Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Challenges And Rewards Of Carrying Out Qualitative Research On The Police In The African American Community, Daniel K. Pryce, Ingrid Phillips Witaker

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

In this paper, we discuss the challenges and rewards of carrying out qualitative research on the police in the African American1 community. Using data drawn from interviews with seventy-seven African American adults in Durham, NC, we found that community member hostility toward research(ers) and fear of both neighbors and the police lowered African Americans’ willingness to be interviewed about their perceptions of and experiences with U.S. police. These findings were observed primarily in public housing and middle-income communities. On a positive note, we found that greater awareness of policing issues increased African Americans’ willingness to participate in research about the …

Teaching Dobbs To Disrupt U.S. Hegemony And Build Feminist Solidarities, Derek P. Siegel

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The Dobbs decision has created both opportunities and challenges in the classroom. On one hand, Dobbs animated student interest, increasing awareness of reproduction. On the other hand, media coverage of Dobbs primed students—particularly those who had not been exposed to reproductive justice—to think about abortion access in isolation from other topics and from an exclusively U.S. perspective. In this article, I discuss my experience teaching Politics of Reproduction in Fall 2022. Among other goals, I wanted to expose students to La Marea Verde, or the “Green Wave,” of countries expanding abortion access in Latin America. By teaching Latin American abortion …

Empirical Examination Of Factors That Influence Official Decisions In Criminal Cases Against Police Officers, Francis D. Boateng, Daniel K. Pryce, Michael K. Dzordzormenyoh, Ming-Li Hsieh, Alan Cuff

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

In the current paper, we examine departmental and court decision-making in criminal cases against police officers. The study has two objectives: 1) to examine variables that impact departmental decisions in criminal cases against police officers, and 2) to examine factors that affect case disposition/conviction decisions by the courts. To achieve these objectives, we analyzed nationally representative arrest data using multiple statistical approaches. The results obtained revealed important patterns that are critical to our understanding of how the courts and police departments decide matters relating to police criminality. For instance, victim characteristics significantly influenced decision-making by both the police agency and …

Abmscore: A Heuristic Algorithm For Forming Strategic Coalitions In Agent-Based Simulation, Andrew J. Collins, Gayane Grigoryan

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Integrating human behavior into agent-based models has been challenging due to its diversity. An example is strategic coalition formation, which occurs when an individual decides to collaborate with others because it strategically benefits them, thereby increasing the expected utility of the situation. An algorithm called ABMSCORE was developed to help model strategic coalition formation in agent-based models. The ABMSCORE algorithm employs hedonic games from cooperative game theory and has been applied to various situations, including refugee egress and smallholder farming cooperatives. This paper discusses ABMSCORE, including its mechanism, requirements, limitations, and application. To demonstrate the potential of ABMSCORE, a new …

A Stock Optimization Problem In Finance: Understanding Financial And Economic Indicators Through Analytical Predictive Modeling, Aditya Chakraborty, Chris Tsokos

Epidemiology, Biostatistics, & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Given the significant impact of healthcare stock changes on the global economy, including its GDP and other financial factors, we endeavored to create an analytical prediction model for forecasting the annual percentage change of these stocks. Our model, which is nonlinear, incorporates five key discoveries. We focused on predicting the average weekly closing price (pWCP) of AbbVie Inc. (North Chicago, IL, USA)'s healthcare stock (ABBV) from 1 August 2017 to 31 December 2019. The stock was chosen based on the low beta risk, high dividend yield, and high yearly percentage return criteria. Alongside predicting the weekly stock price, our model …

When Would You Feel Like A Writer? Exploring Writing With Newcomer Students, Sinélia Peixoto, Thea Williamson

English Faculty Publications

The authors share a story of a middle school writer's experience navigating across languages in an English for Speakers of Other Languages support classroom.

