93887 research outputs found
Sort by
The Impact of Writing Center Consultations on Student Writing Self-Efficacy
Get PDFThis study sought to determine the impact writing center consultations have on student writing self-efficacy and to illuminate effective consultant strategies for fostering student writing confidence. As part of a multimethods study, a survey was administered for students to reflect upon and to assess their feelings of writing self-efficacy by describing experiences in writing center consultations. Selected respondents were asked to elaborate on the strategies used by their peer consultant(s) in an optional open-ended interview. Findings suggest that writing center consultations help increase writing self-efficacy. The effective consultant strategies described by study participants are synthesized into an overarching consultant framework of empathy-based tutoring, which includes four key consultant moves that work to foster writing self-efficacy: listening, translating, advising, and motivating. Results from this study have implications for further consultant training and/or professional development programs and reaffirm the value writing centers bring to student writing growth
Controls on Volcanic Arc Weathering Rates Inferred Using Cosmogenic Nuclides
No full textChemical weathering of highly reactive mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks may be a key sink in the global carbon cycle. Understanding how uplift of these rocks during arc-arc and arccontinent collisions through earth history has affected the evolution of global climate, including the onset of icehouse periods, requires improved constraints on the relative sensitivity of their weathering rates to physical erosion vs. climate. If weathering rates depend chiefly on erosion, then tectonic uplift of mafic and ultramafic rocks may have a strongly destabilizing effect on global climate. Conversely, if weathering rates are limited primarily by temperature or runoff, then a negative feedback mechanism between weathering and climate may attenuate the effects of rock uplift. This work characterizes the relationship between chemical weathering rates, physical erosion rates, and climate in tropical, montane watersheds in Puerto Rico that are underlain by volcanic arc rocks and associated ophiolitic serpentinite. Key to this analysis are new constraints on long-term erosion rates on these rocks from cosmogenic 36Cl produced in situin magnetite. These cosmogenic erosion rates are paired with classical measurements of stream solute fluxes and sediment geochemistry across runoff gradients to quantify the limits to volcanic arc rock and serpentinite weathering rates.The main body of this work is divided into three chapters. Chapter 2 constrains the altitude scaling behavior of 36Cl production in magnetite. This allows erosion rates to be determined more accurately in watersheds near sea level in Puerto Rico. Chapter 3 demonstrates that volcanic arc rock weathering rates in the humid tropics are more strongly limited by physical erosion than by climatic factors. However, a positive correlation between erosion and runoff in this landscape may enhance the coupling between climate and weathering rates. Chapter 4 finds that, in contrast to volcanic arc rocks, serpentinite weathering is strongly limited by runoff and weakly limited by erosion. These results are presented as empirical power-law relationships that can be readily applied in global carbon cycle modeling
Latino Community Health Needs & Workforce Assessment Study
No full textThis dissertation explores the healthcare status, concerns and access of Spanish-speaking, immigrant Latinos who live and work in and around Clinton County, Indiana. The study analyzed the responses of 579 participants who answered questions during 20-minute, door-to-door interviews (80% of which were conducted in Spanish). The study’s sponsor, the Indiana Minority Health Coalition (IMHC), was interested in assessing the health needs of this Latino community because it receives IMHC’s funding for health disparity reduction. IMHC was interested in comparing the results of a previous benchmarking study, conducted a decade earlier, to the 2020 results for the purposes of understanding how successfully programming was being implemented. Between 2010 and 2020, Indiana’s Latino population increased nearly 25%, and the population in Clinton County (where more than half of the school children are now Latino) almost doubled.The study was spearheaded by the Purdue Center for Regional Development in conjunction with the Learning Network of Clinton County, a community-based organization that provides education and training in English and Spanish to adult learners, as well as the Mexican Consulate of Indianapolis that promoted the study among Spanish-speakers and shared the study results. Faculty and staff from the Indiana University School of Medicine at Purdue University served in an advisory capacity with medical students enrolled in West Lafayette’s Latino Concentration Program serving as co-investigators. They were assisted by 10 bilingual (Spanish/English) youth of the community and two adult, bilingual (Spanish/English) Promotores de Salud (community health workers) who were trained and earned their ethical research certifications to participate.The study used a mixed-methods, community-based participatory research approach to survey design, data collection, data analysis, dissemination of results. The findings this study revealed are detailed in the following three journal articles that each concentrate on a component of the project. In addition to its focus on health, the survey asked participants about their education and literacy levels, job satisfaction, and feelings of acceptance in the United States. The study provided insights based on descriptive statistics as well as a set of logistic regression models.Immigrant voices were elevated to build awareness of their healthcare and workforce situation among providers, educators, public policymakers, community organizations, and employers of Latino workers. As this work was both exploratory and comparative in nature, there are implications for healthcare and workplace interventions that could improve equitable outcomes.This dissertation explores the healthcare status, concerns and access of Spanish-speaking, immigrant Latinos who live and work in and around Clinton County, Indiana. The study analyzed the responses of 579 participants who answered questions during 