Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Using Robotics To Equip K-12 Teachers: Silicon Prairie Initiative For Robotics In Information Technology (Spirit), Alisa Gilmore, Bing Chen, Neal Grandgenett

Teacher Education Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The Silicon Prairie Initiative for Robotics in Information Technology (SPIRIT) is a unique collaborative effort between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) College of Engineering, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) College of Education, and the local Omaha Public Schools (OPS) system. With funding from an NSF ITEST grant, from 2006 – 2008 the initiative recruited and trained 97 math and science middle school teachers through summer workshops and follow-up sessions during the school year, with the goal of equipping teachers in hands-on engineering design principles and providing curriculum development support for STEM instruction. The centerpiece of the training was …

Working Together: A Literature Review Of Campus Information Technology Partnerships, Eleta Exline

University Library Scholarship

This article reviews the recent literature about the essential but often uneasy alliances made between content experts (archivists and librarians) and technology experts. Differing professional cultures, misunderstandings of one another, limited abilities to envision change, and lack of support from top-level administrators are the most often cited reasons for the persistent difficulty in working together. Failure to collaborate may result in the marginalization or exclusion of content experts from projects where their professional skills are most needed. In spite of these problems, successful models for working together do exist. True collaborations are mutually beneficial, open opportunities for continuing relationships, and …

Adaptation To Climate Change In Sub-Saharan Africa: An Investigation Of Capacity-Building And National Adaptation Programs Of Action, Emily A. Norford

Environmental Studies Honors Papers

The phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change requires immediate attention. Many of the most severe effects of climate change will occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Least-developed countries (LDCs) in this region are particularly vulnerable to climate change, due to their geographical location and their poor ability to cope with the consequences. This study examines the various impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation strategies associated with climate change in sub-Saharan African LDCs, using Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Senegal as case studies. Each of these three countries has developed a National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA), a country-specific climate change adaptation plan designed by the United …

Situation Awareness Via Abductive Reasoning For Semantic Sensor Data: A Preliminary Report, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Cory Andrew Henson, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Semantic sensor Web enhances raw sensor data with spatial, temporal, and thematic annotations to enable high-level reasoning. In this paper, we explore how abductive reasoning framework can benefit formalization and interpretation of sensor data to garner situation awareness. Specifically, we show how abductive logic programming techniques, in conjunction with symbolic knowledge rules, can be used to detect inconsistent sensor data and to generate human accessible description of the state of the world from consistent subset of the sensor data. We also show how trust/belief information can be incorporated into the interpreter to enhance reliability. For concreteness, we formalize weather domain …

Semsos: Semantic Sensor Observation Service, Cory Andrew Henson, Josh Pschorr, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

Sensor observation service (SOS) is a Web service specification defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) group in order to standardize the way sensors and sensor data are discovered and accessed on the Web. This standard goes a long way in providing interoperability between repositories of heterogeneous sensor data and applications that use this data. Many of these applications, however, are ill equipped at handling raw sensor data as provided by SOS and require actionable knowledge of the environment in order to be practically useful. There are two approaches to deal with this obstacle, make the …

10 Key Principles For Designing Video Games For Foreign Language Learning, Ravi Purushotma, Steven L. Thorne, Julian Wheatley

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper was produced for the Open Language & Learning Games Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Education Arcade.

Video Cataloging: The Basics, Mary Konkel

Library Scholarship

This presentation covers the basics of MARC tagging and coding bibliographic records for videorecordings, with an emphasis on DVDs.

A New Model Of 4-H Volunteer Development In Science, Engineering, And Technology Programs, Bradley S. Barker, Neal Grandgenett, Gwen Nugent

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

New initiatives centered on science, engineering, and technology (SET) in 4-H may be moving away from the long-established adult volunteer delivery model. This shift in delivery may be due to a lack of availability of adult volunteers who possess the necessary SET competencies to effectively lead 4-H clubs. One way to offset this trend may be to blend traditional face-to-face training with continuous training efforts that include asynchronous on-line training modules, synchronous Web-based meetings, and self-directed learning. This new 4-H SET Volunteer Competencies Training Model is being tested in the Nebraska 4-H Robotics and GPS/GIS program.

