Digital Commons Network^™

Misinformation Containment Using Nlp And Machine Learning: Why The Problem Is Still Unsolved, Vishnu S. Pendyala

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Despite the increased attention and substantial research into it claiming outstanding successes, the problem of misinformation containment has only been growing in the recent years with not many signs of respite. Misinformation is rapidly changing its latent characteristics and spreading vigorously in a multi-modal fashion, sometimes in a more damaging manner than viruses and other malicious programs on the internet. This chapter examines the existing research in natural language processing and machine learning to stop the spread of misinformation, analyzes why the research has not been practical enough to be incorporated into social media platforms, and provides future research directions. …

Factors Influencing Educational Equity In Online Instruction For Students During Covid-19, Sudha Krishnan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This qualitative study examined special education teachers’ perceptions of student success in online instruction during the pandemic school closures to isolate the key determinants in the differential student outcomes reported by the teachers. Data were collected from 16 teachers using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic coding. The six themes that emerged from the data were that the key determinants of student outcomes were variables related to teacher, school administrator, district, student, parent, and pedagogy. The study showed that underlying deficit thinking in school professionals, lack of planned support for those parents and students needing the most support, and limited …

Tesol Programs In Flux, Priyanvada Abeywickrama, Stefan Frazier, David Malinowski, Scott Phillabaum

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

TESOL graduate programs in the U.S. have seen a steady decline in international and domestic student applications over the past several years. Among the possible causes of this decline are economic turmoil, changing immigration policies and politics, and broader social turbulence, issues that were present before the COVID-19 pandemic but which have been exacerbated by its persistence, forever changing education and learning. As we look forward, TESOL graduate programs must rethink, re-envision, and reconsider how they prepare teachers for a changing world. This chapter discusses ways that two well-established graduate TESOL programs have confronted the changes mentioned above, and presents …

A New Form Of A Multicultural Church For Today's Multilingual Context, Hunn Choi

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Reciprocity, Equity And Quality Of Ethics Review For Multisite Research During Public Health Crises: The Experience Of The Covid-19 Clinical Research Coalition Ethics Working Group, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Jennyfer Ambe, Jantina De Vries

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

In this paper we report findings from a commissioned report to the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition on approaches to streamline multinational REC review/approval during public health emergencies. As currently envisioned in the literature, a system of REC mutual recognition is theoretically possible based on shared procedural REC standards, but raises numerous concerns about perceived inequities and mistrust.

What Mcculloch V. Maryland Got Wrong: The Original Meaning Of "Necessary" Is Not "Useful", "Convenient", Or "Rational", Steven Gow Calabresi, Elise Kostial, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

McCulloch v. Maryland, echoing Alexander Hamilton nearly thirty years earlier, claimed of the word “necessary” in the Necessary and Proper Clause: “If reference be had to its use, in the common affairs of the world, or in approved authors, we find that it frequently imports that one thing is convenient, or useful . . . to another.” Modern case law has translated that understanding into a rational-basis test that treats the issue of necessity as all but nonjusticiable; The Supreme Court has never found a congressional law unconstitutional on the ground that it was not “necessary . . . …

Humanizing Corporate Governance, Caleb N. Griffin

Faculty Publications

American corporate governance evolved in a different era, for a type of investor who is no longer typical today. Roughly half of Americans own investment funds, but legal and structural impediments prevent these “human investors” from fully participating in corporate democracy.

One response—“so what?”—is based on the assumption that investors are rationally apathetic. Most investors have so little at stake, the argument goes, that it is economically irrational for them to vote in corporate elections. What this argument misses is that investors’ rational apathy is not fixed. Instead, it is a function of the costs and benefits of voting. If …

Embracing Rural First-Generation College Student Scholar Identity: Wading Waist Deep In Unfamiliar Waters, Robert Hayes

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

First-generation college students do not persist to degree completion at the same rate as their continuing generation peers. There is a wide range of research focusing on the challenges and opportunities that first-generation college students experience, ranging from pre-matriculation factors, the transition period to college, and throughout the undergraduate years. The achievement gap, in terms of persistence to degree, has been a consistent focus of research as first-generation students routinely do not earn college degrees at the same rate as their continuing generation peers. This research takes a holistic approach to understanding the first-generation college student experience that does not …

Internationalizing The Teacher Education Curriculum Toward Global Competency: Academic Leaders’ Perceptions, Ellie F. G. Holliday

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

To prepare students for an increasingly interconnected world, P-12 teachers must be trained to infuse intercultural and global perspectives into their teaching practice. However, teacher education programs (TEPs) have been criticized for their lack of global perspectives in the curriculum and have been found to be the least internationalized programs at United States (U.S.) universities. Though university senior international officers (SIOs) play a large role in developing a strategic approach toward curriculum internationalization, there is a paucity of research on their perspectives on this process.

