Digital Commons Network^™

Pitfalls Of Ambiguity In Contexts Of Islamophobia: Mohsin Hamid’S The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Ambreen Hai

English Language and Literature: Faculty Publications

This article examines the implications of particular representational and narrative strategies that postcolonial writers, especially from Muslim-majority nations, can utilize to respond to 9/11 and its aftermath. Mohsin Hamid's novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist has been hailed as the paradigmatic counter-discursive, antiimperialist, non-Western Muslim response. Literary scholars of various stripes have tended to regard its sustained ambiguities and deliberately incomplete ending as a sign of its richness. However, this article intervenes to offer instead a nuanced critique of Hamid's uses of ambiguity, based on postcolonial feminist literary analysis and a reading of actual readers' readings. Drawing on Hamid's own stated goals …

Martuwarra Country: A Historical Perspective (1838-Present), Martuwarra Riveroflife, Magalie Mcduffie, Anne Poelina

Nulungu Reports

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Chronic Health Conditions And Cognitive Deficits In Children, Adolescents, And Young Adults With Down Syndrome: A Systematic Review, Kellen C Gandy, Heidi A Castillo, Lara Ouellette, Jonathan Castillo, Philip J Lupo, Lisa M Jacola, Karen R Rabin, Kimberly P Raghubar, Maria M Gramatges

Library Staff Publications

BACKGROUND: Individuals with Down syndrome are predisposed to a number of chronic health conditions, but the relationship between these conditions and cognitive ability is not clear. The primary objective of this systematic review is to assess this relationship by evaluating studies that measure cognitive performance in the context of Down syndrome-associated chronic health conditions.

METHODS: A systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Studies included in this review (1) included children, adolescent, and young adult participants with Down syndrome and one or more co-occurring health conditions; (2) were quantitative; …

Ideological Asymmetries In Social Psychological Research: Rethinking The Impact Of Political Context On Ideological Epistemology, Ingrid J. Haas

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Ideological asymmetries in social psychological research: rethinking the impact of political context on ideological epistemology.

Conclusion

In sum, while I agree with many of the arguments raised by Clark and Winegard (this issue), we should continue to de-bate the degree to which liberals and conservatives are equally motivated by tribalism, especially in the context of contemporary American politics. While there is no doubt that personal political views influence the questions that scientists deem important, I do wonder to what extent the ideological biases recently observed in the field of social psychology generalize to the social sciences as a whole (and …

Преподавание Русской Грамматики На Продвинутом Этапе (Методические Заметки), Ирина Сапронова, Людмила Екшембеева

Russian Language Journal

The article Teaching Russian Grammar to Advanced Students (Instructional Observations) discusses current issues in the development of control of grammatical structures by American students of Russian who have achieved Level B2 and are training to Level C1 (ILR-3/3/3) in preparation for the TRKI-3 and Flagship certification exams. Particular attention is paid to the use of a functional-communicative grammar (FCG) and the functioning of language tools at various levels, taking into account the principles of pedagogical consistency and linguistic complexity.

Examples are presented of the algorithms used to organize the presentation and sequencing of course content material with the goal of …

Evidentiary Irony And The Incomplete Rule Of Completeness: A Proposal To Amend Federal Rule Of Evidence 106, Daniel J. Capra, Liesa L. Richter

Faculty Articles

In recent years, there have been many calls and suggestions for a more equitable criminal justice system. Although sometimes overlooked in that dialogue, the fair operation of the Federal Rules of Evidence is a crucial component in ensuring such an equitable system. Unfortunately, the interpretation of Federal Rule of Evidence 106 in some jurisdictions permits unjust results, particularly for criminal defendants seeking to rely upon the Rule. Rule 106, also known as the “rule of completeness,” is premised upon notions of fundamental fairness and ostensibly permits a party to force its adversary to introduce the remainder of a written or …

The Corporate Chameleon, Megan Wischmeier Shaner

Faculty Articles

Who is an “officer” of a corporation? That is the straightforward, yet complex, question this Article seeks to examine and answer. Corporate law contemplates three distinct actors involved in the governance of the corporation–directors, stockholders, and officers. State corporate statutes make clear the identities of the first two actors, yet “officer” is left relatively undefined. The definitional uncertainty surrounding “officer” results in individuals moving in and out of officer status in a chameleon-like fashion. The variable nature of “officer” in corporate law is problematic because officer status carries with it distinct legal consequences. Linguistic precision is vital to the development, …

A Practical Guide For Using Electronic Surveys In Aviation Research: Best Practices Explained, Stephen Rice, Scott R. Winter