20-minute, door-to-door interviews (80% of which were conducted in Spanish). The study’s sponsor, the Indiana Minority Health Coalition (IMHC), was interested in assessing the health needs of this Latino community because it receives IMHC’s funding for health disparity reduction. IMHC was interested in comparing the results of a previous benchmarking study, conducted a decade earlier, to the 2020 results for the purposes of understanding how successfully programming was being implemented. Between 2010 and 2020, Indiana’s Latino population increased nearly 25%, and the population in Clinton County (where more than half of the school children are now Latino) almost doubled.The study was spearheaded by the Purdue Center for Regional Development in conjunction with the Learning Network of Clinton County, a community-based organization that provides education and training in English and Spanish to adult learners, as well as the Mexican Consulate of Indianapolis that promoted the study among Spanish-speakers and shared the study results. Faculty and staff from the Indiana University School of Medicine at Purdue University served in an advisory capacity with medical students enrolled in West Lafayette’s Latino Concentration Program serving as co-investigators. They were assisted by 10 bilingual (Spanish/English) youth of the community and two adult, bilingual (Spanish/English) Promotores de Salud (community health workers) who were trained and earned their ethical research certifications to participate.The study used a mixed-methods, community-based participatory research approach to survey design, data collection, data analysis, dissemination of results. The findings this study revealed are detailed in the following three journal articles that each concentrate on a component of the project. In addition to its focus on health, the survey asked participants about their education and literacy levels, job satisfaction, and feelings of acceptance in the United States. The study provided insights based on descriptive statistics as well as a set of logistic regression models.Immigrant voices were elevated to build awareness of their healthcare and workforce situation among providers, educators, public policymakers, community organizations, and employers of Latino workers. As this work was both exploratory and comparative in nature, there are implications for healthcare and workplace interventions that could improve equitable outcomes
Pollution as Relations: Reconfiguring Pollution, Toxicities, and Bodies Through Particulate Matter in South Korea
No full textParticle pollution in South Korea has become a matter of significant public concern, culminating in its declaration as a “social disaster” through a government proclamation in 2019. This study shows how the existing interventions to tackle particle pollution in South Korea as a “social disaster” contribute to maintaining the status quo, paradoxically. The study attempts to interpret pollution as entanglements, relations, and processes by addressing the discussions and politics surrounding particle pollution, the interventions to tackle it, and what they presuppose and exclude via multi-sited ethnography.What narratives form the bedrock of the current discourses and politics around particle pollution in South Korea? What kinds of population, knowledge systems, values, and interests are incorporated and excluded around particulate matter in Korea? Drawing upon four months of fieldwork, interviews, and collaborative work with residents, scientists, and activists in South Korea, this thesis offers a new understanding of how citizens’ experiences and knowledge practices have reshaped the concepts of pollution, toxicity, and health. The study indicates that the existing practices and knowledge vis-à-vis pollution control have individualized pollution by presuming particular ways of normalcy and excluding others. In doing so, this study captures the multiplicity of particle pollution and shows the existence and stories of different bodies living with/in pollution.Drawing on the literature in feminist science and technology studies as well as medical and environmental anthropology scholarship, this study problematizes harm reduction-based environmental and health intervention practices by describing the current individualized particle pollution responses. The research reveals how people in Korea living with/in particulate matter have perceived, datafied, defined, adjusted, and responded to particle pollution and its toxicity.The study suggests that pollution should be envisaged as entanglements and relations by shedding light on the stories that particulate matter has been perceived, coordinated, and generated in various ways. Lastly, indicating that the knowledge and interventions surrounding particle pollution have exploited and flattened the environment based on the human–nature dichotomy, the study suggests different ways of conceptualizing pollution, while considering the multiplicity of pollution, toxicities, and bodies
Super-Resolution Sensing and Imaging Using Structured Light
No full textOptical imaging methods are limited by the wavelength of light that they use and the amount of scatter that must be imaged through. Super-resolution imaging and sensing methods are those that bypass or mitigate such restrictions. Two super-resolution approaches are presented here using spatially or temporally structured light. Temporal intermittence or blinking of fluorescent emitters is exploited for localization through significant depths of heavy scatter to high resolution, and an efficient algorithm for doing so is presented. Such temporal structure of emission allows far greater resolution than previous comparable imaging methods, providing opportunities in biophotonics and environmental sensing. Spatial structure can be imposed on coherent light that passes through a heavily scattering medium, in the form of a speckle pattern. Speckle intensity correlations are sensitive to the motion of a moving object obscured by scatter, and we demonstrate that this scatter can act as an analyzer, enhancing this sensitivity as the amount of scatter increases. This increased sensitivity is studied using random matrix theory, and eigenchannel analysis is proposed as an explanation. Simulations demonstrate that a randomly scattering analyzer can give sub-wavelength geometric information about a translated, hidden object. Relative motion of structured illumination is explored, with simulations and mathematical analysis demonstrating far-subwavelength sensitivity using moving fields with multiple different types of structure. This work could enable a new approach for material inspection and characterization, and provide improvements in microscopy
