Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Diabolus Ex Machina? A Comparative Case Study To Test Whether Automatic Weapons Can Disproportionately Benefit Irregular Forces, Harrison Durland

Honors Theses

Researchers in the field of irregular conflict have observed that irregular forces such as insurgents and guerrillas have been victorious or forced draws in a greater percentage of conflicts over the past century compared with the century prior. More generally, researchers and practitioners have sought to better understand why seemingly weaker, irregular forces are able to win some wars against enemies who have significant material and other conventional advantages. This thesis engages with some of the literature in this field and focuses on what appears to be a particularly understudied issue: the potential role of shifts/innovations in military technology. Specifically, …

Contextualizing Wilson’S Information Behavior Model In Seeking Indigenous Information For Hiv Prevention Among Adolescents In Secondary Schools, Uganda, Nina Olivia Rugambwa, Martha Lyaka, Lois Nankya Mutibwa

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Effective communication of quality health information in emergency situations is critical in curbing the spread of diseases. Health programs promoting both biomedical and indigenous representations in HIV prevention have been found to be more effective than those that ignore lay representations. Nonetheless, there is still limited documentation on indigenous information supporting health choices among adolescents in secondary schools in Uganda. Besides, the information sources from where adolescents seek this information are not clear. This paper presents Wilson’s Information Behavior model as the theoretical anchor used to understand how utilization of Indigenous information can be enhanced among adolescents for improved health …

The Fear Of Reptiles And How To Change It, Maxwell Lyman

Honors Projects

Reptile fear is prominent across many cultures. Anti-reptilian attitudes can lead to anti-conservation attitudes towards reptiles. Person-animal interaction has been shown to decrease fear desensitization and increase positive attitudes towards "unpopular" animals. My project demonstrates the effectiveness of live animal presentation in dispelling negative attitudes of reptiles. However, due to the sample size of the project, further research is highly suggested.

An Assessment Of The Hydrological Trends Using Synergistic Approaches Of Remote Sensing And Model Evaluations Over Global Arid And Semi-Arid Regions, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary, Rejoice Thomas, Surya Prakash Tiwari, Karuppasamy Manikandan, Thomas Piechota, Daniele Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Drylands cover about 40% of the world’s land area and support two billion people, most of them living in developing countries that are at risk due to land degradation. Over the last few decades, there has been warming, with an escalation of drought and rapid population growth. This will further intensify the risk of desertification, which will seriously affect the local ecological environment, food security and people’s lives. The goal of this research is to analyze the hydrological and land cover characteristics and variability over global arid and semi-arid regions over the last decade (2010–2019) using an integrative approach of …

Mothers’ Satisfaction With Childcare Choices And Its Links To Family Involvement And Community Support, Hadeel Shamlan Al-Essa

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

This study examined mothers ’reports on types of childcare arrangement for a preschool-age child, levels of mothers’, fathers’, and relatives’ involvement in childcare at home, maternal satisfaction with childcare arrangement, the influence of socioeconomic status and social support on mothers ’satisfaction with childcare arrangement, and the nature of mothers ’affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching behaviors during mother-child play sessions. The sample consisted of 130 New Mexico mothers from two-parent families with a preschool child. A subsample of four mothers was selected for collecting data on mother-child play interactions through a 10-minute observation session. Analyses suggested that mothers were the primary …

Winning The Fight For Better Bus Service, Steven Higashide

PSU Transportation Seminars

The "right to the city" depends on the right to access the city, and U.S. regions are marked by profoundly unequal access. One of the clearest manifestations of this is the state of U.S. bus transit. Bus service is simple to improve and has vast potential to better people's lives, but has been constrained by the racist planning and politics that shape every American city.

