Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Does Ai Help Or Harm? Why And How Ai Use Influences Workplace Outcomes And Employee Well-Being, Haille Trimboli, Reka Lassu

Education Division Scholarship

Although the recent surge in excitement surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) might suggest it is a new development, AI has been applied in organizations for over forty years (Fanti et al., 2022; Markelius et al., 2024). Indeed, the term "artificial intelligence" itself emerged in the 1950s during a research project at Dartmouth College, where it was used to describe "machines able to simulate human intelligence" (Haenlein & Kaplan, 2019, p. 3). Most recently, in 2022, the landscape of AI use for laypeople greatly changed when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a generative AI tool, to the public; ChatGPT is an advanced AI language …

"Data Science For Digital Privacy: A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Audiences", Kayla Ahrndt

SPARK Symposium Presentations

As companies increasingly rely on consumer data for personalization and profit, the need for stronger user protections, security measures, and transparency in data practices grows. Legal frameworks must be continuously re-evaluated and updated to ensure accountability, while individuals must be equipped with the knowledge to make informed decisions about their digital presence. However, personal data privacy education remains widely inaccessible due to the technical language and the effort required to navigate complex policies. This project, presented in both zine and blog formats, addresses this gap by providing clear, actionable, and accessible recommendations for data privacy and personal cybersecurity. As an …

To Sleep – Perchance To Dream: Does Reducing Social Media Use Improve Sleep Quality?, Meredith E. David, James A. Roberts

AMTP Proceedings 2025

It is surprising given the increasingly high use of social media use among young adults and the likely relationship between it and deteriorating sleep quality that more research is not focused on the relationship between these two variables. The present study results supported our two a priori hypotheses. Social media use and sleep were inversely associated (H1). Further, our data showed that the level of social media use impacted sleep quality - a causal relationship is indicated between the two variables (H2). The treatment group that reduced its use of social media over a 10-day period reported higher levels of …

Veiled Pain Through Anonymity: Exploring Emotions About Nonsuicidal Self-Injury On Reddit, Lindsay A. Lundeen, Erin Kern Popejoy, John R. Mccall, David D. Christian, Lizy Humphrey

Trauma Counseling and Resilience

Nonsuicidal self-injury conversations can occur under veiled discussions,whether online or in-person, due to stigmatized emotions associated with self-harm. Previous studies addressednonsuicidal self-injury on Reddit, yet do not specifically address emotions expressed within posts. The present study assessed emotional discourse in 996 subreddit posts about self-harm engagement and related circumstances, through an inductive, thematic analysis design. Emotions consisted of four identified themes: (a) lonely and looking for belonging on Reddit, (b) despair and exhaustion trying to stop the behavior, (c) humiliated and scared after disclosure to in-person supports, and (d) thankful for subreddit support. Members discussed Reddit as a space to …

Rebuttal Against Ai Relationships, Chloe Loughran

Gateway Reader- Individual Papers

• The Problem: The researcher addresses the harmful individual and societal impacts of relying on AI relationships, specifically focusing on emotional dependency, addiction, financial exploitation, and the erosion of real-world social skills.

• The Method: The author performs a comparative analysis of Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz's article "The Man of Your Dreams" alongside research and expert testimonies from tech and relationship fields published between 2023 and 2025.

• Quantitative Finding: Replika charges a subscription fee of $69.99 per year, offers unlimited access for a one-time fee of $300, and is documented to have caused at least one user to spend an entire paycheck on the …

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Are Emojis The New Words? A Sentiment Analysis Of Social Media Brand Conversations, Yashodhan Karulkar, Dev T. Vora, Siddharth Vaddepalli, Yash Thakur

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Emojis have become an increasingly important aspect of consumer-brand interactions in the Indian subcontinent. However, the impact of emoji use on brand image and mental health remains underexplored, particularly in emerging economies like India, where structured research on this topic is limited. To address this gap, the present study analyzes over 4,600 consumer tweets related to 19 prominent brands across eleven industries. Using VADER sentiment analysis, the research develops a metric to assess consumer sentiment and brand engagement in relation to emoji usage. The findings indicate that effective integration of emojis contributes to positive consumer sentiment and enhanced brand engagement. …

A Scalable Architecture For Visualizing And Analyzing Crime Data In La, Sangwhan Cha, Devyani Patra, Linging Jiang, Shamita Manvi, Wen Shi, Yi Chao

