Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ua1c2/45 Laundrette Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images of the Laundrette.

Ua3/2/1 President's Office-Garrett Correspondence/Subject File, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

General correspondence and subject files regarding Western Kentucky University.

Ua3/5/3 President's Office-Minton Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications created by and about the president's office during John Minton's administration.

Ua12/2/62 Delta Sigma Theta, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Children As A Reserve Labor Force, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Human life history is unique in the great length of the juvenile or immature period. The lengthened period is often attributed to the time required for youth to master the culture, particularly subsistence and survival skills. But an increasing number of studies show that children become skilled well before they gain complete independence and the status of adults. It seems, as they learn through play and participation in the domestic economy, children are acquiring a “reserve capacity” of skills and knowledge, which they may not fully employ for many years. The theory offered here to resolve this paradox poses that, …

Ua19/16/1 2015-16 Wku Track & Field Cross Country Record Book, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

WKU track and field media guide for 2015-16 season.

Ala Latino Americans: 500 Years Of History Grant - Partners, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

Latino Americans Documents

PDF document created from the ALA Latino Americans: 500 Years of History Grant web page created by the University of Northern Iowa Rod Library.

Discussions On Technical Services Management And Data-Driven E-Resource Management At Ala Midwinter, Robert Heaton

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

The 2015 ALA Midwinter Meeting was in Chicago this year and, as always, gave attendees the opportunity to get a wide-angle view of the profession or to focus in on the day-to-day issues in their areas of work. This report covers two Interest Group (IG) sessions with particular relevance to the Serials Spoken Here readership: the ALCTS Technical Services Managers IG and the joint LITA/ALCTS Electronic Resources Management IG

Teaching And Learning Information Synthesis: An Intervention And Rubric Based Assessment, Kacy Lundstrom, Anne R. Diekama, Heather Leary, Sheri Haderlie, Wendy Holliday

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

The purpose of this research was to determine how information synthesis skills can be taught effectively, and to discover how the level of synthesis in student writing can be effectively measured. The intervention was an information synthesis lesson that broke down the synthesis process into sequenced tasks. Researchers created a rubric which they used to assess a student’s level of information synthesis demonstrated in their final research essays. A form of counting analysis was also created to see if other methods could help in measuring synthesis.

Findings from the rubric analysis revealed that students appear to benefit from the synthesis …

Automated Technique For Real-Time Production Of Lifelike Animations Of American Sign Language, John Mcdonald, Rosalee Wolfe, Jerry C. Schnepp, Julie Hochgesang, Diana Gorman Jamrozik, Marie Stumbo, Larwan Berke, Melissa Bialek, Farah Thomas

Visual Communications and Technology Education Faculty Publications

Generating sentences from a library of signs implemented through a sparse set of key frames derived from the segmental structure of a phonetic model of ASL has the advantage of flexibility and efficiency, but lacks the lifelike detail of motion capture. These difficulties are compounded when faced with real-time generation and display. This paper describes a technique for automatically adding realism without the expense of manually animating the requisite detail. The new technique layers transparently over and modifies the primary motions dictated by the segmental model, and does so with very little computational cost, enabling real-time production and display. The …

It's A Conspiracy: Motivated Reasoning And Conspiracy Ideation In The Rejection Of Climate Change, Nikilaus Wycha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A large disconnect exists between the general public's acceptance of human-caused climate change and the prevailing consensus of actively publishing scientists. Previous research has examined both political and economic motivated reasoning, media influence in print and television, conspiracy ideation as a predictor of science rejection, and the role of the social construction of scientific knowledge in science rejection. Using these previously studied justifications for climate change rejection as a starting point, this research examines 212 written responses to a prompt at Climate Etc. asking the community to explain their acceptance / rejection of climate change. Using a textual content analysis, …

Environmentalism And Environmental Constitutional Ballot Initiatives In Florida: The Elements Of Support For Amendment One In 2014 In The Context Of Current Environmental Attitudes., Michael Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Americans express support for “the environment” with environmental support cutting across political and demographic differences and cleavages. In the past 15 years, however, period effects, political sorting, and the emergence of a powerful anti-environmental movement have lessened the generalized levels of environmental support. Using the 2012 CCES survey, the expressed attitudes regarding multiple environmental issues found significant differences in levels of environmental support nationally by party, Tea Party attitudes, ideology, and certain demographic characteristics. For Floridians, the differences between the most pro-environmental respondents and the most anti-environmental are narrower; partisan identification itself is not significant in environmental attitudes; but ideology, …

Integration Of Multidimensional Signal Detection Theory With Fuzzy Signal Detection Theory, Maureen O'Connell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Signal detection theory (SDT) has proven to be a robust and useful statistical model for analyzing human performance in detection and decision making tasks. As with many models extensions have been proposed in order capture and represent the real world to a greater degree. Multidimensional Signal Detection Theory (MSDT) has had success in describing and modeling complex signals, signals that are comprised by more than one identifiable component dimension. Fuzzy Signal Detection Theory (FSDT) has had success in modeling and measuring human performance in cases where there exist ambiguity in the signal or response dimension characteristics, through the application of …