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The purpose of this article is to provide aviation researchers who are interested in using Internet-based surveys with a justification and guide, along with best practices. A brief review of research methods, research design, and research methodologies precedes information on the types of research questions that can best be answered using survey research. The interaction of survey instruments and research design is discussed, such as using a survey instrument in an experimental design. Advantages and disadvantages of paper and electronic distribution are presented to help guide researchers into the best approach given their proposed goals. Guidance is also offered on …

Transformer Neural Networks For Automated Story Generation, Kemal Araz

Dissertations

Towards the last two-decade Artificial Intelligence (AI) proved its use on tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, automated driving. As discussed in the Moore’s law the computational power increased rapidly over the few decades (Moore, 1965) and made it possible to use the techniques which were computationally expensive. These techniques include Deep Learning (DL) changed the field of AI and outperformed other models in a lot of fields some of which mentioned above. However, in natural language generation especially for creative tasks that needs the artificial intelligent models to have not only a precise understanding of the given …

Identifying Online Sexual Predators Using Support Vector Machine, Yifan Li

Dissertations

A two-stage classification model is built in the research for online sexual predator identification. The first stage identifies the suspicious conversations that have predator participants. The second stage identifies the predators in suspicious conversations. Support vector machines are used with word and character n-grams, combined with behavioural features of the authors to train the final classifier. The unbalanced dataset is downsampled to test the performance of re-balancing an unbalanced dataset. An age group classification model is also constructed to test the feasibility of extracting the age profile of the authors, which can be used as features for classifier training. The …

Finetuning Pre-Trained Language Models For Sentiment Classification Of Covid19 Tweets, Arjun Dussa

Dissertations

It is a common practice in today’s world for the public to use different micro-blogging and social networking platforms, predominantly Twitter, to share opinions, ideas, news, and information about many things in life. Twitter is also becoming a popular channel for information sharing during pandemic outbreaks and disaster events. The world has been suffering from economic crises ever since COVID-19 cases started to increase rapidly since January 2020. The virus has killed more than 800 thousand people ever since the discovery as per the statistics from Worldometer [1] which is the authorized tracking website. So many researchers around the globe …

Cultural Mediation In International Exchange Programs: Personalization, Translation, And Coproduction In Exchange Participant Blogs, Kyung Sun Lee, Diana Ingenhoff

All Works

This study analyzes cultural mediation in international exchange participant blogs, exploring their significance for relational public diplomacy. We recognize exchange participant blogs as a site of public diplomacy at work. Moving beyond the dominant assumption guiding exchange programs as exporting values and ideas to foreign publics, we consider the extent to which the public engages in the processes of meaning making. Narrative inquiry of blogs written by participants of German and Japanese government exchange programs finds that the participants negotiate their everyday encounters with the host by personalizing, translating, and coproducing their experiences for and with the audience. The narratives …

Ideological Presuppositions In Media Coverage Of Corporation Tax Policy In The Uk And Ireland: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Ciara Graham, Brendan K. O'Rourke

Conference papers

The focus of this paper is to understand how the crisis of tax avoidance strategies is discursively treated, by looking at the representation of corporation tax in two mediated public discourses in the UK and Ireland. Specifically, it examines the coverage of two prominent, agenda-setting morning radio programmes: BBC’s Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme and RTE’s ‘Morning Ireland’. It does so by performing a Critical Discourse Analysis of the coverage of tax controversies of two high-profile global corporations, Google and Apple Inc, in order to demonstrate the embeddedness of ideology within mediated public discourses of the subject. Both of the tax …

"Your Enemy Is Anyone Who Opposes The Fourteen Words" Murdoch Murdoch: A Case Study In Presentations Of Threats To Ontological Security In Far Right Propaganda, Julian Morein

Capstone Showcase

Adapting the Ethnographic Discourse Analysis method developed by Stanton Wortham and Angela Reyes this thesis traces the language employed in the ethno-nationalist web series Murdoch Murdoch. While not as widely known as other examples of the burgeoning landscape of far-right internet content such as news sites like InfoWars or Brietbart, Murdoch Murdoch can still reveal crucial details about how far right propaganda seeks to radicalize its viewers. This thesis argues that Murdoch Murdoch uses its visual and discursive indexicals to present a near absolute dichotomy between a Positive Self that consists of white ethno-nationalism, and a Negative Other that …

“We’Re Here, We’Re Queer, We Will Not Live In Fear!”: A Content Analysis Exploring Gender Disparity In The Public Reappropriation Of Lgbtq+ Slurs, Nicolas Hall

