1,167 research outputs found

    Repositioning the graphic designer as researcher

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    In academic terms, the discipline of graphic design is relatively young. Consequently the position of the discipline within academic territory, and the role of the designer, continue to be debated. In part, these debates have been a product of attempts to define and defend the discipline’s borders from within, in order to establish a sense of the role of graphic design and the graphic designer as commensurate with other disciplines both within and beyond art and design. In recent years graphic designers have variously been defined as ‘authors’, ‘producers’ and ‘readers’, yet none of these definitions seem to have provided any kind of productive or lasting impact within the academy. This paper suggests that rather than continue to seek territorial definitions and positions from within, it could be more productive to look beyond the confines of the discipline. Gaining a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on, and understanding of, qualitative research methods from other disciplines may enable the graphic designer to more fully position his or her practice within the wider academy. Such a perspective could help facilitate the repositioning and redefinition of the graphic designer as ‘researcher’ - a move that would be productive in relation to the future development of postgraduate research within the discipline

    Terms of inclusion? Rejecting the role of 'honorary man' in the ivory tower

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    The chapter, "Terms of inclusion? Rejecting the role of 'honorary man' in the ivory tower" was written by Alison M. Thomas (Douglas College Faculty). Featuring many personal accounts, the twenty-four essays in this collection explore the challenges and possibilities confronting those, especially women, who combine parenting and academic work. Written by a diverse group of educators who present a real-world variety of situations, the collection also includes ideas for change at the individual, interpersonal, policy, and system levels.book chapterPublished

    Mining e-mail content for author identification forensics

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    We describe an investigation into e-mail content mining for author identification, or authorship attribution, for the purpose of forensic investigation. We focus our discussion on the ability to discriminate between authors for the case of both aggregated e-mail topics as well as across different email topics. An extended set of e-mail document features including structural characteristics and linguistic patterns were derived and, together with a Support Vector Machine learning algorithm, were used for mining the e-mail content. Experiments using a number of e-mail documents generated by different authors on a set of topics gave promising results for both aggregated and multi-topic author categorisation

    Beyond Black & White : Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the U.S. South and Southwest

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    Edited by Stephanie Cole & Alison M. Parker [College at Brockport faculty member] ; introduction by Nancy A. Hewitt [College at Brockport alum]. “The complex, changing and oppressive ‘multiracisms’—to use Ronit Lentin\u27s term—of the U.S. South and Southwest are brilliantly captured in this powerful collection of linked essays. So too are the ways in which differing but overlapping experiences of race, citizenship and terror created both common ground and grounds for division among racialized groups.”--David Roediger, University of Illinois, and author, Colored White: Transcending the Racial Pasthttps://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bookshelf/1279/thumbnail.jp

    Language and gender author cohort analysis of e-mail for computer forensics

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    Abstract. We describe an investigation of authorship gender and lan-guage background cohort attribution mining from e-mail text documents. We used an extended set of predominantly topic content-free e-mail document features such as style markers, structural characteristics and gender-preferential language features together with a Support Vector Machine learning algorithm. Experiments using a corpus of e-mail doc-uments generated by a large number of authors of both genders gave promising results for both author gender and language background co-hort categorisation.

    Do UK based weight management programmes cause weight loss maintenance in adults? A systematic review

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    The aim of this dissertation was to examine whether UK based weight management programmes promote weight loss maintenance (follow up of 12 months to assess effectiveness of intervention in weight loss) in adults through the process of a systematic review. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described obesity as a "global epidemic". Weight management comprises two phases; weight loss and weight loss maintenance. The latter phase is the true goal for obesity and the most difficult element of weight management to achieve. However much less is know about this as compared with the weight loss phase. There is little purpose in committing time and money to reducing obesity if the weight is regained. This is counter-productive and weight loss maintenance is essential to combat the obesity epidemic. Searches were made for relevant information from a variety of scientific online databases and journals,. Seven articles met the inclusion criteria and were analysed in the review. All studies incorporated a multi-component (diet, exercise, behaviur modification) intervention approach. All control and internvetion groups reported weight loss at 12 months when compared with baseline. All groups recieved an intervention. One study reported a significant difference (P<0.05) between groups. Four studies reported on at least one component (diet, physical activity, behaviour modification) however there was not enough information to conclude whether they complied with national guidelines (NICE CG43 and SIGN 115). High attrition rates and loss to follow up are problematic for each study except one. Analysis on an intention to treat basis was common however this is problematic and there are alternative methods which may be more suitable for dealing with missing data

