”? What resources exist for girls in the community, and …

Making The Most Of Mentors: Recruitment, Training, And Support Of Mentors For Adolescent Girl Programming—Toolkit, Miriam Temin, Eva Roca

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Mentors are an important part of many effective programs for girls, yet little information is available about the practical aspects of developing and supporting a successful mentor cadre. This toolkit pulls together lessons, tips, and insights that can be adapted and used to find, train, monitor, support, and evaluate mentors. The information is based on materials from programs for adolescent girls implemented by the Population Council. The resources are applicable to program planners, mentor supervisors, and mentors. All resources may be adapted to local contexts.

Founding Conditions And Benefit Offerings: Evidence From U.S. Startups, Xiang Yi, Yang Xu

Research, Publications & Creative Work

• Purpose: This paper tries to answer the following research question: At the time of founding of a startup, what entrepreneurial conditions would influence the long-term offerings of HR benefits? To answer this question, our study examines the effects of four founding conditions of startups – total assets, founder’s education, industry experience and startup experience –on the basis of the resource-based view of firms.

• Design/methodology/approach: Using data from the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) conducted in the period 2005-2010, this paper analyzed the relationships between the founding conditions and the offering of HR benefits by 4148 new ventures during the first five …

Modelling Preservice Science Teachers’ Environment-Friendly Behaviours, Murat Berat Uçar, Erdal Canpolat

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among the preservice science teachers’ proenvironmental behaviours, environmental identity, and ecocentric and anthropocentric attitudes toward environment. A total of 576 (407 females and 169 males) preservice science teachers enrolling in five public universities’ education faculties in Eastern and South-eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey were administered a questionnaire regarding the variables. Convenience sampling method was chosen to constitute the sample of this study. In order to analyse the data collected, descriptive statistics and path analysis as inferential statistics were utilized. According to the results of the study, preservice science teachers …

Health And Physical Education Teacher Education 2.0: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions On Developing Digital Twitter Skills, Brendon P. Hyndman, Stephen Harvey

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The advent of Web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter are reflective of an improved capacity for global educative collaboration. Yet there is an absence of research determining the potential of social media within Health and Physical Education Teacher Education (H-PETE). The aim of this paper was to therefore determine pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) perceptions of the potential of using Twitter within H-PETE training. The study was underpinned by a constructivist online learning framework. PSTs (n=35) enrolled at a regional Australian university were recruited to participate via online survey. Themes revealed PSTs perceived Twitter could be valuable during H-PETE for facilitating learning, …

Over, Under And Around: Spanish Heritage Speakers' Production (And Avoidance) Of Subjunctive Mood, David Giancaspro

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

The present study explores the subjunctive mood production of 29 heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish (17 advanced proficiency and 12 intermediate proficiency) and 14 Spanish-dominant controls (SDCs). All participants completed a Contextualized Elicited Production Task (CEPT), which tested their oral production of both lexically-selected (intensional) and contextually-selected (polarity) mood morphology in Spanish. Between-group analyses of the CEPT reveal that the HSs diverge significantly from the SDCs in subjunctive production, specifically by underproducing, overproducing, and avoiding subjunctive mood morphology. Despite these differences, however, the HSs still exhibited sensitivity to mood, producing significantly more subjunctive mood in expected subjunctive contexts than in …

Application Of Multiscale Fuzzy Entropy Features For Multilevel Subject-Dependent Emotion Recognition, Hamzah Lotfalinezhad, Ali Maleki

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Emotion recognition can be used in clinical and nonclinical situations. Despite previous works which mostly used time and frequency features of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in subject-dependent emotion recognition issues, we used multiscale fuzzy entropy as a nonlinear dynamic feature. The EEG signals of the well-known Database for Emotion Analysis Using Physiological signals dataset was used for classification of two and three levels of emotions in arousal and valence space. The compound feature selection with a cost of average accuracy of support vector machine classifier was used to reduce feature dimensions. For subject-dependent systems, the proposed method is superior in comparison …

Measurement Of Network-Based And Random Meetings In Social Networks, Pranav Nerurkar, Madhav Chandane, Sunil Bhirud

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Social networks are created by the underlying behavior of the actors involved in them. Each actor has interactions with other actors in the network and these interactions decide whether a social relationship should develop between them. Such interactions may occur due to meeting processes such as chance-based meetings or network-based (choice) meetings. Depending upon which of these two types of interactions plays a greater role in creation of links, a social network shall evolve accordingly. This evolution shall result in the social network obtaining a suitable structure and certain unique features. The aim of this work is to determine the …

Automation, Jobs, And Employment, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

Technology has advanced many aspects of the workforce and many employees will need to increase skills (Jahn, 2017) but who will ensure that current workers get this new knowledge? This paper reviews the impact of recent technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) that is anticipated to cause massive unemployment for the under-skilled and even threatens some white-collared workers (West, 2017). Alternatively, improved technologies can offer new opportunities. Automation can allow workers to have enriched lives and charge organizations with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to prepare workers for new methods. A survey of students’ anxieties about job displacements and expectations.