Capstone Showcase

As minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community have faced many hardships throughout history, such as the use of language as a weapon against them. However, this research explores the public display of linguistic reappropriation of LGBTQ+ derogatory language and terms within the community. Throughout history, the use of slurs (e.g. faggot and dyke) and their social definitions have shifted from having no connection to the community to directly affected these individuals. These terms have been used to demonize members of the LGBTQ+ community for decades. Despite this reality, there are some scholars who suggest that these terms are being reappropriated, …

A Window, Mirror, And Wall: How Educators Use Twitter For Professional Learning, Elizabeth Sturm, Laura Quaynor

Education Department Faculty Articles

Teachers and other professionals increasingly utilize Twitter as a medium for professional expression and professional learning. These types of Twitter exchanges often take place in formal chats which are moderated by professional organizations or other knowledge brokers in the field. As moderated public online forums become more common, educators may wish to understand the benefits and limitations of this type of professional learning. This paper reports on a study of educators’ discourse in two hosted Twitter chats focused on global education and analyzes the ways in which these types of chats align with research on high-quality professional learning. Results indicate …

The Crowbar Sabotaged The Machine: Effects Of Verb Intentionality And Syntactic Structure On Fixation Times During Reading, Michael Pittman

Honors Theses

Research conducted by linguists has indicated that inanimate entities are incompatible with verbs that connote intentionality because inanimate entities lack the facilities to complete intentional actions. However, there are currently no studies that have analyzed this inappropriate relationship in real-time. To address this gap, the current eye-tracking experiment investigated the infelicitous nature of this relationship, as well as how it may be modulated by different syntactic structures. The experiment implemented a 2 x 2 within-subjects design, in which the independent variables were verb type (neutral versus intentional) and syntactic structure (main clause versus relative clause), and the dependent variables were …

White Or Indian? Whiteness And Becoming The White Indian Comics Superhero, Yvonne Patricia Chireau

Religion Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Cosmopolitan Continuities: The Re-Framing Of Historic Architecture And Urban Space In Contemporary Morocco (1990-Present), Simon Fader Idelson

Honors Papers

What is the political and economic significance of old buildings, neighborhoods, and monuments in contemporary Moroccan cities? I address this question by studying historic preservation efforts of state and non-state actors in two Moroccan cities: Tetouan and Rabat. In this study, I argue that two separate elite coalitions of state officials, architects, artists, academics, and activists in the Moroccan cities of Tetouan and Rabat frame their historic architecture and urban spaces (from before Moroccan independence) as demonstrating the city and nation’s enduring cosmopolitanism. By framing their urban heritage, and subsequently their history as cosmopolitan, this elite coalition asserts that Morocco …

Pretraining Deep Learning Models For Natural Language Understanding, Han Shao

Honors Papers

Since the first bidirectional deep learn- ing model for natural language understanding, BERT, emerged in 2018, researchers have started to study and use pretrained bidirectional autoencoding or autoregressive models to solve language problems. In this project, I conducted research to fully understand BERT and XLNet and applied their pretrained models to two language tasks: reading comprehension (RACE) and part-of-speech tagging (The Penn Treebank). After experimenting with those released models, I implemented my own version of ELECTRA, a pretrained text encoder as a discriminator instead of a generator to improve compute-efficiency, with BERT as its underlying architecture. To reduce the number …

1984 And Film: Trauma And The Evolution Of The Punjabi Sikh Identity, Hayley Dawn Segall

Honors Papers

This capstone analyzes Punjabi Sikh identity to expand scholarly discourse on trauma and identity formation. After providing background on Sikh roots in Punjab, this piece relates Sikh trauma from 1984 to a contemporary collective identity. In June 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launched Operation Bluestar; troops stormed the sacred Golden Temple to capture a perceived militant, Jarnail Bhindranwale. Because hundreds of civilians died in the crossfire, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. In retaliation, Hindu nationalists slaughtered thousands of Sikhs in the Delhi Riots. The effects of violence against Sikhs in Operation Bluestar and the Delhi riots reflect both …

The Oberlin Near East Study Collection In Context, Julian Hirsch

Honors Papers

Housed in Oberlin College’s Religion department, the Oberlin Near East Study Collection encompasses a wide variety of archaeological material from the Southern Levant. Its roughly 650 artifacts encompass a vast time span from the Epipaleolithic to the Modern Period with most objects coming from the Iron Age. As a teaching collection, the objects were used to vivify Biblical texts for generations of students in Oberlin’s School of Theology and later in the College’s department of Religion. Starting in the 1980s, the collection began to receive only limited use with its contents being largely forgotten. This thesis utilizes the collection's artifacts, …