Quantitative Assessment Of The Effects Of Microbial Degradation Of A Simple Hydrocarbon Mixture, Jessica Kindell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ignitable liquids consist of either a single organic compound or a complex organic mixture. In regards to fire debris analysis, the analyst is responsible for determining if an ignitable liquid residue is present. However, when extracted from soil-containing fire debris evidence, chemical degradation from microorganisms is observed to result in the loss of compounds based on chemical structure. It can also happen when the evidence container is stored at room temperature before analysis. This can present a challenge to the fire debris analyst when identifying and classifying the ignitable liquid residue based on the criteria established by standard test methods. …

Influence Of Personal And State Level Variables On Perception Of State Emergency Management Network Resilience In 47 States, Victoria Jennison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emergency management coordination in the United States has fallen victim to over a century of strategies to organize, reorganize, consolidate, or decentralize disaster preparedness, planning and response. Regardless of the agency in charge at the federal level, individual citizens have been responsible for their own well-being immediately after any disaster or emergency event for more than 100 years because it takes time to mobilize and deliver aid. The system most often charged with managing that mobilization during an emergency event that exceeds the response capacity of local public safety agencies is the state emergency management network. Many entities in a …

Sexism And Women: The Implications Of Female Gender Resentment, Christine Regnier-Bachand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Do women suffer from a societal Stockholm Syndrome which leads them to display high levels of modern and traditional sexist behavior? Does a woman*s level of modern or traditional sexist behavior influence her political choices? Female gender resentment and sexist biases are an understudied area of the extant literature on sexism. Typically the focus is placed on men*s sexist attitudes and treatment of women, but is it possible that women also contribute to the subordination of their gender through sexist practices? These are questions which this thesis attempts to answer. The findings indicate that working women under the age of …

From The Guest Editor, Pamela Casey Twiss Msw, Ph.D.

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Journal of Contemporary Rural Social Work

Volume 7, Number 1: Special Issue

2015

From the Guest Editor: Pamela Casey Twiss

Book Review: Learning Native Wisdom: What Traditional Cultures Teach Us About Subsistence, Sustainability, And Spirituality, Kala Chakradhar

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Book Review: Learning Native Wisdom: What Traditional Cultures Teach Us about Subsistence, Sustainability, and Spirituality Gary Holthaus 2012 Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky 266 pages Paperback, $25 ISBN-10: 0813141087 ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-4108-4

Sovereignty And Democracy In Ethiopia: A Reflection On Gebru Asrat's Book, Asayehgn Desta

Collected Faculty Scholarship

Over the past forty years, we have been hearing and reading a lot about the Tigrai People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which dismantled the inhuman and atrocious Military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. It was not only highly skilled in military operations but was visionary. The impression that was widely circulated was that when the TPLF came to power it would protect Ethiopia’s sovereignty, adhere to the rules of law and ensure that equity and social justice would prevail , and above all democracy would be the norm of Ethiopian society.

Contrary to these assertions, Gebru Asrat (hereafter …

Integrating Hands-On Undergraduate Research In An Applied Spatial Science Senior Level Capstone Course, David Kulhavy, Daniel R. Unger, I-Kuai Hung, David Douglass

Faculty Publications

A senior within a spatial science Ecological Planning capstone course designed an undergraduate research project to increase his spatial science expertise and to assess the hands-on instruction methodology employed within the Bachelor of Science in Spatial Science program at Stephen F Austin State University. The height of 30 building features estimated remotely with LiDAR data, within the Pictometry remotely sensed web-based interface, and in situ with a laser rangefinder were compared to actual building feature height measurements. A comparison of estimated height with actual height indicated that all three estimation techniques tested were unbiased estimators of height. An ANOVA, conducted …

Words Versus Pictures: Leveraging The Research On Visual Communication, Pauline Dewan

Library Publications

Librarians, like many professionals in other occupations, tend to rely on text and underutilize graphics. Research on visual communication shows that pictures have a number of advantages over words. We can interact more effectively with colleagues and patrons by incorporating ideas from this body of research.

