Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Quality Youth Development And The Camp Experience: Results From A Program Improvement Process, M. Deborah Bialeschki

Research in Outdoor Education

Many camp professionals find themselves challenged by their funders, boards, and parents to address the issue of quality of the experiences they offer to youth. Within the larger youth development community, this issue Is receiving critical attention with more evaluations including an assessment of program quality and incorporating setting-level measures in their designs. At the practice level, organizations are looking for tools to help document effective practice and allow practitioners to assess, ·reflect on, and improve their programs (Yohalem, Wilson­Ahlstrom, Fischer, & Shinn, 2007). The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a program improvement process the …

An Exploration Of Camp Directors' Affective Connection To Nature And Camp Programming, Penny A. James, Karla A. Henderson, Barry Garst

Research in Outdoor Education

Organized camping has a long history of providing outdoor recreation and environmental education. Louv's (2005) charge that organized camping has shifted away from tradition raises many questions. This study focuses on the role and influence of camp directors on nature opportunities for children within the camp environment. Camp directors set the tone for camp through communication of the mission and philosophy, and managerial decision-making that influences the organization, daily operation, staffing, and programming options of a particular camp (Ball & Ball, 2004). If programming shifts, as Louv suggested, it requires the sanction and leadership of camp directors. Given the findings …

A Means-End Study Of Outcome Differences Of Females And Males Associated With Outward Bound And National Outdoor Leadership School, Marni Goldenberg, Jason Cummings, Dan Pronsolino

Research in Outdoor Education

This study compares outcomes of male and female participants from Outward Bound (OB) and National Outdoor Leadership Schools (NOLS) courses during the summer of 2006. Means-end theory was used to analyze the differences in males versus females from the 510 subjects' responses. Understanding the differences between the outcomes males and females obtain can lead to specific programming objectives. This can impact how organizations such as OB and NOLS program for both gender-specific and co-educational groups. So therefore, by gaining knowledge of differences between males and females we can then gain an understanding of gender roles and frameworks.

The Effect Of Leadership Style On Sense Of Community And Group Cohesion In Outdoor Pursuits Trip Groups, Timothy S. O'Connell, Sharon Todd, Mary Breunig, Anderson B. Young, Lynn Anderson, Dale Anderson

Research in Outdoor Education

Outdoor pursuits trip programs are widely popular around the world (Attarian, 2001). Many of these programs are centered in colleges and universities, and may be either academic or extracurricular in nature. Participants in these programs engage in a variety of outdoor adventure recreation activities such as backpacking, canoeing, rock climbing, sea kayaking, and caving. Outcomes of participation in these programs include (among others): enhanced problem solving skills; appreciation of the natural environment; increased self-confidence; accomplishment of common goals and objectives; and the development of positive group experiences and interpersonal relationships (Ewert & McAvoy, 2000; Martin, Cashel, Wagstaff, & Breunig, 2006). …

Predictors Of Participant Development Through Adventure Programs: Replication And Extension Of Previous Findings From Nols, Karen Paisley, Jim Sibthorp, Nate Furman, Scott Schumann, John Gookin, Leo H. Mcavoy

Research in Outdoor Education

This study continues the examination of one of the largest and most established adventure education programs in the world, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Founded in 1965, NOLS has developed 11 branches worldwide and has graduated over 75,000 students. NOLS was originally known as a wilderness skills school, but quickly expanded their program goals and emphases to include leadership training, communication skills, expedition behavior, environmental awareness, and safety and judgment. NOLS courses include those for youth, adults, and intact groups who contract with NOLS for topic-specific courses. Courses range from eight days to months long semester courses. College credit …

An Evaluation Of The Impact Of A One-Week Summer Camp Experience On Participants' Social Skill Development, Paul Shirilla, Michael Gass, Chris Conlon