Harrisburg University Other Works

This paper presents the design and implementation of a scalable data pipeline and interactive dashboards for analyzing crime patterns in Los Angeles using data from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The pipeline was built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), where data was ingested through Python scripts, stored in Amazon S3, processed with AWS Glue, and loaded into Amazon Redshift. Tableau was integrated for real-time visualization, enabling exploration of geographic, temporal, and demographic trends. Analysis revealed that the Central, 77th Street, and Pacific divisions consistently report the highest crime rates, with vehicle theft, battery/simple assault, and burglary as the most …

Smart Manufacturing Readiness Assessment - Analysis Of A Modern Tool From A Sociotechnical Perspective, Todd Lemon

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Smart Manufacturing has emerged out of the pervasive buzzwords in publications as a competitive strategy, characterized by the intensive use of digital information and technology throughout the production processes; shop-floor, people, and systems are married by the Internet creating services critical to manufacturing. The work completed and presented here extends the research in the area of Smart Manufacturing (SM) readiness to include a more comprehensive approach to production floor implementation. The overarching goal is to explore SM implementation in attempt to identify underlying latent factors that relate to preparedness from a joint social and technical perspective, striving for a model …

Podcasting Towards Togetherness: Utilizing Podcasts To Improve Departmental Camaraderie And Well-Being, Michael Petrauskis, Colleen Gutman, Rosemarie Fernandez

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: Physician burnout is on the rise, and this is of particular concern in emergency medicine. Burnout is associated with medical errors, adverse events, poor professionalism, and litigation. A sense of community can build engagement and mitigate workplace stressors on well-being. Emergency physicians may have trouble connecting due to the nature of shift-work and various practice settings. Communication technology, and particularly podcasting, has the potential to help overcome these barriers and positively impact relatedness and well-being.

Approach: We developed an inward-facing podcast, “The ER Break Room” within the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Florida. Through the …

Modeling The Relationship Between Calories And Activity Metrics: A Regression Analysis With Variable Selection, Felix Yeboah

Data Science and Data Mining

Physical activity monitors have become integral to daily routines, with wearable devices such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit offering continuous data on users’ physical activity. This study compares the measurement accuracy of these devices by examining how they record parameters relevant to fitness and health. Employing multiple linear regression, we modeled the relationship between calories expended and a set of explanatory variables, including heart rate, steps, distance, age, activity level, weight, and device type. Evaluation of all possible variable combinations identified heart rate, steps, distance, weight, and watch type as the most effective predictors of calorie expenditure. Although the …

Insights For The Future Of Car Rental And Ridesharing: Driving Behavior Across Different Levels Of Automation, Pranav Meda, Aubrey Victoria Contreras, Wei-Hsiang Lo, Gaojian Huang, Yue Luo

Mineta Transportation Institute

Autonomous vehicles are reshaping the car rental and ridesharing industries, potentially leading to a unified model of on-demand transportation suitable for both uncommon (e.g., business trips) and daily commuting. An exploratory study of human behavior towards autonomous vehicles can uncover the challenges and opportunities inherent in different levels of vehicle automation. This study aims to (a) identify behavioral differences in drivers operating vehicles at various levels of automation and (b) explore how these behaviors vary with different assistance feature styles, specifically between risky and conservative modes. Human-subject experiments were conducted among twelve participants (aged 21 to 29, including four women) …

Zombie-Auras: Genai And Hybrid Text Production, Joshua Nieubuurt

English Faculty Publications

This paper explores the iterative evolutions of textual production and their impact on the “aura” of texts, as conceptualized by Walter Benjamin. The study identifies three key phases of textual production: the natural, the mechanized, and the digitized, each progressively displacing the “cult value” of texts. This cult value is lost through increased ease of creation, reproduction, dissemination, and dislocation of creators and audiences in time and space. The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) marks the latest evolution, transforming the “aura” into a memetic “zombie” form—familiar yet opaque, evoking both the sublime and fear. By examining Benjamin’s notion of “aura” …

Amidst The Frenzy Over Deepseek Ai, Us Federal Science And Tech Policy Is A Mess Of Internal Contradictions, Yujia He

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

The release of the R1 model by the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company, DeepSeek, shocked the US tech industry. Yujia He writes that while DeepSeek’s model may not be quite as superior compared to its competitors as originally thought, the Trump administration has responded to its innovations by further pushing for US leadership in AI. Taking a close look at US research and development policy under the second Trump administration, however, shows the significant disconnect between rhetoric and policy. Federal funding freezes and reduced funding for the National Science Foundation could have dire long-term consequences for research and international cooperation …

Synchronizing Work And Teaching Practices With The Spatial Dna Of Distributed Work And Learning, Manju Aishwarya Adikesavan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Phygitality, the seamless and synergistic integration of physical and digital realms, is an indispensable and irrevocable part of contemporary office-based work. Phygitality facilitates spatially and temporally distributed or multi-local working where employees work from diverse locations such as their home, office, and third places at any time of day or night. It also makes nonterritorial working at temporary workspaces accessed on a session-by-session basis possible.

