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Communicative text types in university writing
No full textWritten assignments are, perhaps, one of the most common types of coursework that students will encounter in their undergraduate studies. This study describes the communicative purpose and textual and linguistic characteristics of university assignments written for content classes, taking into account variation across communicative text types and disciplines. The research presented in this dissertation is based on a corpus of 960 texts written for four disciplinary groups (arts and humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences) and divided into eight communicative text types: to give a procedural recount, to argue, to explain, to compare, to propose, to describe a tangible object, to give personal advice and to narrate a personal experience. Communicative text types are not culturally-recognizable register categories, rather, these are texts that share the same communicative purpose. Therefore, the first component of this study was to determine the communicative purposes that occur in university writing and describe these purposes in a framework that was used to describe all texts in the corpus. The non-linguistic and linguistic analyses, then, adopt these text categories to describe the extent to which the characteristics of university writing vary across communicative text types and discipline. For the non-linguistic analysis, I first describe the overall situational characteristics of university writing. Then, I describe the development and application of a framework for the analysis of the textual characteristics of university writing, which includes features such as length, visual elements, and explicitness of purpose. This framework was applied to each text in the corpus, thus describing the textual characteristics of university writing based on the number of texts within each communicative text type that made use of these features. For the linguistic analysis, I conduct a new multidimensional analysis, which revealed three dimensions of variation: elaborated discourse vs condensed style; production of possibility vs content-focused description; informational density vs involved, academic narrative. The second part of this study describes the text layout and linguistic characteristics of the register of essays. Drawing on the results of the analyses for communicative text types, I explore the extent to which one of the most common registers of university writing, essays, is well-defined in terms of textual and linguistic characteristics.
The results of the textual and linguistic analysis show that discipline has a greater impact on the characteristics of university writing than communicative text types. The textual analysis shows considerable variation within communicative text types written for different disciplines. To argue, for example, contains more headings, images and tables when written for life sciences than other disciplines. Similarly, in the linguistic analysis, we find that two out of three dimensions identified have larger effect sizes for discipline than for communicative text type. Finally, the analysis of essays shows that there is considerable variation within the register of essays. The results of this study have two major implications for future studies of university writing. First, they show the need to account for discipline when describing language variation across registers or communicative text types. Second, the results of the register analysis demonstrate the need to account for variation within registers, as well as across registers
Understanding supportive environments: sexual minority experiences with university and community
No full textDespite more than a decade of academic research and initiatives to improve SGM health and wellness in the United States, only modest improvements have been made for SGM young-adults, who still face significant disparities compared to their heterosexual peers. Universities are often thought of as liberal bastions, where diversity is valued and all students have a place, but the reality is, that university campuses are significantly impacted by the features of the surrounding community. Universities operate within a broader community, often influencing the amount and quality of SGM resources available on campus as well as feelings of support and inclusion. In Manuscript one, I describe the adaptation of the LGBTQ Supportive Environments Inventory (SEI) for SGM young adults by assessing the SGM-inclusiveness of four universities and the community surrounding each university. In Manuscript two, I qualitatively examine the experiences of 34 sexual/gender minority (SGM) young adults attending four universities in the state of Utah. In Manuscript three, using conditional process models (Hayes, 2017), I examined the associations between ambient community supportiveness, microaggressions, and depressive symptoms for 50 SGM collegians in Utah
Improving in silico scientific reproducibility with Provenance Replay software
No full textBioinformatics workflows are often complex, consisting of dozens or hundreds of processes, withsignificant variation possible in computer hardware and software systems, input data, method se‐
lection and parameterization during each step. This complexity creates known challenges for study
organization, reporting, and reproducibility which may prevent study replication.
Here I present Provenance Replay ‐ software for the documentation and enactment of in silico
reproducibility in QIIME 2, a prominent free and open platform for microbiome science. QIIME 2
packages the full history (i.e. “provenance”) of every analysis result within the result itself, including
software versions, methods, parameters, and user‐provided metadata. Provenance Replay parses
this captured provenance data into directed acyclic graphs and generates reproducibility documen‐
tation including full‐analysis citation lists and executable scripts capable of replicating the Result(s)
in question from the original input data, providing a robust tool for methods reproducibility. These
executables may also be applied directly to similarly structured data, modified, or extended, sup‐
porting results reproducibility and generalization. This reproducibility documentation can be used
in the automation of repeated analyses, and has potential to reduce record‐keeping, training, and
communication burdens in collaborative research contexts.