Risk Communication For Emerging Technologies: A Mini-Roadmap, Susanna Hornig Priest, Ted Greenhalgh, Elizabeth Young

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

This document summarizes the results of a workshop on risk communication that took place in January, 2009, involving participants from across North America but concentrated in the Western U.S. The workshop considered risk communication challenges and opportunities across a range of technologies and strategies. The discussions suggested that potential synergies exist across risk-related topics, as well as across disciplines, and highlighted the need for constructing opportunities for members of this research community to exchange ideas and results on an ongoing basis.

Contentdm @ Unlv: New Capabilities, New Opportunities, Cory K. Lampert

Library Faculty Presentations

Why digitize?

•Access

•Preservation (sort of…)

•Collaboration

•New forum for publishing

Ebooks In The Opac @ C.O.D., Mary Konkel

Library Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Motivation In Spinoza And Rosenzweig Or Transgressing The Boundaries Of A Rationally Constructed Self, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Unconscionable, Sarah Stanlick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The combination of level-headed scientific approaches and passionate activism seems at first glance an incompatible relationship. For the passionate humanitarian, there is a hesitation in fear of "selling out" to the black and white world of science, that science would somehow take the "human" dimension away from human rights. However, the bigger issue-and opportunity-is the multitude of ways that the partnership between scientific method and human rights can yield possibilities and innovations. As described in Sonia Shah's piece in The Nation , scientists are coming together to lend their unique skills and perspective to the ever-changing global status of human …

Scientists Have Been Out For Some Time Now: A Response To Sonia Shah, Clair Apodaca

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sonia Shah's categorization of the scientific community as having been "by and large. impassively unmoved [by human rights], churning out their papers, applying for grants and debating esoterica at their private professional meetings" is grossly inaccurate on at least two accounts.

Scientists Promoting Human Rights, Edward Friedman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Scientists have long been involved with work to protect fundamental human rights. The activities of the Federation of American Scientists to expose the health impact of nuclear testing in the atmosphere is typical. In the Soviet Union , many of the leading human rights activists, starting with the great Andrei Sakharov , were scientists. The same is true in China where a major intellectual force inspiring China's 1989 democracy movement was Fang Lizhi , an astrophysicist. Often their contribution to military security even gives them a little bit of protection.

March Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Scientists Come Out for Human Rights ” by Sonia Shah. The Nation. January 27, 2009.

Enlightenment: Science And Human Rights, Christien Van Den Anker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The subject of science and human rights sparks off thoughts of how this link has historically and geographically been severed, which has the effect of finding it newsworthy that scientists speak out in favor of human rights.

The ancient Greek philosophers were not limited in their subject matters in the same way as we take for granted now: science, society and the self were all deliberated about both empirically and normatively. Moreover, there was no division of labor between thinkers about one or other of these subjects.

Pre-Islamic Persian influences also affected debates on science. In the Middle Ages with …

Where In The World Is Library Technical Services? Finding Ourselves In Fun, Learning, And Food, Connie Foster

DLTS Faculty Publications

Public libraries do it, historical societies are a natural, especially in Boston; media centers incorporate them into special events; the British started it. The “it” or “them” represents a tea party. But why in academic libraries? Why in Library Technical Services?

A Quasi-Experimental Study On Students' Perceptions And Intended Use Of Digital Recording Technology In A College Technology Classroom, Zenia Bahorski

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This quasi-experimental study employed a modified Technology Acceptance Model approach in conjunction with a Perceived Classroom Interaction Model. The study investigated the impact of digital audio recording of college classroom lectures on students' perceptions of interaction levels, usefulness, and use of the digital media.