This dissertation examines how phygital, multi-local, and nonterritorial working reshape individual and group work behaviors, organizational spatial practices, work-centric settings, non-work-centric settings, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. The Spatial DNA of Distributed Work encapsulates a conceptual …

In Memoriam - Nora Sabelli: Master Orchestrator Of Grant Programs And Mentor For Advancing The Interdisciplinary Learning Sciences Field, Eric Hamilton, Jeremy Roschelle, Roy Pea, Barbara Means, Louis Gomez, Kim Gomez, Nancy Butler Songer

Education Division Scholarship

On Friday, September 6, 2024, the learning sciences field lost a giant in Dr. Nora Sabelli, 87 years old, a personal mentor to many researchers and an inspiration to so many learning scientists and STEM leaders. Nora’s first professional career was as a computational chemist, and later she became a passionate leader in research for improving STEM education. Nora’s time as a senior program officer at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Education and Human Resources (EHR) directorate was legendary; she was a force of nature who reshaped funding priorities for stronger science and a stronger connection of science to education …

Digital Humanitarianism: An Interview With Fleur Johns, Louis Ravn, Fleur E. Johns

Critical Humanities

In this interview, Fleur Johns elucidates the central themes of her recent book #Help: Digital Humanitarianism and the Remaking of International Order. Situating her research alongside well-established critical analyses of digital platforms and algorithms, Johns elaborates on the distinctive characteristics of digital humanitarianism, how these can be studied through digital interfaces, and the politics of Big Tech’s involvement in this transformation of humanitarianism. Most importantly, the interview sheds light on Johns’s infra-disciplinary theoretical-methodological approach that seeks to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, resulting in her unique fusion of critical data/algorithm studies, international legal scholarship, and social theory. Based on this, …

A Lead Pilgrimage Ampulla From ‘Akko’S Crusader Harbor, Jacob Sharvit, Bridget Buxton, William H. Krieger, Dror Planer, Ofra Barkai

'Atiqot

A medieval mold-made lead pilgrimage ampulla was retrieved in an underwater excavation in the port of ‘Akko. It exhibits molded ribbing, resembling a scallop shell or drawstring purse on one side, and an aniconic quatrefoil petal on the other. Such mass-produced, budget-friendly, lead pilgrim ampullae are well-known in medieval Christianity, probably reflecting an insatiable desire for holy relics. Certain characteristics of the ampulla may suggest that it was locally produced in ‘Akko. In the Crusader period, ‘Akko was the major maritime gateway in and out of the Holy Land for European pilgrims, and the ‘Akko ampulla may have arrived at …

The Glass Finds From The Monastery At Nahal Pehar (Giv‘Ot Bar), In The Northern Negev, Tamar Winter

'Atiqot

The glass finds distributed throughout the monastery at Giv‘ot Bar include vessels that denote the religious nature of the building: bottles, juglets, several types of lamps and windowpanes. These finds are characteristic of ecclesiastical complexes of the late Byzantine period, and attest to an active Christian community at the site.

Three Greek Inscriptions From The Monastery At Nahal Pehar (Giv‘Ot Bar), In The Northern Negev, Leah Di Segni

'Atiqot

Three Greek inscriptions were discovered within a small coenobium at Giv‘ot Bar in the northern Negev. One was set in a mosaic pavement in the chapel, and the other two were painted in red ink on building blocks found in the debris near the entrance to the chapel. The mosaic inscription mentions a string of names, probably of the monks who cared for the laying of the mosaic pavement in the chapel, or perhaps for the foundation of the coenobium. The two other inscriptions are epitaphs, indicating that the chapel was also used for burial. One epitaph mentions a date …

A Byzantine-Period Monastery And Farmhouse In Nahal Pehar (Giv‘Ot Bar), In The Northern Negev, Nir-Shimshon Paran

'Atiqot

A Byzantine-period monastery and farmhouse were uncovered on the southwestern bank of Naḥal Peḥar, within the modern settlement of Giv‘ot Bar, in the northern Negev. The monastery was well-preserved, attesting to the daily life of the monks in the Negev in the Byzantine period. It was paved with poorly executed mosaic floors, probably laid by the monks themselves. Most of the finds in the monastery were uncovered on the floors, attesting to its orderly abandonment in the late Byzantine or beginning of the Umayyad period (sixth–seventh centuries CE). The monastery seems to have belonged to the widespread ecclesiastical system documented …