In this explanatory sequential mixed methods study, TEP leaders and SIOs at universities in the …

Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge As Communal Practice: A Case Study Of Chemistry Graduate Teaching Assistants, Walker Bryan Mask

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Learning does not only happen during dedicated instructional time, which also applies to learning how to teach. Teachers can reflect on their practice while working to continue to improve and develop their teaching skills. In addition to self-reflection, teachers can also learn from their colleagues to experiment with new practices and take others’ teaching knowledge into their repertoire. Understanding how these two processes function can lead to developments in teacher education and professional development, specifically for initiatives that seek to promote collaboration among teachers. Post-secondary educators in particular can benefit from collaborative and reflective practices to improve their teaching, especially …

Transformative Learning In Teachers’ Family Collaboration With English Learner Families: The Role Of Beliefs, Cultural Competence, And Communities Of Practice, Sara Saberimoghaddam

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Through a multiple case approach, this qualitative research study examined how teachers' beliefs on family collaboration and cultural competence related to their family collaboration practices within Culturally Responsive Instruction. The learning theories of Communities of Practice (Lave &Wenger, 1991) and Transformative Learning (Mezirow, 1978), and Critical Consciousness (Freire, 1979) were used as the lens to analyze the data. Teacher interviews and classroom observations were used as data sources. The study found that teachers’ perception of cultural competence impacted their classroom practices. Teachers who worked hard to intentionally change their cultural competence awareness into family collaboration actions appeared to be more …

Teachers’ Sustained Culturally Responsive Practices Three Years After Participation In Professional Development, Brittany Manion

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Teacher professional development (PD) on culturally responsive practices (CRP) provides teachers the opportunity to increase their knowledge and change their practices to better support students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This study sampled from a year-long intensive PD on effective instructional practices for English learners (ELs). Grounded in transformative and situated learning theories, this study was designed to understand teachers’ sustained CRP and their experiences four years after participating in a CRP PD. Several questions were investigated in this study: What CRP do teachers sustain? What are factors and supports related to teachers’ sustained implementation? What challenges do teachers …

Score Equating Between Aeps-2 And Aeps-3 For 0-3 Year Olds, Yuyan Xia

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Over the past two decades, the emphasis on educational equity in early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE) has highlighted the importance of assessment through policies and regulations. Ensuring accurate assessment scores is a fundamental aspect of this trend. The release of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children, Third Edition (AEPS-3) in December 2021 led to a shift from the Second Edition (AEPS-2) in child development scoring. In order to harmonize the previous and updated assessment versions for children aged 0-3 across six developmental domains, a common item non-equivalent design, featuring fixed parameter …

Transplanted Appalachians’ Perspectives Of Culturally Relevant Topics/Texts And How These Topics/Texts Aid In Their Reading Comprehension, Kathryn E. H. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

The purpose of this research study was to understand Transplanted Appalachians’ perspectives of culturally relevant topics/texts and how these topics/texts aid in their reading comprehension. This culturally relevant study was framed using Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, Barton and Hamilton’s (1998) literacy as a social practice, and Rosenblatt’s (1994) transactional theory. Research participants included five transplanted Appalachian adults from the Central Appalachian Region. The research methods included one introductory interview, four think-alouds, four post think-aloud interviews, and four Cultural Relevance Rubrics. Results from the data sources revealed the participants strongly related to six cultural themes including: community, authentic Appalachian experiences (e.g., …

Conceptualizing Socio-Emotional Disablism: A Duoethnography Of Crohn’S Disease And Ocd During Covid-19, Kristen L. Cole, Brandi Lawless

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

We utilize duoethnography to help readers better understand the constitutive nature of disability in the contexts of chronic illness and mental health. By doing so, we articulate the concept of socio-emotional disablism, which expands structural and psycho-emotional theories of disablism to account for the ways socio-material interactions trigger emotion-work—the communicative labor and fatigue that accompanies negotiating our own emotions as well as the emotions of others in disabling contexts—thus limiting relational and ideological engagement with disability. We conclude by discussing what the concept of socio-emotional disablism teaches us about how to build more inclusive social futures through deeper interpersonal engagement …

Network Anatomy In Logopenic Variant Of Primary Progressive Aphasia, Maria Luisa Mandelli, Diego L. Lorca-Puls, Sladjana Lukic, Maxime Montembeault, Andrea Gajardo-Vidal, Abigail Licata, Aaron Scheffler, Giovanni Battistella, Stephanie M. Grasso, Rian Bogley, Buddhika M. Ratnasiri, Renaud La Joie, Nidhi S. Mundada, Eduardo Europa, Gil Rabinovici, Bruce L. Miller, Jessica De Leon, Maya L. Henry, Zachary Miller, Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized linguistically by gradual loss of repetition and naming skills resulting from left posterior temporal and inferior parietal atrophy. Here, we sought to identify which specific cortical loci are initially targeted by the disease (epicenters) and investigate whether atrophy spreads through predetermined networks. First, we used cross-sectional structural MRI data from individuals with lvPPA to define putative disease epicenters using a surface-based approach paired with an anatomically fine-grained parcellation of the cortical surface (i.e., HCP-MMP1.0 atlas). Second, we combined cross-sectional functional MRI data from healthy controls and longitudinal …