Research in Outdoor Education

Social skill development is emerging as an important issue for educators and practitioners in their work with adolescent youth. Within the summer camp industry, youth development researchers are beginning to focus more intentionally on the ability of summer camp programming to develop social skill capacity among its participants (Thurber, Scanlin, Scheuler, & Henderson, 2007). While research in camp settings has been occurring for several decades, much of the inquiry has been descriptive in nature (Henderson, Thurber, Scanlin, & Bialeschki, 2007) or focused on individual psychological traits such as self-esteem and self-concept.(Gillis & Speelman, 2007). More recently, however, social skill development …

The Impact Of Social Support Networks On Adventure Program Outcomes, Jeff Turner

Research in Outdoor Education

Adventure recreation pursuits can be used as a vehicle for educational growth through a phenomenon known as adventure education (Priest, 1986). While many different types of adventure education programs exist, all are based at least in part on the traditional Outward Bound model. Walsh and Golins (1976) developed the Outward Bound Process model in an attempt to describe how adventure education programs lead to interpersonal and intrapersonal growth. They suggest that an adventure program's efficacy lies in placing the learner in a combination of novel physical, task, and social environments. This combination of setting characteristics creates a state of dissonance …

Long-Term Impacts Attributed To Participation In Adventure Education: Preliminary Findings From Nols, Jim Sibthorp, Nathan Furman, Karen Paisley, John Gookin

Research in Outdoor Education

One of the key issues in the field of adventure education is determining the lasting value of adventure experiences after a program ends and participants return to life at home (e.g., McAvoy, Holman, Goldenberg, Klenowsky, 2006; Wolfe & Samdahl, 2005). While anecdotal reports regarding life-changing and transformative experiences through adventure program participation are common, very few studies have examined the impacts of adventure education programs months or years . after completion. One of the main challenges of documenting and studying learning transfer in adventure education, is that most of the transfer content and contexts would be termed "far transfer," which …

Ontology Driven Semantic Provenance For Heterogeneous Bionomics Experimental Data, Satya S. Sahoo, Michael L. Raymer, Cory Andrew Henson, Amit P. Sheth, William S. York

Kno.e.sis Publications

Scientific experimental data generated by all the bionomic technologies is characterized by heterogeneity in its representation formats, constituents, and generation processes and, therefore, also in its usage. Using the proteomics domain we demonstrate the important role of provenance information o manage, interpret and analyze experimental data. We present a novel approach that employs an ontology as a knowledge model to automatically create semantic provenance information for high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) data in the glycoproteomics domain. The Semantic Provenance Annotation of Data in protEomics (SPADE) implementation is based on the ProPreO ontology, a large-process ontology ( ~500 classes, 40 named relationships …

Back Cover

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

University Of Texas At Tyler Catalog, 2008 - 2010, University Of Texas At Tyler

Catalogs

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Directionality In Predications On Text Mining, Gondy Leroy, Marcelo Fiszman, Thomas C. Rindflesch

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The number of publications in biomedicine is increasing enormously each year. To help researchers digest the information in these documents, text mining tools are being developed that present co-occurrence relations between concepts. Statistical measures are used to mine interesting subsets of relations. We demonstrate how directionality of these relations affects interestingness. Support and confidence, simple data mining statistics, are used as proxies for interestingness metrics. We first built a test bed of 126,404 directional relations extracted from biomedical abstracts, which we represent as graphs containing a central starting concept and 2 rings of associated relations. We manipulated directionality in four …

Collaborative Learning Guide For Ecosystem Management, Christine Baumann Feurt

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Community-based ecosystem management is an approach to getting things done. It manifests as actions that collectively maintain or restore nature’s ability to provide clean water, clean air and support for living systems. Sustaining the earth’s natural capital requires integration within the system of social capital. Through collaboration, people can accomplish the first step toward sustainability – the development of a collective vision of desired future outcomes for the places where they live, work and play. The individual perspectives that shape these visions take many forms. They are present in town Comprehensive and Open Space plans, in mission statements for organizations …