2019 Annual Report, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Foundation Annual Reports

The 2019 Annual Report from the SWOSU Foundation, Inc

Mujeres Que Trabajan: La Economía Feminista En La Narrativa De Eider Rodríguez, Iker Gonzalez-Allende

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

This article analyzes four contemporary short stories written by Basque author Eider Rodríguez that address women’s obstacles and oppressive conditions in the labor market. Using the theories of feminist economists such as Amaia Pérez Orozco, Cristina Carrasco Bengoa, and Lourdes Benería, I analyze how in these narratives women are forced to leave their paid jobs when becoming mothers, being reduced to a maternal and domestic identity, or they try to reconcile their professional and family life, thus suffering physical and mental exhaustion and emotional instability. The short stories also show the poor working conditions that women face, having to work …

The Mañana Complex: A Revelatory Narrative Of Teachers’ White Innocence And Racial Disgust Toward Mexican–American Children, Amanda Morales, Elvira Abrica, Socorro Herrera

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper presents selected findings from an ethnographic case study of at a public junior high school. Analysis of White teachers’ discourse implicated a perspective of Mexican–American children that we describe as a mañana complex, a perceived association between Mexican–Americans and the term “mañana” (Spanish: “tomorrow”). We outline how this mañana complex among White teachers is indicative of historical racial tropes of Mexicans in the United States while also reflecting current anti-Mexican discourse emboldened and made more fervent by the current US presidential administration. Ultimately, the mañana complex is an example of both racial disgust toward Mexican–American children (Matias and …

2019 Annual Report, Ben Bohall, John Erixson

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

No abstract provided.

Drought Impacts And Management In Prairie And Sandhills State Parks, Theresa M. Jedd, Devarati Bhattacharya, Cara Pesek, Michael J. Hayes

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: Technical Reports and Related Materials

The combination of decreased water availability and increased temperatures can interfere with outdoor activities, particularly with surface water decline and the increased risk of wildfire. Drought is a longer-term climate trend, but there is a tendency toward short-term reactions only when a drought occurs. Policy mechanisms for drought, where present, are often left to managerial discretion because they are not needed every year, and lack specific indicators. Recreator choices contribute to adaptation and public lands managers also shape drought response by monitoring meteorological trends and managing resources wisely. Despite these trends, no singular recreational drought definition exists. To understand socio-environmental …

Drought Impacts And Management In Prairie And Sandhills State Parks, Theresa M. Jedd, Devarati Bhattacharya, Cara Pesek, Michael J. Hayes

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: Technical Reports and Related Materials

The combination of decreased water availability and increased temperatures can interfere with outdoor activities, particularly with surface water decline and the increased risk of wildfire. Drought is a longer-term climate trend, but there is a tendency toward short-term reactions only when a drought occurs. Policy mechanisms for drought, where present, are often left to managerial discretion because they are not needed every year, and lack specific indicators. Recreator choices contribute to adaptation and public lands managers also shape drought response by monitoring meteorological trends and managing resources wisely. Despite these trends, no singular recreational drought definition exists. To understand socio-environmental …

Jagoda Duvnjak & Ana Komso, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Abundance And Diversity Of Grasshoppers And Their Ectoparasitic Mites In South Dakota, Erica Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In South Dakota, grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Acrididae) are sporadic pests that can cause economic injury to rangeland and crops during outbreaks. It is important to know which grasshopper species are present as not all have the same potential to cause damage. USDA-APHIS conducts annual grasshopper surveys in western South Dakota rangelands, but the last published survey was in 1925. Of the potential biological control agents existing, grasshopper mites feed on grasshopper eggs and the larvae are ectoparasites of nymph and adult grasshoppers. Previous studies suggest that mite larvae reduce grasshopper fecundity and mobility, making them useful for integrated pest management of …

Data Note: Social Security Administration Data Show A Record Low Level Of Pass Usage Among Ssi Recipients, Daria Domin, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

The Social Security Administration (SSA) offers a set of work incentives for Supplemental Security income (SSI) beneficiaries. Work incentive employment supports help SSI recipients go to work by minimizing the risk of losing their SSI or Medicaid benefits (Social Security Administration, 2018). One such incentive, the Plan to Achieve Self-Support (PASS), allows approved individuals to set aside earned or unearned income and resources to achieve an employment goal. The money or resources set aside are excluded from SSI income and resource tests and can be used to pay for goods or services needed to reach the goal, such as education, …

Service Provider Promising Practice - Penn-Mar Human Services: Creating Their “2020 Strategic Plan”, Esther Kamau, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

At the beginning of the transformation process, Penn-Mar recognized the importance of robust strategic planning to understand what the organization needed to do differently to transform. Therefore, Penn-Mar created the 2020 Strategic Plan, a 5-year plan to help focus the organization, and to strategize about how to achieve their objectives. The 2020 Strategic Plan outlines Penn-Mar’s goal to close its sheltered workshop, with a set of action steps for achievement. The plan set a specific date for closure, as Penn-Mar staff argued that without it, the transformation process would “linger forever.” Penn-Mar established a task force to support the development …

Service Provider Promising Practice - The Arc Of Westchester: Creative Partnership With Mercy College, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

The Arc of Westchester benefits from an agency culture that values innovative partnerships. In fact, an agency leader explained that the organization “will work with anybody who is willing to sit and talk.” This collaborative spirit led to a creative endeavor with Mercy College, a four-year school offering degrees in Business, Education, Liberal Arts, Health and Natural Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. Within Health and Natural Sciences are departments such as nursing, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and nutrition. The Arc of Westchester partnered with these departments to form a mutually beneficial relationship, creating opportunities for both college …

Service Provider Promising Practice - Arc Of Westchester: Annual Employer Appreciation Breakfast, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

The Arc of Westchester was established in in New York State in 1949 as a day school for children with developmental disabilities. It has since grown to over 800 hundred employees serving over 2000 individuals throughout Westchester county supporting children, teens, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization’s vision is a world where the population that they serve enjoy fulfilled lives and an inspired future while the mission focuses on strengthening families and encouraging personal choices, abilities and interests. The programs focus on the individual, helping them discover their interests, develop their talents and prepare for meaningful careers. …