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Risks of Data Science Project Failure: Articulation, Legitimization, and Power Struggles
No full textThis research explores the risk of failure in cloud-based data science systems within third-party service contexts. Specifically, it examines how the risk of project failure is socially constructed over time as the technology is incrementally shaped and negotiated. The study is grounded in participant observation conducted with data science practitioners at a professional services organization in India that partners with one of the world’s leading cloud providers. The research foregrounds the business model of professional services firms as a distinct sociotechnical setting for developing cloud-based data science systems, one in which practitioners who are not directly engaged in technical implementation still play critical roles. It further reveals that the risk of project failure is not static; rather, it shifts across the data science workflow as system development progresses through incremental stages. The study yields three key findings. First, it provides insight into the social construction of risks of project failure that emerge within data science workflows during the integration of pre-built, low-code/no-code ensembles owned by cloud providers. Second, it highlights the often-overlooked contributions of sales and pre-sales practitioners, whose roles shape sociotechnical systems despite their distance from the coding process. Third, the research is guided by the conceptual lens of Social Shaping of Technology (SST) and Hilgartner’s framework of risk objects to analyze how the construction of risk evolves alongside the development and negotiation of cloud-based data science technologies within organizational settings. Ultimately, this research contributes to the literature on SST used as the conceptual lens through which the risks of sociotechnical systems can be analyzed
Exploring the Dynamics of Online Engagement: A Social Exchange Theory Approach to the Baking Industry’s Use of Social Media
No full textThis study investigates how organizations in the baking industry use social media to engage with consumers. Social Exchange Theory was applied to understand the dynamics in online interactions. A content analysis of the social media accounts for Insomnia Cookies, Lady M and Cake Bar was done for the months of January 2024 through March 2024. The platforms analyzed were Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and YouTube. Engagement was measured through likes, comments, shares and sentiment analysis. Post type was also observed to see what the users engaged with the most. The findings revealed that the number of active platforms did not correlate with higher engagement rates. Instead, content quality, variety and strategic use of engagement-driven posts were more effective. Instagram was the most engaging platform for all brands. SET principles such as trust and reciprocity were shown in user behaviors, especially when the posts prompted engagement. Cake Bar demonstrated that smaller organizations can still have high engagement. This study shows that platform-specific content is an important strategy in building relationships online with consumers
China’s Turn to Domestic-Led Growth: Replacing Consumption Taxes with Land Taxes?
No full textAs part of its turn towards domestic-led growth China plans to stimulate consumption, including through a reduction in consumption taxes. We compare two model-based scenarios in which the revenue losses from lower consumption taxes are replaced by higher income taxes or higher land taxes. The model is carefully calibrated to recent Chinese data, including detailed fiscal data. We find that higher income taxes lead to significant losses in output and incomes, while higher land taxes lead to significant gains. These gains are increasing in the share of land in net wealth, a statistic for which better data would be invaluable
Supporting Faculty Liaisons in Concurrent Enrollment Programs
No full textCollaboration between concurrent enrollment instructors and faculty liaisons is crucial to a successful concurrent enrollment program. Discussions of such collaboration importantly focus on bridging the gap between high school and college for students, teachers, and curriculum, and, as a result, do not always emphasize the challenges, rewards, and assistance faculty liaisons experience. This article shares the perspectives of faculty liaisons at a private four-year NACEP-accredited institution: their reasons for taking on the role, the challenges they experience, and the supports they appreciate and want. Focusing more exclusively on faculty liaisons’ perspectives reveals that, despite some depictions of them as antagonistic, they value the interpersonal relationships they form with concurrent enrollment instructors, and that their frustrations often stem from systemic factors at the institution. With this framework for approaching the faculty liaison’s work, and with further research, efforts can be made to re-envision both their work and the supports they receive from concurrent enrollment partners to improve the collaboration
Student Alienation in Schools Goes Beyond Low Achievement
No full textWhen we think about students struggling in school, we often focus on grades, test scores, and graduation rates. But there\u27s a deeper problem affecting students across all achievement levels: alienation. Students feel disconnected from school not because they\u27re failing, but because they can\u27t see themselves in the narrow story schools tell about success. This brief summarizes findings from a study drawing on over two years of ethnographic fieldwork in two different high schools in Los Angeles, California. The authors identify four types of alienation students experience: feeling like they don\u27t belong, being in schools that can\u27t support their goals, pursuing futures schools don\u27t recognize, and succeeding in someone else\u27s story. The authors recommend that educators, policymakers, and parents rethink what counts as achievement in the first place, rather than simply helping more students succeed within the existing narrow definition of success
Legal Services for Homeless Veterans: New VA Grants Aim to Provide Critical Services to Veterans in Crisis