An Environmental Justice Analysis: Superfund Sites And Surrounding Communities In Illinois, Angela Maranville, Tih-Fen Ting, Yang Zhang

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Is there an association between Superfund sites and the socioeconomic makeup of the surrounding communities? This research analyzes the current economic and racial demographics of Illinois counties that contain Superfund sites. Specifically, variables that are indicators of environmental injustice are analyzed; e.g. race, median household income, and home ownership. Since the inception of the environmental justice movement in the late 1980s, studies have been conducted nationally and at state levels in Michigan, California, Ohio, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina (i.e. Cutter 2006; Mohai & Saha 2006; Pastor et al. 2004; Anderton et al. 1997; Bevc et al. 2007; Bowen et …

Cultivating Sustainable Coffee: Persistent Paradoxes, Christopher M. Bacon, V. Ernesto Méndez, Jonathan A. Fox

Environmental Studies and Sciences

This chapter discusses the relationship and interconnections among changing the livelihoods of farmers, initiatives for sustainable coffee, and the production of shade-grown coffee. It examines the advantages and opportunities for farmers and producers engaged in coffee certification and diversification programs. The role of Fair Trade and organic networks in creating awareness of biodiversity conservation, the social and environment costs of coffee systems, and the need for supporting small farmers are also discussed. The methods to increase accountability and improve the efficiency of coffee cooperatives are presented in this chapter, as are the importance of understanding the sustainability initiatives and their …

From Differentiated Coffee Markets Towards Alternative Trade And Knowledge Networks, Roberta Jaffe, Christopher M. Bacon

Environmental Studies and Sciences

This chapter presents a case study focusing on the Community Agroecology Network (CAN), an organization started by the United States and Mesoamerica’s activists, whose effort is to create an alternative trade and knowledge network. The basic aim behind CAN is to benefit conservation and social development efforts by linking producers, consumers, and producer organizations. CAN is a response to the problems arising out of the dominance of certification processes in Fair Trade and organic coffee networks, and the chapter discusses the organization’s main goals of intercommunity relationship development, direct coffee marketing, and ecological sustainability. It moots a comparison between alternative …

Ua1f Wku Archives Vertical File - Greentoppers, Wku Archives

WKU Administration Documents

Digitized vertical file materials regarding WKU Greentoppers.

Cheap Boolean Role Constructors For Description Logics, Sebastian Rudolph, Markus Krotzsch, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We investigate the possibility of incorporating Boolean role constructors on simple roles into some of today's most popular description logics, focussing on cases where those extensions do not increase complexity of reasoning. We show that the expressive DLs SHOIQ and SROIQ, serving as the logical underpinning of OWL and the forthcoming OWL 2, can accommodate arbitrary Boolean expressions. The prominent OWL-fragment SHIQ can be safely extended by safe role expressions, and the tractable fragments EL++ and DLP retain tractability if extended by conjunction on roles, where in the case of DLP the restriction on role simplicity can even be discarded.

Designing Search: Effective Search Interfaces For Academic Library Websites, Susan Teague Rector, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Academic libraries customize, support and provide access to myriad information systems, each with complex graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The number of possible information entry points on an academic library Web site is both daunting to the end user and consistently challenging to library Web site designers. Faced with the challenges inherent in designing online search interfaces and the ever-growing amount of resources available online, VCU Libraries sought to explore how to build effective search interfaces that, at the same time, support a wide variety of computer users and provide comprehensive access to assorted collections of electronic resources. Over a 9 …

Mobile Semantic Computing, Karthik Gomadam, Anupam Joshi, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

We propose to organize a special session on research in the intersection of mobile computing, the Semantic Web and Web services.