Effectiveness Of In-Person Versus Online Negotiation Teaching For Practitioners, Patricia Oehlschläger, Michael A. Merz

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Most negotiation courses have been taught in person. However, online education has become more prevalent over the past decade due to its flexibility, cost and time efficiency, and new digital technologies designed to compensate for the lack of personal contact. The global pandemic has accelerated this trend, raising the question of whether negotiation courses taught online are as effective as those taught in person. The few studies that have examined the effect of teaching modality on student performance were limited to undergraduate and graduate student samples and the results have been mixed. To contribute to this discussion, we conducted two …

Shifting Mediates Gendered Racial Microaggressions And Perceived Racism Among Asian American Women, Glenn Gamst, Christine Ma-Kellams, Lawrence S. Meyers, Leticia Arellano-Morales

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Introduction: Microaggressive attacks on Asian American women increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study tested whether Asian American women's shifting, a coping strategy employed by some women of color to alter their self-presentation in response to perceived racism, mediated the association between gendered racial microaggressions and self-perceived subtle and blatant racism. Methods: A convenience sample of 253 Asian American adult women completed the gendered racial microaggressions scale for Asian American women (GRMSAAW), the Asian American women's shifting scale (AsAWSS), and the subtle and blatant racism scale for Asian American college students (SABR-A2). Results: Results from a structural equation model …

Phonological Decoding Skill In Braille Readers: Implications For Dyslexia, Lindsay N. Harris, Luis E. Lopez, Ailing Li, Alecia Santuzzi

CISLL Publications

Highly developed phonological decoding ability is essential for leveraging the phonological decoding self-teaching loop to efficiently build a reading lexicon. In the present study we compared the phonological decoding abilities of blind braille-reading (n = 29) and sighted print-reading (n = 22) adults to investigate the possibility that braille’s complexity reduces instances of successful decoding and self-teaching. Such a disturbance of the learning loop would amplify any underlying cognitive deficits in braille readers and contribute to the high rates of learning disability diagnosis observed in blind children. Contrary to expectations, we found that braille readers had a higher …

Bypass Language En Route To Meaning At Your Peril, Lindsay N. Harris, Charles A. Perfetti, Elizabeth Hirshorn

CISLL Publications

The learning account of the puzzle of ideography cannot be dismissed as readily as Morin maintains, and is compatible with the standardization account. The reading difficulties of deaf and dyslexic individuals, who cannot easily form connections between written letter strings and spoken words, suggest limits to our ability to bypass speech and reliably access meaning directly from graphic symbols.

Freedom Of Expression: Values And Harms, Camden Hutchison

All Faculty Publications

When considering restrictions on socially disfavoured expression, the Supreme Court of Canada has often considered the targeted expression’s “value.” In the seminal cases of Ford v. Quebec and Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec, the Supreme Court articulated the importance of expressive freedom by relating it to three core values: (1) seeking and attaining the truth; (2) participation in democratic institutions; and (3) diversity in forms of individual selffulfillment. Subsequent cases considering restrictions on expression have evaluated the extent to which the targeted expression advances these values. Ironically, although Ford and Irwin Toy embraced a broad conception of expressive freedom, the …

The Impact Of Gestational Diabetes On The Offspring, Deborah Daniel

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

A prevalent pregnancy condition known as gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is characterized by elevated blood sugar levels while pregnant. GDM poses implications for both maternal and fetal health. Through extensive research, this paper provides a thorough analysis of the potential effects of GDM on the offspring. According to studies, GDM can negatively impact fetal growth and development, increasing the risk of macrosomia, shoulder dystocia, and neonatal hypoglycemia. Additionally, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension are among the metabolic and cardiovascular disorders that infants born to women with GDM are more likely to experience as adults. These long-term effects may be …

Lead Cap Use In Interventional Cardiology: Time To Protect Our Head In The Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory?, Yasar Sattar, Prasanna M Sengodan, Mustafa Sajjad Cheema, Nismat Javed, Shoaib Ashraf, Sadaf Fakhra, Anas Alharbi, Moinuddin Syed, Mahboob Alam, Islam Y Elgendy, Affan Haleem, Akram Kawsara, M Chadi Alraies, Ramesh Daggubati

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Radiation exposure is an occupational hazard for interventional cardiologists and cardiac catheterisation laboratory staff that can manifest with serious long-term health consequences. Personal protective equipment, including lead jackets and glasses, is common, but the use of radiation protective lead caps is inconsistent.