For A Lost Drachma: Contesting Hindutva Subjectivation In India’S Universities, Bhavika Sicka

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

The aim of this essay is to apply Michel Foucault’s ideas on power and the practice of freedom to the context of India’s increasingly neoliberalized higher education landscape. The essay revisits Foucault’s notion of subjectivation to analyze the cultural politics of the Hindu Right, which, through organized violence and self-disciplinary mechanisms, has attempted to masculinize, privatize, saffronize, and brahmanicize the nation-state (and the public university), erase the othered body from the nation (and campus spaces), and shape how individuals understand themselves, their identities, and their modes of being in relation to savarna-capitalist power and knowledge. This essay will also suggest …

How Communities Of Practice Can Mitigate School Leader Burnout, Jason E. Saltmarsh

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This qualitative study expands our knowledge about school leader communities of practice (CoP) by examining the role they play in mitigating symptoms of burnout. Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with school leaders in an urban California school district, this analysis applies Leiter and Maslach’s Structured Approach to Organizational Predictors of Job Burnout as a lens to understand school leaders’ experiences in a CoP focused on instructional leadership. Findings reveal dimensions of engagement known to reduce aspects of burnout, namely social closeness, a range of supports, and the perception of doing meaningful work that aligns with one’s values. This study extends …

Understanding The Application Of Evolutionary Psychology In Consumer Behavior: A Review And Future Research Agenda, Faegheh Taheran, Veronica L. Thomas, Kendra Fowler, Abdolati Mortazavi

Marketing Faculty Publications

This paper is the first to offer a comprehensive literature review of the role of evolutionary psychology (EP) in marketing and consumer behavior. This study takes a holistic approach, combining techniques of a systematic review with bibliometric analysis, to provide a performance analysis and identify theories and methodologies used in the literature. Most importantly, by studying the current state of EP, we elucidate six major themes: the role of gender in families, the role of affect in consumer behavior, food preferences and shopping behavior, motivations for and consequences of status signaling, the impact of ovulation on consumer motives and behaviors, …

The Impact Of Biochar's Physicochemical Properties On Sorption Of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (Pfoa), Karen Ane Skjennum, Katinka M. Krahn, Erlend Sørmo, Raoul Wolf, Aleksandar I. Goranov, Patrick G. Hatcher, Thomas Hartnik, Hans Peter H. Arp, Andrew R. Zimmerman, Yaxin Zhang, Gerard Cornelissen

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

To better characterize properties governing the sorption of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to biochar, twenty-three diverse biochars were characterized and evaluated as sorbents for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Biochars were produced at various temperatures, using two different technologies, and made from sewage sludge, food waste reject, wood wastes, and one reference substrate (wood pellets). The biochars were characterized in terms of surface area, pore volume and pore size distributions, elemental composition, leachable elements, ash content, pH, zeta potential, condensed aromatic carbon (ConAC) content (determined by benzenepolycarboxylic acid (BPCA) markers), and their -OH functional group content (infrared spectroscopy). PFOA sorption isotherms …

Towards Inclusive Public Administration Systems: Public Budgeting From The Perspective Of Critical Race Theory, Juan Pablo Martínez Guzmán, Meagan M. Jordan, Philip G. Joyce

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

While there is a developing consensus that governments need to address systemic racism, public administration scholarship has not played a large role in supporting policymakers who want to achieve that end. To institutionalize that effort, we analyze the budget process as a setting to identify inequities and incorporate social equity given its overarching reach across all programs and policies. This article uses the tenets of critical race theory to illustrate how to use the budget process to incorporate equity. The resulting racial equity budgeting (REB) framework has three tenets: acknowledging and correcting historic biases, increasing the voice of nondominant groups, …

A Polyphonic Debate On Social Equity Budgeting, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii, Laurence Ferry, Sean A. Mccandless, Meagan M. Jordan, Ileana Steccolini, John R. Bartle, Thomas Ahrens, Jim Haslam, Philip G. Joyce, Tobias Polzer