Legal Consciousness And The Legal Culture Of Nagpra, Eleanor Haskin

Honors Papers

This thesis explores the "life history" of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). It chronicles NAGPRA's story beginning with what created the perceived need for such an act, the work and the groups of people that went into its ultimate advent in 1990, the "nitty-gritty" details/language of the policy itself, and its various successes and failures throughout the years. With research conducted through the lens of legal anthropology, this paper focuses on the certain "requirements" (education, class, race, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, etc.) that have allowed people(s) to actively participate in the formation/policy-building of NAGPRA, become NAGPRA representatives, …

The Politicization Of Water: Transboundary Water-Conflict In The Indian Subcontinent, Ananya Gupta

Honors Papers

The Himalaya-Hindu Kush mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau birth ten of Asia’s most prominent rivers providing irrigation, energy, and drinking water to over two billion people across several countries today. Therefore, transboundary water sharing is a constant source of conflict for several South Asian countries that rely on rivers to support their primarily agrarian economies.

In recent years, climate change has drastically increased global temperatures. As a result, the Indian subcontinent has been plagued with extreme riverine flood and drought events.

Climate change-related events like riverine floods and drought, exacerbate the politicization of conflict between nations that share natural …

The Unsoundness Of Silence: Silent Concurrences And Their Use In Maryland, Shane M.K. Doyle

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Occupational Needs Of Children With Post Traumatic Brain Injury In The School Setting, Reghan Boldt, Madisyn Rick

Occupational Therapy Capstones

Introduction: The purpose of this project was to develop a guide for occupational therapy practitioners to use in the school setting for elementary-age children with mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI), to increase services for these children, and to improve their back to school transition process.

Methodology: A literature review was conducted to understand the needs and barriers of elementary-age children who transition back to the school setting after experiencing a mTBI. Sources used in the process include online databases, textbooks, and government websites. The Person, Occupation, and Environment (PEO) model by Law and colleagues (1996) was selected to direct the …

Identifying The Needs Of Reticent Pre-Service English Teachers For Remediation Course Development, Soo Ruey Shing, Goh Hock Seng

PASAA

The development of any intervention to remedy student reticence should be based on students' real needs. This is to avoid the risk of making generalisation and hasty decision in designing course contents. This study investigated reticent pre-service English teachers' needs with the view of developing a remedial course to alleviate reticent behaviour and to improve oral participation in English for Academic Purposes classrooms. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, this study employed a survey, a semi-structured interview and a focus group discussion to collect data from pre-service English teachers and English instructors in a Malaysian state university. The findings revealed that the …

The Applicability Of The Partners For Change Outcome Management System For Psychotherapy In South Korea: Exploring Korean Therapists’ Experiences, Sang-Hee Hong

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

The introduction of psychotherapy approaches to another culture may require adjustments, such as cultural adaptation (Benish, Quintana, & Wampold, 2011; Griner & Smith, 2006). Unique features of a specific cultural group, such as a native language and traditional cultural values may interfere with new approaches. Although a client feedback system, the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS; Miller, Duncan, Sorrell, & Brown 2005) has been established as an evidence-based treatment approach with clients in the United States, little has been examined on its utility in Korean psychotherapy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the applicability and …

“Remarkable Influence”: The Unexpected Importance Of Justice Scalia’S Deceptively Unanimous And Contested Majority Opinions, Linda L. Berger, Eric C. Nystrom

Scholarly Works

What constitutes judicial influence and how should it be measured? Curious about the broader role that rhetoric plays in judicial influence over time, we undertook a rhetorical-computational analysis of the 282 majority opinions that Justice Scalia wrote during his 30 years on the Supreme Court. Our analysis is the first to examine the full majority opinion output of a Supreme Court justice using a unique “medium data” approach that combines rhetorical coding with quantitative analysis relying on Shepard’s Citations and LexisNexis headnotes. The resulting study casts doubt on the ability of judicial authors, including Justice Scalia, to control the extent …

Dietary Contributors To Food Group Intake In Preschool Children Attending Family Childcare Homes, Andrea Ramirez-Sanabria

Open Access Master's Theses

Statement of the Problem: Exposing preschool aged children to a variety of healthy food is essential for the development of healthy eating patterns. Therefore, ensuring healthy environments are necessary. This includes Family Childcare Homes (FCCH), a specific type of childcare in which non-relative providers care for the children in their own home. Unfortunately, during childcare, children are not meeting recommendations for fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk; and on the contrary, are consuming too many sugar-sweetened beverages, fruit juice and energy-dense snacks. Most studies have been conducted in childcare centers, and even though FCCH provide care for nearly 2 …