Methods: A systematic review qualitative assessment of five observational studies using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines protocol was performed.

Results: It was concluded that lead caps significantly reduce radiation exposure to the head, even when a ceiling-mounted lead shield was present.

Conclusion: Although newer protective systems are being …

Misogynistic Extremism: A Scoping Review, Robin O'Hanlon, Frederick L. Altice, Roy Ka-Wei Lee, Jack Laviolette, Gloria Mark, Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, Koustuv Saha, Munmun De Choudhury, Navin Kumar

Publications and Research

In recent years, the concept of “misogynistic extremism” has emerged as a subject of interest among scholars, governments, law enforcement personnel, and the media. Yet a consistent understanding of how misogynistic extremism is defined and conceptualized has not yet emerged. Varying epistemological orientations may contribute to the current conceptual muddle of this topic, reflecting long-standing and on-going challenges with the conceptualization of its individual components. To address the potential impact of misogynistic extremism (i.e., violent attacks), a more precise understanding of what this phenomenon entails is needed. To summarize the existing knowledge base on the nature of misogynistic extremism, this …

Differences Between Monolinguals And Bilinguals In Phonetic And Phonological Learning And The Connection With Auditory Sensory Memory, Laura Spinu, Jiwon Hwang, Mariana Vasilita

Publications and Research

Bilingualism has been linked with improved function regarding certain aspects of linguistic processing, e.g., novel word acquisition and learning unfamiliar sound patterns. Two non mutually-exclusive approaches might explain these results. One is related to executive function, speculating that more effective learning is achieved through actively choosing relevant information while inhibiting potentially interfering information. While still controversial, executive function enhancements attributed to bilingual experience have been reported for decades. The other approach, understudied to date, emphasizes the role of sensory mechanisms, specifically auditory sensory memory. Bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in tasks involving auditory processing and episodic memory recall, but the questions whether …

People Are Curious About Immoral And Morally Ambiguous Others, Jordan Wylie, Ana Gantman

Publications and Research

Looking to the popularity of superheroes, true crime stories, and anti-heroic characters like Tony Soprano, we investigated whether moral extremity, especially moral badness, piques curiosity. Across five experiments (N = 2429), we examine moral curiosity, testing under what conditions the moral minds of others spark explanation-seeking behavior. In Experiment 1, we find that among the most widely watched Netflix shows in the US over a five-month period, the more immoral the protagonist, the more hours people spent watching. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we find that when given a choice to learn more about morally good, bad, ambiguous, or …

Extreme Translation: Six Medieval Lessons For Everyone, Michelle Warren

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unexpected Wins: Curating Comics And Teaching Manga From The Dark Horse Comics Collection, Elsa Loftis, Jon Holt

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

A familiar staple of entertainment for a wide variety of readers, the comic book has not always held a regular place in the academic library. Concerning themselves with collecting more traditional expressions of scholarship, libraries have not historically dedicated much of their acquisitions budgets to this area. Therefore, the comic book or graphic novel was largely relegated to someone’s personal collection and would more likely be found on the shelves of a comic book store than the shelves of a university library.

Fast-forward to the present day, where library collections more commonly provide access to comic books, either in regular …

The Dog That Didn’T Bark: Looking For Techno-Libertarian Ideology In A Decade Of Public Discourse About Big Tech Regulation, Jodi L. Short, Reuel E, Schiller, Susan Sibley, Noah Jones, Babak Hammatian, Lee Anna Bowman-Carpio

Faculty Scholarship

The internet was built on the techno-libertarian ideology that “information wants to be free,” and that ideology has played a prominent role in academic and policy debates about regulating the internet and the big technology companies that dominate it.2 Techno-libertarian ideology has generated a constellation of claims about tech and regulation—from the suggestion that regulation will stifle innovation in the complex, dynamic tech sector, to the assertion that the large platform companies are literally not regulable. In this article, we explore how much traction such claims and ideologies have in the broader public discourse about big tech and regulation. We …

A Test Of Subjective Versus Objective Language Proficiency: An Investigation Of Age Of Acquisition And Exposure In Multilinguals, Anastina B. Steiber

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This research used the BEST dataset gathered in 2017 by de Bruin and colleagues, which contains information gathered from 650 multilingual participants (435 female, Mage = 25.02) from the Basque Country at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL). Multilingual individuals may have different levels of proficiency in each language they speak, and there are various factors that can influence proficiency. Such factors include the age at which they begin learning a language and how much exposure they have to the language. Proficiency can be assessed both subjectively (personal perception of proficiency) and objectively (observed and/or measured …