Analyses and Scalable Algorithms for Byzantine-Resilient Distributed Optimization
No full textThe advent of advanced communication technologies has given rise to large-scale networks comprised of numerous interconnected agents, which need to cooperate to accomplish various tasks, such as distributed message routing, formation control, robust statistical inference, and spectrum access coordination. These tasks can be formulated as distributed optimization problems, which require agents to agree on a parameter minimizing the average of their local cost functions by communicating only with their neighbors. However, distributed optimization algorithms are typically susceptible to malicious (or “Byzantine”) agents that do not follow the algorithm. This thesis offers analysis and algorithms for such scenarios. As the malicious agent’s function can be modeled as an unknown function with some fundamental properties, we begin in the first two parts by analyzing the region containing the potential minimizers of a sum of functions. Specifically, we explicitly characterize the boundary of this region for the sum of two unknown functions with certain properties. In the third part, we develop resilient algorithms that allow correctly functioning agents to converge to a region containing the true minimizer under the assumption of convex functions of each regular agent. Finally, we present a general algorithmic framework that includes most state-of-theart resilient algorithms. Under the strongly convex assumption, we derive a geometric rate of convergence of all regular agents to a ball around the optimal solution (whose size we characterize) for some algorithms within the framework
Exploring Reader-Text Transactions Between Wordless Picture Books and Young Children
No full textWordless picture book reading is one of the common literacy practices for young children that happen at schools and homes. This dissertation of three studies explores the reader-text transactions between young children and wordless picture books in three ways: a content analysis of wordless books potentially featuring characters of color, a multimodal analysis exploring children’s multimodal meaning making, and a mixed-method content analysis analyzing children’s performing social imagination and narrative imagination and change over time. Through analyzing a set of 39 wordless picturebooks with protagonists that can be potentially identified as people of color, the first article analyzed the books’ book themes, story events, and illustrations to explore how such books can function what Bishop suggested as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors and support young children to learn about themselves and others. The second article explores the potential of preschoolers’ multimodal meaning making during reading wordless picturebooks. Multimodal meaning making can be valued as literacy practices that are closely related to reading comprehension, teaching instructions, and assessments. The third article focuses on kindergarteners’ use of social imagination and narrative imagination during reading wordless picturebooks that reveal young children’s active engagement and meaning making in reading. This series of articles hold implication for teachers and researchers to understand the potential of using wordless picture books for young children’s access to diverse topics of readings, literacy practices, and assessment, specifically children’s imaginative and multimodal ways of responding to reading of wordless picture books
Narratives and Expert Information in Agenda-Setting: Experimental Evidence on State Legislator Engagement with Artificial Intelligence Policy
Get PDFAre narratives as influential in gaining the attention of policymakers as expert information, including for complex, technical policy domains such as artificial intelligence (AI) policy? This pre-registered study uses a field experiment to evaluate legislator responsiveness to policy entrepreneur outreach. In partnership with a leading AI think tank, we send more than 7300 U.S. state legislative offices emails about AI policy containing an influence strategy (providing a narrative, expert information, or the organization\u27s background), along with a prominent issue frame about AI (emphasizing technological competition or ethical implications). To assess engagement, we measure link clicks to further resources and webinar registration and attendance. Although AI policy is a highly technical domain, we find that narratives are just as effective as expert information in engaging legislators. Compared to control, expert information and narratives led to 28 and 34 percent increases in policymaker engagement, respectively. Furthermore, higher legislature professionalism and lower state-level prior AI experience are associated with greater engagement with both narratives and expert information. Finally, we find that policymakers are equally engaged by an ethical framing of AI policy as they are with an economic one. The findings advance efforts to bridge scholarship on policy narratives, policy entrepreneurship, and agenda-setting
Purloined Significance: How Recidivism Algorithms Capture, Transform, and Automate our Intersubjective Unconscious as Data
Get PDFEver since ProPublica published their groundbreaking analysis of Northpointe’s Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions Core Risk and Needs Assessment software (COMPAS) in 2016, this web-based decision support system (DSS) has spawned a wide range of critiques and charges of racial bias. COMPAS provides a full suite of decision support applications to the US prison-industrial complex, including algorithmically derived recidivism predictions that increasingly guide parole decisions. The larger conversation surrounding COMPAS raises the question of how we analyze powerful, and yet opaque, data assemblages. In this article, I model an allegorical analysis of data assemblages. I argue the skills of literary analysis can help us surmount the “trap” of analyzing black-box algorithms. Guided by Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” I analyze how COMPAS purloins our mediated ability to give an account of ourselves under the guise of objective, data-driven decision making