Constructing ‘Farmer’ And ‘State’ Identities In Moral Discourses About Semi-Subsistence Agriculture In North-East Brazil, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

Anthropological analysis elucidates how discourses about agriculture in one North-east Brazilian community reflect relational roles of citizens and the state, the position of farmers in society, and the relationship of individuals to their work. In these discourses, farmers are positioned as moral, hard-working, autonomous citizens, justifying their participation in low-paying activities. The declining numbers of agricultural workers is explained as a result of individual laziness or government irresponsibility. In using these discourses to take stances publicly on agricultural issues, speakers assign responsibilities and moral status to agents. In constructing rural identities, such moral discourses emphasise the symbolic value of subsistence …

Perspectivas Culturais Na Comunicação Climática (Cultural Perspectives On Climate Communication), Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

Este artigo considera que a previsão climática deve ser interpretada dentro de contextos sociais, culturais e linguísticos. Dentro de uma perspectiva antropológica baseada em entrevistas, observações e um questionário, será investigado como mudanças no meio-ambiente são entendidas por diferentes indivíduos, e transformadas em previsões que são comunicadas a diversos públicos. A linguagem utilizada e a maneira como a previsão é comunicada depende da experiência e dos objetivos do previsor, enquanto que a interpretação e a avaliação da previsão por outros são influenciadas por seus diferentes objetivos, atitudes, conhecimento e práticas. Esta etnografia da comunicação enfatiza o processo da comunicação das …

Open Access Funds: Getting A Bigger Bang For Our Bucks, Bobby Glushko, Crystal Hampson, P L. Moore, Elizabeth Yates

Western Libraries Publications

Many libraries offer open access publishing funds to support authors in paying article processing charges (APC) levied by some OA journals. However, there are few standard practices for managing or assessing these funds. The Open Access Working Group (OAWG) of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) was asked to investigate and articulate best practices for successful open access fund management. In spring 2015, the OAWG surveyed Canadian academic libraries with OA funds to review their criteria and collect feedback on current practices. The survey proved timely because many OA funds are under review. Shrinking budgets, ending pilots, and questions …

Balancing Visions And Values: An Exploration Of Market Rhetoric In Canadian Academic Library Strategic Plans, Courtney L. Waugh

Western Libraries Publications

Strategic planning documents are key sites to institutional discourse and reflect the public face of the library. This research explores the extent to which market rhetoric permeates the strategic planning documents of three Canadian academic libraries, and examines the ways in which these institutions engage in market discourse to construct their institutional identity. What are the implications of adopting a "customer service" stance? What does it mean to be “innovative”? How do "personalized services" influence ideas of choice? Through content analysis and a critical lens, this exploratory research examines the tension between libraries as public good and libraries as a …

Integrating Library Instruction Into The Course Management System For A First Year Engineering Class: An Evidence-Based Study Measuring The Effectiveness Of Blended Learning On Students’ Information Literacy Levels, Qinqin Zhang, Maren Goodman, Shiyi Xie

Western Libraries Publications

This research examines students in a first-year engineering course who receive library instruction by using a newly developed online module and attending optional in-person tutorials. It aims to evaluate the outcomes of library information literacy instruction using this module combined with in-person help. Results show a significant improvement in information literacy skills from a pre-test to a post-test. Focus group and survey data indicate that most students preferred the self-paced learning style of the online module and that the content of the module helped them to conduct library research for the course. This study also considers best practices for online …

Growing Up Black In The Jordan Park District: The St. Petersburg African-American Experience During The Civil Rights Era Of The 1950s/1970s, Marvin L. Simner

Psychology Publications

To rectify the many injustices endured by African-Americans as the result of slavery, three Civil Rights amendments were inserted in the US Constitution around the end of the Civil War. Known as Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th Amendment, adopted by Congress on December 18, 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. The 14th Amendment, adopted two years later, gave African-Americans the right to receive equal treatment under the law, and the 15th Amendment, ratified on February 3, 1870, prohibited federal and state governments from depriving any citizen of the (right to) vote on racial grounds. Although these three amendments were well intentioned, …

The London Waterworks Controversy The Great Debate Of 1875-1877, Marvin L. Simner

Psychology Publications

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Emphasizing Psychological Causes Of Depression On Public Stigma, Francois B. Botha, David J.A. Dozois

Psychology Publications

Public stigma discourages people with depression from seeking help. Attribution theory predicts that psychological causal explanations for depression increase public stigma by emphasising personal responsibility for the condition. Schema theory may, however, present a less stigmatizing psychological etiology by emphasising childhood experiences. Undergraduate participants (N = 276) were randomly presented with vignettes positing biomedical, contextual, cognitive distortion, or cognitive schema explanations for depression. Contextual, cognitive distortion, and cognitive schema explanations for depression were associated with less public stigma relative to the control condition. Future antistigma programs may incorporate cognitive and contextual models of depression to reduce public stigma.

Do Political Attitudes And Religiosity Share A Genetic Path?, Amanda Friesen, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz

Political Science Publications

Social scientists have long recognized and sought to explain a connection between religious and political beliefs. Our research challenges the prevalent view that religion and politics constitute separate but related belief sets with a conceptual model that suggests the correlation between the two may be partially explained by an underlying psychological construct reflecting first principle beliefs on social organization. Moreover, we also push this challenge further by considering whether part of the relationship between political and religious beliefs is the result of shared genetic influences, which would suggest that a shared biological predisposition, or set of biological predispositions, underlies these …