Demonstrations, surveys, and focus groups were conducted with an alpha version of the soft‐
ware, targeting feature elicitation and requirements verification. In survey results, demonstration
participants reported high perceived ease of use (mean PEOU 5.82 of 7) and high perceived use‐
fulness (mean PU 5.96 of 7), and a net promoter score of +78.95%. Overall, respondents report a
positive general attitude toward using Provenance Replay, and a high likelihood of recommending
the software to others
Fictions of the flesh, semiotic implosions: an autotheoretical diary
No full textThis piece of autotheoretical writing delves into queer existence, specifically that of a gay latino man with access to higher education. It is supported by the destabilization (via historicizing) of somatopolitical fictions (Preciado 2013), since revealing the synthetic (non)essence of different “economies of the body” (Foucault 1978:159) liberates our potential for creative experimentation, of becoming intentional crafters of the concepts that configurate our bodies. Nonetheless, the human flesh is not a passive semiotic container, but is actively interwoven in the mechanisms of historical inscription, this capacity to perform social ontologies (Butler 1999) is, in part, responsible for the sedimentation of significatory economies. Perhaps intentionality is the only transcultural reality we can claim, the human ability to disfigure, reduce, or elongate the circumscriptions of the bodies we are, a species that is constantly producing somatohistorical protheses. From the Hellenic Greeks in the gymnasia to the gay clones, the body is a territory of incessant trajectories of meaning, oftentimes these architectures of subjectivation (Foucault 1997) produce non-intended affects, or better, intentional subjects fuck with their signifiers by hacking their algorithms of being. An algorithm somewhat structured by the lines (Ahmed 2006) of collective survival, turning us misrecognized others (Crossley 1993) into thanatological bodies, enzymes of extinction
Using self-assembling peptides as a platform to create new human papillomavirus vaccine candidates
No full textSelf-assembling proteins commonly occur in nature and have been shown to have potential as a vaccine platform with displayed peptide antigens. Beta-strand peptides that alternate hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids self-assemble into a beta-sheet bilayer. This format may cause an immunogenic response with an antigen and therefore be an effective vaccine for HPV. Current HPV vaccines are virus-like particles which are not as robust or as easily stored as the peptides. In addition, current HPV vaccines do not protect against all types of HPV. The goal is to create Q11 (Ac-QQKFQFQFEQQ-NH2) and KFE8 (Ac-FKFEFKFE-NH2) peptide sequences alongside HPV L2 protein sequences. We hypothesize that these peptides will cause an immune system response with B cells. Standard Fmoc solid phase peptide synthesis was utilized to synthesize all peptides. Preliminary animal models to test immunogenicity and effectiveness of the vaccine was completed. Data consists of peptide synthesis, HPLC purification, MALDI-TOF and CD spectroscopy, TEM imaging, and ELISA assays. TEM results showed fibril formation with HPV antigen and ELISA results have shown the potential of this peptide platform, but further studies are needed. In conclusion, self-assembling peptides with multivalent display of antigens could be an efficient way to make next generation HPV vaccines with potential for developing vaccines for other diseases as well
Study and scale quality in second-language survey research: the case of anxiety and willingness to communicate
No full textApart from providing a bird’s eye view of a given domain of inquiry (Ioannidis et al., 2015), systematic reviews such as methodological syntheses offer a magnifying glass on prevalent existing problems in primary research and furnish empirically grounded solutions to rectify these issues (Page et al., 2021). As survey research in second language acquisition grows in popularity, especially in the substantive domain of individual differences, the adherence to best practices associated with study and questionnaire design alongside reporting practices related to transparency is critical for a better understanding of factors that influence second language (L2) development. To ensure that a self-report scale designed to measure a latent construct such as anxiety and willingness to communicate (WTC) indeed targets the construct of interest and does it consistently and accurately, authors of primary research should demonstrate that their instrument possesses acceptable psychometric properties (i.e., evidence of validity and reliability) and is suitable to use with their chosen population of L2 learners or teachers. However, previous studies have raised concerns about the psychometric properties of questionnaires in L2 research (Al-Hoorie & Vitta, 2019; Gu, 2016). Building on works such as Plonsky (2013, 2014) and Sudina (2021), this methodological synthesis focuses on the state of study and scale quality in L2 anxiety and WTC research by examining key methodological issues of quantitative survey research and offering empirically grounded suggestions for future studies.