How can we fulfill the promise of better buses and create abundant transit networks that expand access to opportunity? In this seminar, Higashide unpacks the elements of effective bus service – and cites examples from …

Power-Laden (Mis)Understandings Surrounding Written Voluntary Informed Consent Procedures In Postcolonial Southern Africa, Michelle R. Brear

The Qualitative Report

Written voluntary informed consent (VIC) procedures are the standard approach for operationalising the ethical principle of respect for persons’ autonomy in qualitative research. However, achieving fully informed and truly voluntary consent is challenging, particularly in qualitative research and/or postcolonial contexts. Evidence about (mis)understandings (i.e., unintended meanings) surrounding VIC comes primarily from participants in quantitative, biomedical research. I aim to advance knowledge about qualitative research participants’ (mis)understandings of VIC. I used ethnographic methods to document the evolving (mis)understandings participants attached to written VIC procedures in two postcolonial settings, Eswatini and South Africa. All participants provided me consent to document their interactions …

Continuity And Change: The Academic Teacher-Student Relationships In The Discourse On The Higher Education Reform In Poland, Justyna Spychalska-Stasiak, Helena Ostrowicka

The Qualitative Report

The article presents the results of research on the discursive models of academic relationships that come to the fore in the academic discourse on the reform of higher education in Poland. The aim of the research was to capture the ways of formulating knowledge about the reform of science and higher education and its subjects (i.e., academic teachers and students). The research material comprised 17 Polish academic monographs published in the years 2011-2014 (immediately after the introduction of the higher education reform in Poland). The direction of the analyses was emergent and inductive and was in line with the assumptions …

Critical-Emancipatory Workshop Analysis Through Qualitative Analysis Software, Lucimara Fabiana Fornari, Rosa Fonseca

The Qualitative Report

Critical-emancipatory Workshop is a data collection technique and interventional strategy for emancipatory education aimed at participants involved in the research. It usually results in a significant amount of data in text, audio, image and video formats. Taking this into account, qualitative analysis software usage is paramount to data treatment optimization and promotion of results credibility. This research aimed at identifying the potentialities and limits of webQDA for a Critical-emancipatory Workshop qualitative analysis. To this end, a case study based on the researchers' experience was conducted. It revealed that webQDA is a powerful digital tool for broadening and deepening the analysis …

From Observations And Pictures To Images: Learning Lab@Pp2 In Tourism Classes, Ana Isabel Rodrigues, Marta Amaral

The Qualitative Report

Learning Lab@PP2 is a pedagogical tool that has been applied in a degree course in tourism at the Polytechnic Institute of Beja, specifically in classes of Professional Practice II. It advocates that the learning process should occur in the complex context of society, organizations and professional relations that characterize the tourism industry. The goal is to contribute to the development of professional skills in tourism and educate students as citizens who must be aware of their role in today's increasingly global world. Within Learning Lab methodology, this paper aims to share the benefits of using practical methods in tourism education …

Reflecting On Caqdas And Ethics, Catarina Brandão, António Pedro Costa

The Qualitative Report

As the use of Computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) becomes recurrent in qualitative research, researchers who use this methodological approach need to consider how ethical issues present themselves when we use these types of tools. In this introductory text to the Special Issue of The Qualitative Report, we identify and discuss some of the ethical aspects that we believe are interconnected with CAQDAS. By doing so, we hope to contribute to the reflection on these aspects and the definition of a praxis regarding ethical procedures when using a CAQDAS.

Practicing Ethics And Ethics Praxis, Martin Tolich, Emma Tumilty

The Qualitative Report

Purpose - This paper demonstrates the limited efficacy procedural ethics has for qualitative research. Ethics committee’s instructions have a short shelf life given the research question qualitative researchers create is volatile; that is, likely to change due to the inductive, emergent, informant-led nature of qualitative research. Design - This article draws on extensive literature to examine the void between the original research design and the messy reality experienced in the field. We focus on how researchers can practice ethically by recognizing the need for agile and responsive ethics praxis in their work. Findings - This practice describes the researcher, recognizing …

Post Qualitative Research - Reality Through The Antihierarchical Assemblage Of Non-Calculation, Konstantinos Kerasovitis

The Qualitative Report

This paper presents an overview of the post qualitative research paradigm, tracing the main concepts that underpin it, and the way it opens up research to include the experiential. Research that tends to affect and the totality of existence. The cornerstone of post qualitative is its flat ontology—researcher, theory, and subject matter, form a non-hierarchical assemblage. The human and the non-human, material and immaterial, merge in a liminal entity. Nothing is considered as tainting, bar from the introduction of power relations. And this is the snare commanding caution. Academic approval is conducive to the misinterpretation of the theoretical pieces on …

The Employment Situation Of Veterans: November 2020, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

Veteran employment trends and statistics among various demographics during November 2020.