The study surveyed six introductory computer science and technology classes. Previous computer knowledge was not assumed. The results found no significant differences of students' perceptions of interaction levels in traditional classroom lectures. However, gender was found to have a significant effect on speaking in class when a recorder was present. No significant differences were found when …

Semantic Integration Of Citizen Sensor Data And Multilevel Sensing: A Comprehensive Path Towards Event Monitoring And Situational Awareness, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Programmable Media Conference - Pace, Collaborative Project

Dyson College- Seidenberg School of CSIS : Collaborative Projects and Presentations

This entry adheres to the use of the quad chart template to provide a succint description only of the current research project undertaken by the participants. It provides for the following information:

1. Participants and Affiliations
2. Overall Project Goals
3. Illustrative picture
4. Specific research/artistic/pedagogic foci

Computing For Human Experience: Sensors, Perception, Semantics, Web N.0, And Beyond, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Traditionally there has been a strong separation between computing and human activities in the real world. The approach has largely been that of mapping the complexity and richness of the real world to constrained computer models and languages for more efficient computation, and then transferring the results for use in the real world. I think the time is ripe to reverse the situation, for computing and communication to transparently enrich and enhance human experience. Today, devices enable something more than a 'human instructs machine' paradigm. We are seeing computing and communication engage transparently in human activities by enriching them in …

Why Gujarat Needs Much Better Higher Education & Research To Succeed In Knowledge Economy & What We Can Do About It?, Amit P. Sheth, Kamlesh Lulla, Sanjay Chaudhary

Kno.e.sis Publications

This white paper distills the deliberations on the role of higher education and research as a key enabler of a Knowledge based Society. In particular it discusses (a) the importance of higher quality PhDs for building a knowledge society, (b) the initiatives and progress in competing economies in higher education and research, (c) where Gujarat stands in comparison, and (d) some recommendations on what Gujarat can do to enable timely progress towards building a knowledge based society and economy. These deliberations were conducted in conjunction with the International Conference on 'Reconnecting Gujarati Diaspora with its Homeland: Contribution to its Development …

Front Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents (V. 21, 2009)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Twenty Years Of The Bead Forum: Newsletter Of The Society Of Bead Researchers (1982-2002)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Compiled by Karlis Karklins

The Bead Forum: Newsletter of the Society of Bead Researchers was initiated in 1982 by Peter Francis, Jr., to facilitate communication between bead researchers. Over the years it has provided news about the society, announcements of relevant exhibitions, conferences, and recent publications, requests for information, memorials, and short articles and news items on various aspects of bead research. The two latter contain much useful information that is, unfortunately, not readily available to many researchers who do not own the set or have forgotten what is in the earlier issues. Furthermore, few libraries and museums have full …

Ontologies And Rules, Pascal Hitzler, Bijan Parsia

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Ontologies and rules are two established paradigms in knowledge modelling, and play an important role for the Semantic Web. In this chapter, we present an introduction to common approaches for combining OWL ontologies and rules. In particular, we cover the Semantic Web Rules Language SWRL and Description Logic Programs DLP, and give pointers to the literature.

User-Generated Content On Social Media Challenges, Opportunities, Meenakshi Nagarajan

Kno.e.sis Publications

Understanding and exploiting user generated (textual) content (UGC) on social media is at the forefront of information management challenges today. The variety of UGC in detailed blog commentaries, collaborative wiki-content, online conversations, short messages in micro-blogs etc., are powering several personalization, monetization, crowd/business intelligence applications, and also providing an electronic microscope on social phenomena at an extraordinary scale. Certain characteristics of UGC however, necessitate key computational linguistic interventions before systems can tap into this data. A large portion of language found on social media is in the Informal English domain a blend of abbreviations, slang and context dependent terms delivered …

World Of Halal Science, Industry And Business International Conference 2009; In Conjunction With Imt-Gt Phuket Halal Expo 2009 And Thai Muslims Cultural Fair

Halal Insight

No abstract provided.

Dialogue - Challenge In Science & Technology: Halal Science Vs Haram Science, Jongjit Angkatavanich, Ekarin Saifah, Annop Kunavongkrit, Mahinda Abeywardena, Farouk Gad

Halal Insight

No abstract provided.