The scope of the study is confined to a total of 232 peer-reviewed articles that used 385 L2 anxiety and WTC scales and were published in 22 leading applied linguistics journals over a 20-year period. The search channels for locating and retrieving eligible studies included journal websites, the Second-language Research Corpus (Plonsky, n.d.), and two databases: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) and PsycINFO. Features targeting sample, survey, and scale characteristics and reporting practices at both the study and scale levels have been examined in depth as well as compared over time. Particularly problematic is the lack of evidence for scale content and construct validity—including testing for measurement invariance and referring to previous validation studies for existing scales—as well as reporting rates of survey responses and missing data. The results and implications of this study contribute to concurrent attempts at methodological reform in applied linguistics and aim to promote ethically appropriate research practices
Uranium and arsenic accumulation in plants: the impact of abandoned uranium mines on the plant community on the Navajo Nation
No full textThe focus of my study is to examine the impacts of abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation by quantifying the levels of uranium and arsenic present in the plant community that are near or around the abandoned mines. The motivation behind this project comes from the concern of livestock owners and community members of Cove Arizona, located on the Navajo Nation. The community members are concerned about the levels of uranium and arsenic that are resulting from the uranium mines, this concern was explored by collecting water, soil, plant and animal tissue samples. Due to the legacy of uranium mining, community members want to know how this is impacting their food source, as well as the food source of the livestock that are being raised in this community. In collaboration with the community and livestock owners in Cove, Arizona, Diné College, Northern Arizona University, University of New Mexico and Montana State University – Billings, this overall project looked at the impacts of uranium mining and the resulting abandoned uranium mines within the Cove watershed. In this study, five species of flowering plants were investigated: Lupinus argenteus, Artemisia tridentata, Bromus tectorum, Rhus trilobata, and Quercus gambelii. These five species cover a range of life histories of plants including short-lived annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees. Through the findings of this research, we hope to gain a better understanding of how uranium and arsenic are being translocated as well as quantifying the levels of uranium and arsenic. While the levels of uranium and arsenic were found to be at low levels, there is variation between species and sample site locations. In addition to the low levels of uranium and arsenic, the outliers for reported levels of uranium and arsenic in this study were found within the two stream sampling locations. Overall, the findings of this research will help the community members to make better choices for themselves and their livestock
Change in Saudi foreign policy: case study of using military intervention
No full textUnder Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s leadership, Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention in Yemen in March 2015. This intervention was a response to the takeover of the Yemeni government by the Houthi militia and the ousting of the elected president. The intervention has generated debate on Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy under Crown Prince Mohammed since, in its history, the nation has never engaged in direct conflict with its neighbors. Indeed, past leaders have remained faithful to the Kingdom’s foreign policy practices of promoting the unity of Arab nations, improving the nation’s economy through good trade relations, and promoting security stability in the region. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the reasons behind the decision to use military intervention in Yemen and the possible consequences for the future of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy. The research question of interest is: “why is there a change in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy from King Abdullah to Crown Prince Mohammed, as evidenced by the military intervention in Yemen?” A case study approach is the selected methodology for the study. Data will be gathered from both primary and secondary sources, and an interpretive analysis will follow to establish the reasons behind the intervention and its consequences
An examination of Ghanaian attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people
No full textRecently, the issue of the criminalization of LGBTQI+ people and their activities has generated passionate discussion in Ghana. Some Ghanaians have expressed obvious disgust for LGBTQI+ people and their activities because they believe it is against the Ghanaian culture and all three religious’ beliefs in Ghana whereas others are of the view that criminalization of LGBTQI+ people and their activities in Ghana is an infringement on the fundamental human rights of queer identifying people. The purpose of this study is to describe the attitudes of Ghanaians towards LGBTQI+ people and to determine whether Ghanaians are in support of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual and Ghanian Family Values Bill. Respondents comprised 276 Ghanaian citizens who completed an online survey. Results generally suggested that respondents harbored ambivalent attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people and activities. Nevertheless, findings revealed that most respondents (63%) were in support of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill. Results indicate that males were more anti-LGBTQI+ than females
The new normal: adult learner career pathways
No full textThe New Normal is rooted in adult learning theory, which explains how adults learn and why they learn in these aspects. This foundation is then supported by two pillars: cultural capital and the career pathways model. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital is the non-fiscal aspect of a person’s education, social status, and language. Career pathways are an educational design that helps learners advance through education to a career via a designated avenue designed with their success in mind. This research examined the strengths, challenges, and shared best practices of partnerships developed in career pathway programs created by a community-based organization. This research focused on the experiences of adult learners currently attending and those who have graduated from a career pathway program based at a community-based organization. With a focus on the learners, the researcher also interviewed the organization’s staff supporting the career pathway program