Communication Commons^™

Smu Celebrates Its 7th Batch Of 1,514 Graduates, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

No abstract provided.

Trust Model For Semantic Sensor And Social Networks: A Preliminary Report, Pramod Anantharam, Cory Andrew Henson, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Trust is an amorphous concept that is becoming Increasingly important in many domains, such as P2P networks, E-commerce, social networks, and sensor networks. While we all have an intuitive notion of trust, the literature is scattered with a wide assortment of differing definitions and descriptions; often these descriptions are highly dependent on a single domain or application of interest. In addition, they often discuss orthogonal aspects of trust while continuing to use the general term “trust”. In order to make sense of the situation, we have developed an ontology of trust that integrates and relates its various aspects into a …

Sit-To-Stand Detection Using Fuzzy Clustering Techniques, Tanvi Banerjee, James M. Keller, Marjorie Skubic, Carmen Abbott

Kno.e.sis Publications

The ability to rise from a chair is an important parameter to assess the balance deficits of a person. In particular, this can be an indication of risk for falling in elderly persons. Our goal is automated assessment of fall risk using video data. Towards this goal, we present a simple yet effective method of detecting transition, i.e. sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit, from image frames using fuzzy clustering methods on image moments. The technique described in this paper is shown to be robust even in the presence of noise and has been tested on several data sequences using different subjects yielding …

Update On Equity Programs In Response To "I Am U-Uri Unity In Difference", Thomas R. Dougan

Student Affairs Digital Community Development

This was an email from Tom Dougan sharing a memo with the members of I Am U.

"Members of the Student Equity Council-I wanted to provide you with an update of what has been occurring this summer regarding our efforts to address several of the issues and recommendations you brought to our attention this past spring. I have attached a summary of activities for your review. Enjoy the 4th of July holiday."

Central Florida Future, Vol. 42 No. 42, July 1, 2010

Central Florida Future

Teachers staying the course; Uncover Thursdays; Summer season; Plus: Boom town; Salt shaker; Tea Party club gives UCF some new flavor; UCF robotics team vehicle wins $5,000.

Comparing Discrete Simulation And System Dynamics: Modeling An Anti-Insurgency Influence Operation, Wayne Wakeland, Una E. Medina

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper contrasts the tradeoffs of modeling the same dynamic problem at a micro scale and at a macro scale of analysis: discrete system simulation (DS) versus continuous system simulation or system dynamics (SD). Both are employed to model the influence of entertainment education on terrorist system decay, with implications for field application. Each method optimizes different design, scope/scale, data availability/accuracy, parameter settings, and system sensitivities. Whether the research served by the computer model is applied or theoretical, DS tends to be useful for understand low-level individual unit/step influences on system change over time, whereas SD tends to shine when …

Veni, Vidi, Wiki: Expertise As Knowledge And A Technocratic Generation, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This project stems from two intersecting strands. The statement, "I can always find out," neatly summarizes the intersection. Not surprisingly, it has two distinct but simultaneous meanings. The first, in which "always" means "every time," considers the ways in which the ability to find knowledge has become synonymous with expertise and examines the elements that have fostered this situation. In this regard, factors such as the range of software and hardware-from Wikipedia and FAQs to cellphones and Ipods-which anticipate or "think" for the user but also require constant updating are both rationale and outcome for their youthful consumers. When combined …

Biomedical Ontologies For Parasite Research, Vinh Nguyen, Satya S. Sahoo, Priti Parikh, Todd Minning, Brent Weatherly, Flora Logan, Amit P. Sheth, Rick Tarleton

Kno.e.sis Publications

Trypanosoma cruzi is a protozoan parasite that causes Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis, which is the leading cause of death in Latin America. The primary objective of this study is to create an ontology-driven information infrastructure to support parasite researchers in identifying gene knockout, vaccination, or drug targets for T. cruzi. This involves querying across multiple datasets from diverse sources, such as proteome, pathway, internal lab data, etc. that are often represented in heterogeneous formats. To address this, a multi-ontology parasite knowledge repository (PKR) is being created with an intuitive graphical query interface called Cuebee. The PKR is underpinned by …

Cloud Based Scientific Workflow For Nmr Data Analysis, Ashwin Manjunatha, Paul E. Anderson, Satya S. Sahoo, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Michael L. Raymer, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This work presents a service oriented scientific workflow approach to NMR-based metabolomics data analysis. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by implementing several common spectral processing techniques in the cloud using a parallel map-reduce framework, Hadoop.