    Validation of a maternal questionnaire on correlates of physical activity in preschool children

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    BACKGROUND: Valid measures of physical activity correlates in preschool children are lacking. This study aimed to assess the validity, factor structure and internal consistency of a maternal questionnaire on potential correlates of four-year-old children's physical activity. METHODS: The questionnaire was designed to measure the following constructs: child personal factors; parental support and self-efficacy for providing support; parental rules and restrictions; maternal attitudes and perceptions; maternal behaviour; barriers to physical activity; and the home and local environments. Two separate studies were conducted. Study I included 24 mothers of four-year-old children who completed the questionnaire then participated in a telephone interview covering similar items to the questionnaire. To assess validity, the agreement between interview and questionnaire responses was assessed using Cohen's kappa and percentage agreement. Study II involved 398 mothers of four-year-old children participating in the Southampton Women's Survey. In this study, principal components analysis was used to explore the factor structure of the questionnaire to aid future analyses with these data. The internal consistency of the factors identified was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: Kappa scores showed 30% of items to have moderate agreement or above, 23% to have fair agreement and 47% to have slight or poor agreement. However, 89% of items had fair agreement as assessed by percentage agreement (&gt;/= 66%). Limited variation in responses to variables is likely to have contributed to some of the low kappa values. Six questions had a low kappa and low percentage agreement (defined as poor validity); these included questions from the child personal factors, maternal self-efficacy, rules and restrictions, and local environment domains. The principal components analysis identified eleven factors and found several variables to stand alone. Eight of the composite factors identified had acceptable internal consistency (alpha &gt;/= 0.60) and three fell just short of achieving this (0.60 &gt; alpha &gt; 0.50). CONCLUSION: Overall, this maternal questionnaire had reasonable validity and internal consistency for assessing potential correlates of physical activity in young children. With minor revision, this could be a useful tool for future research in this area. This, in turn, will aid the development of interventions to promote physical activity in this age group

    Supermoms and bumbling dads: How do Mother's Day and Father's Day cards help perpetuate traditional roles in the home?

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    The chapter, "Supermoms and bumbling dads: How do Mother's Day and Father's Day cards help perpetuate traditional roles in the home?" was written by the listed authors including Alison M. Thomas (Douglas College Faculty). Life in Canada is marked, celebrated, enjoyed, and dreaded in ways that respond specifically to the seasons. Sociological thinking allows people to ask questions about things that may otherwise be taken for granted. Thinking about the seasons sociologically opens up a unique perspective for studying and understanding social life. Each chapter in this collection approaches the seasons and the passage of time as a way to explore issues of sociological interest. The authors use seasonality as a device that can bridge, in fascinating ways, small-scale interpersonal interactions and large formal institutional structures. These contemporary, Canadian case studies are wide-ranging and include analyses of pumpkin spice lattes, policing in schools, law and colonialism, summer cottages, seasonal affective disorder, New Year’s resolutions, Vaisakhi celebrations, and more. Seasonal Sociology offers provocative new ways of thinking about the nature of our collective lives. --From publisher description.book chapterPublished

    Memories, Moments and Musings about Harwood

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    Alison Hoddinott is a former Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Communication and Theatre, University of New England, in Armidale, NSW. Her publications include, as author, Gwen Harwood: The Real and the Imagined World (1991), and as editor, Blessed City, Gwen Harwood's 1943 Letters to Thomas Riddell (1990), which won The Age Book of the Year in 1990. She is also the editor of The Present Tense (1995). This final collection of Harwood's poetry was shortlisted for the Banjo Award in 1996. More recently, Alison Hoddinott has published Gwen Harwood-Collected Poems 1943-95 which was co-edited with Gregory Kratzmann and published by UQP in 2001
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