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This paper is polyphonic (i.e., a debate involving multiple perspectives) and highlights emerging interdisciplinary thoughts on past, current, and future social equity budgeting (SEB). We present a vision for the field and emphasize the potential impact of this paper. We hope to enliven debates regarding context, underpinning philosophies, and methods, thus fostering a greater theoretical and practical reconsideration of SEB. The impact of this paper is significant, as it leads to a fundamental rethinking of SEB and related research, profoundly influencing the field. To do so, this paper has brought together 10 international scholars to foster an interdisciplinary approach regarding …

Older And Wiser? Relative Age And College Course Failure, P. Wesley Routon, Jay K. Walker

Economics Faculty Publications

A student's relative age in their schooling cohort has been shown related to several measures of academic and labor market success. Here, we focus on a singular outcome: the probability of college course failure. Even within a sample constrained to students with traditional academic progression and who completed their college degree program, we find evidence relatively younger students were more likely to fail courses. The estimated impact is larger for males, minorities, and those with less academic success before college. Statistical significance remains constant across the parental income distribution. Students within the sample represent over 600 colleges and universities across …

Is West Virginia A Haven For Disabled Workers? An Evolving Story, James V. Koch, Robert M. Mcnab

Economics Faculty Publications

With a particular focus on West Virginia, this study utilizes state-level monthly panel data over 13 years (2010-2022) to examine the determinants of the rates of application of individuals for Social Security Administration disabled worker income payments (SSDI) and the initial recommendations of those applications for approval by the states. Application rates are particularly sensitive to the educational attainment of state populations and approval rates to economic conditions. However, in contrast to media coverage and public perceptions, both the number of applications for SSDI and approval rates have been declining nationally and in West Virginia.

The Challenges Of Writing The History Of Localities That Were Under Colonial Rule In The Early Phase Of European Expansion: An Investigation Into Writing The History Of Negombo (Sri Lanka) In The Sixteenth And Early Seventeenth Centuries, Chandra R. De Silva

History Faculty Publications

Local history has been conventionally defined as a chronicle of a limited geographical area. The study of local history can have positive outcomes including reconstructing our ancestor’s everyday lives and providing opportunities for students to develop investigative research skills, develop linkages with locals and to also motivate students to improve their basic skills of reading, writing and critical thinking. Unlike in the West, however, where local historians use old records of their locality, local historians of lands colonized by Westerners have problems finding source material. For example, in Sri Lanka, the Portuguese occupying the southwest lowlands destroyed Buddhist and Hindu …

In Pursuit Of Consumption-Based Forecasting, Charles Chase, Kenneth B. Kahn

Marketing Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Today's most mature, most sophisticated, best-in-class forecasting is what we call consumption-based forecasting (CBF). In contrast, the least sophisticated companies typically do not forecast at all, but rather set financial targets based on management expectations. Companies beginning to use statistical forecasting techniques usually take a supply-centric orientation, relying on time series techniques applied to shipment and/or order history. The next stage of progression is to incorporate promotions data, economic data, and market data alongside supply-centric data so that regression and other advanced analytics can be used. Companies pursing CBF utilize even more advanced capabilities to capture, examine, and understand …

Coping With Social Media Envy In Luxury Consumption: The Role Of Social Networking Site Actions, Murong Miao, Chuanyi Tang, Lin Guo, Kiran Karande

Marketing Faculty Publications

Because social networking sites (SNS) facilitate social comparison, consumer envy becomes inevitable among social media users. Drawing on social comparison and coping theories, this study examines how different types of envy lead to consumers? distinct behaviors on SNS, some of which are self-directed and focus on self-enhancement, and others are either positive or negative interactions with the envied person. Employing both the contexts of luxury product and service sharing experiences on Instagram, our four studies consistently found that while consumers who experience benign envy are more likely to interact with the envied positively, such as liking the envied? posts, those …

Through The Filter Lens: The Negative Impact Of Beauty Filters In Influencer Marketing, Faegheh Taheran, Veronica Thomas, Abdolali Mortazavi, Dana Amiri

Marketing Faculty Publications

The article focuses on the negative impact of beauty filters on followers' perceptions of social media influencers, examining how these filters affect attitudes through perceived authenticity and deception. Topics include the relationship between filter usage and follower attitudes; the mediating roles of authenticity and deception; the effects of different types of filters on influencer credibility; and highlight the importance of genuine presentation in influencer marketing.