Antecedents Of Servant Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study, Curtis D. Beck

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the antecedents of servant leadership. The sequential explanatory research design consisted of two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative. The Phase One quantitative survey collected data from 499 leaders and 630 raters from community leadership programs in the United States using the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). During Phase Two, selected leaders from phase one (N = 12) were interviewed to explain those results in more depth. The data were coded and analyzed for possible themes. Triangulation was used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data to validate …

The Debate Authors Working Group Model For Collaborative Knowledge Production In Forensics Scholarship, Gordon R. Mitchell, Carly Woods, Matthew Brigham, Eric English, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The disconnect between modes of knowledge production in forensics (mostly collaborative) and academic study in the humanities (mostly solo work) is a chasm that can complicate the transition from tournament competitor to professional scholar. Might arrangements that promote joint authorship help harmonize the two modes of knowledge production and convert creative energy from the forensics setting to the academic publishing enterprise? This essay considers the possibility, reflecting on how efforts to coordinate collaborative knowledge production in debate authors working groups relate to professional development challenges isolated in the 1974 Sedalia Conference, the 1984 National Developmental Conference on Forensics, the 1993 …

Orwellian Language And The Politics Of Tribal Termination (1953–1960), Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

From 1953 to 1960, the federal government terminated sovereign recognition for 109 American Indian nations. Termination was a haphazard policy of assimilation that had disastrous consequences for Indian land and culture. Nonetheless, termination cloaked latent motivations for Indian land within individual rights rhetoric that was at odds with Indian sovereignty. Termination highlights the rhetorical features of social control under capitalism portrayed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), in which opposing principles are fused and inverted. This essay critiques termination’s Orwellian language to show how ideographs of social liberation are refashioned by the state to subvert Indian sovereignty and popular dissent.

Financial Literacy Explicated: The Case For A Clearer Definition In An Increasingly Complex Economy, David L. Remund

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This study explicates the concept of financial literacy, which has blossomed in use this century. Scholars, policy officials, financial experts, and consumer advocates have used the phrase loosely to describe the knowledge, skills, confidence, and motivation necessary to effectively manage money. As a result, financial literacy has varying conceptual definitions in existing research as well as diverse operational definitions and values. This study dissects the differing financial literacy definitions and measures, urging researchers toward common ground. A clearer definition should improve future research, in turn helping consumers better understand and adapt to changing life events and an increasingly complex economy.

The “New Media” Campaign The Role Of Social Networking And Online Tools In Political Campaigning, Clayton Allen

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Extracting Common Emotions From Blogs Based On Fine-Grained Sentiment Clustering, Shi Feng, Daling Wang, Ge Yu, Wei Gao, Kam-Fai Wong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recently, blogs have emerged as the major platform for people to express their feelings and sentiments in the age of Web 2.0. The common emotions, which reflect people’s collective and overall sentiments, are becoming the major concern for governments, business companies and individual users. Different from previous literatures on sentiment classification and summarization, the major issue of common emotion extraction is to find out people’s collective sentiments and their corresponding distributions on the Web. Most existing blog clustering methods take into account keywords, stories or timelines but neglect the embedded sentiments, which are considered very important features of blogs. In …

From The President, Carol Stanley

Georgia Library Quarterly

The article offers information on the Council of Media Organizations' Conference XXII in Athens, Georgia on October 13-15, 2010.

Contesting Sphere Boundaries Online: Private/Technical/Public Discourses In Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Discussion Groups, Kittie E. Grace

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The internet is fast becoming a means for people to obtain information, creating a unique forum for the intersection of the public, technical, and private spheres. To ground my research theoretically, I used Jürgen Habermas’s sphere theory. Habermas (1987) explains that the technical sphere colonizes the private sphere, which decreases democratic potential. In particular, the internet is a place for altering technical colonization of the private and public spheres.

My research focuses on women’s health because it is a particularly useful case study for examining sphere tensions. Historically, the biomedical health establishment has been a powerful agent of colonization, resulting …

Bastards, Brains, Boobs And Performance: A Retrospective Account, Joanna Bartell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The two essays that comprise this thesis use personal narrative to discuss various aspects of illness, resistance and the body. The first essay uses performance theory to explore the social structures, mandates and restrictions concerning illness. I use the cancer experience to explore the co-creation of self, identity, and modes of being between "performer" and "audience." "Performer," in this case, is the "breast cancer patient," and the "audience" is comprised of the "social others.” The second essay explores cyborgization of the body, its painful effects, and associated social and moral values. It also discusses how we create theory and understanding …

An Ecology Of Performance: Gregory Bateson's Cybernetic Performance, Daniel Matthew Blaeuer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a case study of the public performances of Gregory Bateson at The Esalen Institute. The case study is a reconsideration of the work of Gregory Bateson from the perspective of performance studies. The author brings together performativity, cybernetics, and the sacred to argue that Gregory Bateson, in his public performances, was striving for grace in encounters with others. The author has conducted archival research into Bateson’s presentations and has spoken with several close to Bateson to get a sense of how his process of public presentation paralleled his ideas—a process of continually working through ideas in conversation …

A Heuristic Algorithm For Trust-Oriented Service Provider Selection In Complex Social Networks, Guanfeng Liu, Yan Wang, Mehmet A. Orgun, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a service-oriented online social network consisting of service providers and consumers, a service consumer can search trustworthy service providers via the social network. This requires the evaluation of the trustworthiness of a service provider along a certain social trust path from the service consumer to the service provider. However, there are usually many social trust paths between participants in social networks. Thus, a challenging problem is which social trust path is the optimal one that can yield the most trustworthy evaluation result. In this paper, we first present a novel complex social network structure and a new concept, Quality …