Documental Fixity, Asy Sanches, Ronald E. Day

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The article discusses the concept of fixity in documents and documentality. Issues of control and power are discusses as related to these concepts.

Rhizome Blues: Introducing Document Teratology, Arthur Perret, Olivier Le Deuff, Clément Borel

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The aim of this paper is to defend a richer theoretical understanding of what we call monsters, and to argue for the development of document teratology, which we see as an important scientific issue for documentology. We start from the premise that the default state of communication is incommunication, and that documentation, developed to counter this, seems to have become overwhelmed from the inside by its own problematic development. We then discuss the opportunity of a document teratology, based on nuanced description of what the word monster means. We describe two strong imperatives, monstration and categorisation, and the tension between …

Embracing Monsters, Laurie J. Bonnici, Brian C. O'Connor

Proceedings from the Document Academy

We propose monsters are documents. Monsters show us, make evident to us, teach us. An exploration of five monsters, both popular and unknown, reveals they fit within a standard model of message making; the binary nature of that model separates meaning from message enabling explanation of evolving interpretations of a monster. We examine the coding and decoding of monster documents through a functional ontology lens. We posit that monsters defy protype and thus serve as attempts at documenting the undocumented. Simultaneously monsters present clues to understanding through imagery that spans the unfamiliar and the familiar allowing the recipient to engage …

Navigating Monsters: Credibility In The Twittersphere, Carrie A. Boettcher

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The increasing use of OSM during emergency, or potentially threatening, situations creates conditions in which emergency planners and responders need a high level of investigative skill to weed through a dynamic information landscape to determine the quality of information to contribute to improved situation awareness. This weeding process transforms the big data environment of OSM to focused information retrieval. Inquiry into indicators of quality in OSM (authority, objectivity, currency, coverage, and glyphicality) during severe weather situations informs how OSM impacts the information behavior of the severe weather enterprise of the U. S. Specifically, this paper focuses on investigation into how …

“What Is Truly Scandinavian?”—A Sas Commercial And The Document Complex Surrounding It, Roswitha Skare

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Scandinavian airlines (SAS) published a video (2:43 minutes long) under the title “What is truly Scandinavian?” on February 11, 2020, on the company’s social media sites. The ad was removed later that day, and a new and shorter version was published the day after. This paper takes a closer look on the video and the reactions on it. By focusing on the official Facebook-page of Scandinavian airlines and a range of documents that were published by SAS and others, the document complex surrounding the film is discussed in terms of connectivity and transformation.

Ishi, Briet's Antelope, And The Documentality Of Human Documents, Martin I. Nord

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Ishi, the “last wild Indian in North America,” was “discovered” in 1911 and spent the last years of his life living in an anthropology museum. There he was studied by anthropologists and viewed by the public as a living exhibit. In this paper, I take some initial steps in arguing that Ishi, the person, became a document to most people. The similarities between Ishi and Suzanne Briet’s hypothetical antelope, newly discovered and placed in a zoo, are eerie. Ishi, like the antelope, is brought into public knowledge as both an initial document and a wide variety of secondary documents derived …

Three Monstrosities Of Information, Ronald E. Day

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article discusses three of my books and the types of information monstrosities they present.