This session will examine how the research in these areas can serve as a foundation for new architectural and communication paradigms that can enhance service creation, distribution, discovery, integration and utilization in distributed and ubiquitous environments. Some of the initial areas that our early research have highlighted are :

1. Semantic annotation of data in bandwidth constrained environments such as mobile networks to promote efficient bandwidth utilization
2. Possibilities of using microformats such as RDFa and opportunities that can be explored …

Services Mashups: The New Generation Of Web Applications, Djamal Benslimane, Schahram Dustdar, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Web services are becoming a major technology for deploying automated interactions between distributed and heterogeneous applications, and for connecting business processes. Service mashups indicate a way to create new Web applications by combining existing Web resources utilizing data and Web APIs. They facilitate the design and development of novel and modern Web applications based on easy-to-accomplish end-user service compositions.

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 50 Number 3, Winter 2008, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

12 - ONE GOLD...AND A HOST OF MEMORIES By Ann Killion. A Beijing Olympic scrapbook.

16 - GOD AND WOMAN AT YALE By Steven Boyd Saum. For more than 300 years, the role of Yale University’s chaplain has never been filled by a woman, a layperson, or a Catholic—until now. Meet Sharon M. K. Kugler ’81.

20 - WITH RENEWED VIGOR AND ZEAL By Michael G. Boughton, S.J. How six decrees define the mission of the Society of Jesus in the years to come.

22 - LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT By Michael S. Malone ’75, MBA ’77. Without meaning to, …

Ua1f Wku Archives Vertical File - Wku Information Technology, Wku Archives

WKU Administration Documents

Digitized vertical file materials regarding WKU Information Technology.

Mathematics Of Voting, Darryl H. Yong

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Voting theory is a fascinating area of research involving mathematics, political scientists, and economists. The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics chose mathematics and voting as the theme for Mathematics Awareness Month 2008. There is more information on mathematics and voting at www.mathaware.org/mam/08/. It is a mathematical topic that is rich yet accessible to students, pertinent to their lives, especially during this election year, and has the potential to draw students who may not have a strong affinity for mathematics to become interested in mathematics.

Semantic Sensor Web, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Unsupervised Discovery Of Compound Entities For Relationship Extraction, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Pablo N. Mendes, Shaojun Wang, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

In this paper we investigate unsupervised population of a biomedical ontology via information extraction from biomedical literature. Relationships in text seldom connect simple entities. We therefore focus on identifying compound entities rather than mentions of simple entities. We present a method based on rules over grammatical dependency structures for unsupervised segmentation of sentences into compound entities and relationships. We complement the rule-based approach with a statistical component that prunes structures with low information content, thereby reducing false positives in the prediction of compound entities, their constituents and relationships. The extraction is manually evaluated with respect to the UMLS Semantic Network …

Monetizing User Activity On Social Networks, Meenakshi Nagarajan, Kamal Baid, Amit P. Sheth, Shaojun Wang

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Using Landscape History And Baseline Data In The Restoration Of A Midwestern Savanna, Andrew P. Rayburn, Annabel L. Major

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Over one hundred and fifty years of Euro-American settlement has dramatically altered Midwestern landscapes, resulting in the widespread conversion of native habitat. Numerous opportunities to conduct ecological restoration exist within the Midwest, with the potential to increase habitat and landscape heterogeneity, secure critical ecosystem services, and provide opportunities for research and education. Site history is an important consideration for most restoration projects, and multiple sources of historical data may be required to unravel the complicated history of intensively used Midwestern landscapes. The collection of baseline data is another significant component of most restoration projects, allowing for an evaluation of community …

Reasoning In Circumscriptive Alco, Stephan Grimm, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Non-monotonic extensions of description logics (DLs) allow for default and local closed-world reasoning and are an acknowledged desired feature for applications, e.g. in the Semantic Web. A recent approach to such an extension is based on McCarthy's circumscription, which rests on the principle of minimising the extension of selected predicates to locally close off dedicated parts of a domain model. While decidability and complexity results have been established in the literature, no practical algorithmisation for circumscriptive DLs has been proposed so far. In this paper, we present a tableaux calculus that can be used as a sound and complete decision …