(In)Attention To Attractive Brand Alternatives, Danielle J. Brick, Veronica L. Thomas

Marketing Faculty Publications

Understanding how consumers maintain their brand relationships has important implications for marketers as committed consumers contribute significant value to firms. In the present research, we propose and test one such way consumers protect their brand relationships, namely through attentional avoidance of attractive alternative partners. Across multiple studies, we find support for our theory that committed consumers avoid attending to alternative brand partners by recalling less about and spending less time focused on attractive alternatives. We further find that this inattention occurs because consumers view the competing brand as a threat to the consumer’s current relationship. In addition, we investigate a …

The Classification Paradox: Historically Black Colleges' And Universities' Complex Relationship With Inequitable Experiences With The Carnegie Classification System, Felecia Commodore

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Higher education in the United States boasts of diverse institutional offerings to students. From community colleges to well-resourced liberal arts institutions, this diverse array of institutions and types has created a system commonly viewed as having a variety of access points for those seeking higher learning. Higher education stakeholders can argue that this diversity is a strong suit of American higher education, but an argument can also be made that this same institutional diversity laid the groundwork for systemic racism and inequities within the higher education system.

These inequities exist through various intersecting systems and practices, such as the …

Segregation And School Composition In Washington, D.C. Following The Implementation Of A Unified School Lottery, Jason E. Saltmarsh, Francisco Lagos

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

The global expansion of choice programs fuels debates about the equity potential of school choice policies and mechanisms. In 2014, Washington, D.C. pioneered a citywide lottery and enrollment system to match students with preferred institutions and distribute access to seats in high-demand schools. While unified lottery and enrollment systems impact a vast number of students and influence educational opportunities across continents, little evidence exists on the efficacy of these systems or the link between centralized lotteries and changes in school composition or segregation. Using longitudinal data and an interrupted time series analysis, this study examines the relationship between D.C.’s centralized …

National Science Foundation- Experiential Learning For Emergent And Novel Technologies (Exlent): A Response To Emtech Workforce Shortages, C. Tomovic, M. Tomovic, M. Yang, S. Bawab

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This paper presents how critical workforce shortages in the emerging STEM fields of technology (EmTech), i.e., advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum information science, semiconductors, microelectronics, alternative energy, etc., are impacting the workforce in the United States. The demands for EmTech graduates have become so great that many employers have changed their hiring criteria; over 60% of today’s high-need EmTech employers no longer require new hires to have an earned bachelor’s degree. Instead, they are asking applicants to demonstrate that they can execute professional competencies or provide validated certificates as evidence of their expertise.

In an attempt to alleviate this …

A Generative Approach For Document Enhancement With Small Unpaired Data, Mohammad Shahab Uddin, Wael Khallouli, Andres Sousa-Poza, Samuel Kovacic, Jiang Li

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Shipbuilding drawings, crafted manually before the digital era, are vital for historical reference and technical insight. However, their digital versions, stored as scanned PDFs, often contain significant noise, making them unsuitable for use in modern CAD software like AutoCAD. Traditional denoising techniques struggle with the diverse and intense noise found in these documents, which also does not adhere to standard noise models. In this paper, we propose an innovative generative approach tailored for document enhancement, particularly focusing on shipbuilding drawings. For a small, unpaired dataset of clean and noisy shipbuilding drawing documents, we first learn to generate the noise in …

Proof Of Principle For A Self-Governing Prediction And Forecasting Reward Algorithm, Jose Osvaldo Gonzalez-Hernandez, Jonathan Marino, Ted Rogers, Brandon Velasco

Physics Faculty Publications

We use Monte Carlo techniques to simulate an organized prediction competition between a group of scientific experts acting under the influence of a "self-governing" prediction reward algorithm. Our aim is to illustrate the advantages of a specific type of reward distribution rule that is designed to address some of the limitations of traditional forecast scoring rules. The primary extension of this algorithm as compared with standard forecast scoring is that it incorporates measures of both group consensus and question relevance directly into the reward distribution algorithm. Our model of the prediction competition includes parameters that control both the level of …