Books And Imaginary Being(S): The Monstrosity Of Library Classifications, Melissa Adler, Greg Nightingale

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library and its classified catalog to the Library of Congress after the original library was burned in the War of 1812. He viewed the act of submitting his collection to the U.S. Congress as a means to inscribe his legacy and political agenda into the intellectual and cultural realm of the nation. Jorge Luis Borges was both a municipal librarian and the Librarian for the National Library of Argentina, as well as a prolific fiction and poetry writer. Borges’s fictions are a kind of catalogue in and of themselves, in which all books, all ideas, …

Seeing Indonesian Ghost Films Through Document Theory, — Suprayitno, Dian Novita Fitriani, Rusdan Kamil, — Rahmi

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Hantu, or ghosts, are portrayed as the incarnation of monstrous or evil souls wishing to harm humans. Most modern Indonesians still believe in ghosts, as suggested by a growing number of ghost films in recent years. From the 1970s until the present, more than 320 ghost films have been made and can be differentiated according to each culture, custom, and religion in Indonesia. Indonesian people believe that ghost films in Indonesia are scarier than ghost films from abroad because of a symbolic bond between ghosts and traditional myths represented in the films. This paper aims to understand ghost films …

The Brazilian Neodocumentalist Movement: An Historical Perspective, Gabriela Fernanda Ribeiro Rodrigues

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article presents early studies on the repercussion of the neo-documentation movement in Brazilian Information Science, through a literary review on the history and evolution of Documentation in Brazil. Some currently approached questions by Brazilian researchers are presented here, with regard to the document and documentation under the neo-documentation perspective. Based on the work of these Brazilian researchers, by means of reconstituting the theoretical steps in the construction of these researches, it is traced to the pathways that indicate an original Brazilian Information Science neo-documentation movement. It is recommended that the subject be widely explored in the future, for being …

The Dragonslayer: Folktale Classification, Memetics, And Cataloguing, Alex Mayhew

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Tales of great heroes overcoming great monsters have been a part of storytelling since time immemorial. Some of these tales follow recurring patterns, and one such pattern is that of ‘The Dragonslayer.’ From tales of Tristan and Iseult and Saint George and the Dragon, to the confrontation with the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit, ‘The Dragonslayer’ has been an enduring example of a recurring pattern in storytelling.

Different knowledge organization systems seek to arrange and connect texts and their recurring patterns in different ways. Folklorists look for recurring motifs and some wiki editors look for common tropes in …

Documentary Ghosts, Tim Gorichanaz

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper explores how they documents provide evidence, particularly in anomalous cases, where the evidence is specious. I suggest that it is fruitful to consider such cases with the metaphor of ghosts, as ghosts suggest a breakdown in our everyday understandings of the link between life and death. I describe three types of ghosts and consequently three types of documentary ghosts. Documentary Ghost 1 is a document whose object no longer exists; Documentary Ghost 2 is a document that seems to evince one object, but upon scrutiny it evinces something else; and Documentary Ghost 3 is a document that seems …

Dean's Letter - Education As A Social Act

Insights

Dean Guillermo Vásquez de Velasco discusses the need for education to address the major challenges facing society, including pandemic response, social justice, antiracism. He calls education not simply the delivery of knowledge—it is a social act, through which we help to build a resilient, compassionate, effective and moral community, and outlines how the college is answering that imperative even in a remote learning environment.

Alumna Profile: Pride Of Heritage

Insights

Michelle Morales, a first-generation college student, taught in an alternative school, became the administrator for a network of alternative schools in Chicago, joined Mikva Challenge, and became the third Latina woman to serve as president of the Woods Fund, which supports community organizing and public policy advocacy.

Coming Attractions

Insights

With the pandemic prohibiting in-person learning and campus visits, the college offered an assortment of creative online offerings this summer to give newly admitted DePaul students a taste of the LAS experience. Among the offerings were a mini-course, "Critical Perspectives on Our Current Moment," taught using Zoom, an introduction to the Center for Black Diaspora and the Center for Latino Research, and panel discussions with current students and faculty in the Honors program.

Scholarly Pursuits: The Inequality Of Illness

Insights

Multiple LAS faculty received grants from DePaul to pursue different studies that analyze health equity and COVID-19. Part of the research helped map the extent to which race, ethnicity, socioeconomics and previous health conditions explain the disparities in outcomes from COVID-19 in Chicago.