No full textEnding and preventing homelessness among Veterans is a priority for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In 2022, the VA created the Legal Services for Homeless Veterans (LSV-H) grant program, providing funds for legal services organizations to deliver essential legal aid to homeless veterans and veterans at risk for homelessness. As one of only three law schools that are current LSV-H grant recipients, the Syracuse University Veterans Legal Clinic provides legal aid to homeless veterans in the areas of housing, income support (VA disability), access to healthcare, and requests to upgrade military discharge or dismissal of a former member of the Armed Forces. These services have proven to be critical for the long-term stability of these veterans and effective in furthering the goal of eliminating veteran homelessness. The Veterans Legal Clinic delivers these legal services through law school student attorneys enrolled in the Clinical Education program. Law school students represent real Veteran clients in the Syracuse community through referrals from the Syracuse VA Medical Center\u27s Health Care for Homeless Veterans program. Law school students are on site each week at Altamont, a transitional housing program for homeless Veterans. By representing real Veteran clients, law school students gain an understanding of military culture, interact with government agencies, develop case management skills, and learn how to advocate for a Veteran. Students at the College of Law benefit from hands-on legal experience with Veteran clients, and the community benefits when Veterans receive critical legal services that may create barriers to housing stability
Reparative Justice in Late Twentieth Century Africa: the O.A.U, Durban, and Accra Reparations Conferences
No full textThis thesis explores the evolution of African-led transnational reparations campaigns from the final decade of the twentieth century through the early decades of the twenty-first. It examines how reparative justice initiatives have emerged in response to the enduring legacies of slavery, colonialism, and systemic racial oppression, and how these campaigns reflect both historical memory and contemporary demands for justice by Africans and people of African descent worldwide. While early reparations discourse often centered on the diaspora, this research argues that recent mobilizations on the African continent in attempts to seek redress for historical injustices, particularly the 1993 Abuja Conference, the 2001 Durban World Conference Against Racism, and the 2022 and 2023 Accra Reparations Summit and Conference respectively, have expanded the scope of the reparative justice movements, positioning Africa not only as a site of historical harm, but as a moral and political agent in shaping global reparative discourse. Drawing on primary sources including political declarations, speeches, media reports, and official conference proceedings, this study analyzes how African statesmen, intellectuals, and activists have framed reparations claims as both a legal and moral imperative. It also engages secondary literature on Pan-Africanism, global Black political thought, and transitional justice to contextualize the ethical and historical dimensions of these campaigns. The thesis considers how the language of reparations has served to foster a global African consciousness rooted in shared histories of racialized exploitation and collective resistance. This research also examines the tensions within these movements - between symbolic and material reparations, between national priorities and diasporic solidarities, and between the philosophical principles of Ubuntu and the pragmatic politics of state actors. Through a qualitative analysis of campaign discourse and media representation, the study reveals both the transformative potential and the challenges of forging a unified transnational movement for reparative justice. Ultimately, the thesis argues that African-led reparations campaigns reframe Africa’s position in global politics, not as a passive recipient of aid, but as a central force advocating for historical redress, moral accountability, and structural transformation. By re-centering Africa within the global reparations debate, this work contributes to broader understandings of justice, memory, and global Black solidarity in the twenty-first century
The Dead Still Walk: White Masculinity and the World of The Walking Dead
No full textIn this thesis, I explore how the television program The Walking Dead discusses white masculinity in a variety of contexts. Through a reading of the character of Daryl Dixon and the actor who portrays him, Norman Reedus, the thesis examines how the construction of white masculinity animates both fictional character and star persona. The study reveals that television programs like The Walking Dead can help to discuss larger social issues, such as white masculinity, in a fictional setting to highlight themes such as redemption and the postracial fantasy in a way that challenges traditional social understandings of the world. The thesis also explores the way Norman Reedus, the actor who plays Daryl Dixon, uses aspects of the Dixon character to construct a more traditional form of white masculinity. This work contributes to conversations surrounding popular culture, masculinity, and star studies. In summation this study highlights how popular culture can be used as a vehicle for questions about the current state of the world. Keywords: The Walking Dead, Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Postracia
A FUTURE BETTER THAN THE FAMILAR: DEVELOPMENT FROM A PASSIVE OBSERVER
No full textNot only are humans disconnected from each other, they are even more so disconnected from themselves. Now more than ever the progression of technology, anti-progressive ideology and policy has impacted modes of communication, community, and our consciousness. Using empirical research based on self-experience and evaluation, mass social studies, and reviewing media such as The Body Keeps the Score, The Black Ball, Casablanca, and many other articles and short form videos, this writing argues that capitalism is the true puppet master of the growing failures in our communities; outside of the known financial struggles that come with it. Dating apps and social media, are disguised as ways of easily connecting and building relationships with others, when the truth is building community has never been easy, especially for young millennials to gen-alpha. When there is no longer a constant practice of in-person social etiquette and bonding, we lack culture and understanding, making us unsure of ourselves —finding ways to self-soothe our feelings of loneliness from false communities like private reddit groups, to obsessions with choice comfort items we may never be able to let go of. Losing ourselves in the varied modes of comfort, one must find a way to heal the self and relearn to reattach the soul to the body and find a way to connect with the more positive communities we desire to be consumed by