Ai And English Language Teaching: Affordances And Challenges, Helen Crompton, Adam Edmett, Neenaz Ichaporia, Diane Burke

STEMPS Faculty Publications

English is one of the most used languages for jobs, markets, tourism, discourse and international connectivity. However, English learners face many challenges in gaining English language skills. Extant studies show that AI has affordances to support in English language teaching and learning ELT/L. This study answers the call to examine specific challenges and affordances for using AI in ELT/L. A systematic review method was used with PRISMA principles to identify 42 studies. Findings reveal the geographical locations of studies, learner ages and years of study. Grounded coding was then used to identify affordances of the use of AI in ELT/L …

Learner Assessment, Elizabeth Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article discusses the importance of learner assessment in school libraries, highlighting the need for school librarians to incorporate assessment practices aligned with the National School Library Standards. Assessment in school libraries focuses on measuring competencies aligned with real-world information-seeking behaviors rather than traditional grades and testing. The article emphasizes the role of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments in tracking learner progress and supporting the overall library program. It also underscores the significance of using learner data to establish library goals and showcase the impact of school libraries on academic achievement.

Community-Centric Approaches To Coastal Hazard Assessment And Management In Southside Norfolk, Virginia, Usa, Dalya Ismael, Nicole Hutton, Mujde Erten-Unal, Carol Considine, Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, Christopher Davis, Yin-Hsuen Chen

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Urban communities in environmentally sensitive areas face escalating challenges due to climate change and inadequate infrastructural support, particularly in underserved regions like southside Norfolk, Virginia. This area, characterized by its vulnerability to flooding and a predominantly low-income population, lacks equitable inclusion in broader urban flood protection plans. This research focuses on the development of community-centered resilience strategies through active engagement and collaboration with local residents. The methodology centered around building trust and understanding within the community through a series of interactions and events. This approach facilitated a two-way exchange of information, enabling the research team to gather crucial insights on …

Immersive Visualization In Infrastructure Planning: Enhancing Long-Term Resilience And Sustainability, Dalya Ismael

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Infrastructure decisions today significantly impact future generations' quality of life, especially as severe storms and rising sea levels increasingly threaten communities across the United States. Decision-makers at all levels, including those involved in disaster prevention and response, must address climate change. However, those in infrastructure design and construction often prioritize immediate gains over long-term resilience. Engineering teams typically employ decision tools to manage complexity, but these methods may not highlight the long-term consequences of their choices. This study tests whether integrating Virtual Reality (VR) technology with engineering decision-making tools, can enhance engineers’ ability to visualize the future impacts of their …

Refracting Ufos, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Question 2: Assuming θ ≈ 2° = π/90 rad, estimate the distance R to the aircraft. Assume that R ≫ d. Question 1: Suppose that the observed “period of oscillation” is 1 min, and the speed of the aircraft is 200 km/h. Estimate the diameter d of the aircraft path (assuming that it is circular). Estimate the banking angle of the aircraft at this speed. While still a teenager (and aspiring astronomer), I became interested in the subject of UFOs (more appropriately named UAPs—see Ref. 1). The region in which I lived (50 km west of London) was in the …

Characterizing Climatic Socio-Environmental Tipping Points In Coastal Communities: A Conceptual Framework For Research And Practice, Julie Elizabeth Shortridge, Anamaria Bukvic, Molly Mitchell, Jesse Goldstein, Tom Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The concept of climate tipping points in socio-environmental systems is increasingly being used to describe nonlinear climate change impacts and encourage social transformations in response to climate change. However, the processes that lead to these tipping points and their impacts are highly complex and deeply uncertain. This is due to numerous interacting environmental and societal system components, constant system evolution, and uncertainty in the relationships between events and their consequences. In the face of this complexity and uncertainty, this research presents a conceptual framework that describes systemic processes that could lead to tipping points socio-environmental systems, with a focus on …