2,903 research outputs found

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Integrating expert-based objectivist and nonexpert-based subjectivist paradigms in landscape assessment

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    This thesis explores the integration of objective and subjective measures of landscape aesthetics, particularly focusing on crowdsourced geo-information. It addresses the increasing importance of considering public perceptions in national landscape governance, in line with the European Landscape Convention's emphasis on public involvement. Despite this, national landscape assessments often remain expert-centric and top-down, facing challenges in resource constraints and limited public engagement. The thesis leverages Web 2.0 technologies and crowdsourced geographic information, examining correlations between expert-based metrics of landscape quality and public perceptions. The Scenic-Or-Not initiative for Great Britain, GIS-based Wildness spatial layers, and LANDMAP dataset for Wales serve as key datasets for analysis. The research investigates the relationships between objective measures of landscape wildness quality and subjective measures of aesthetics. Multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) reveals significant correlations, with different wildness components exhibiting varying degrees of association. The study suggests the feasibility of incorporating wildness and scenicness measures into formal landscape aesthetic assessments. Comparing expert and public perceptions, the research identifies preferences for water-related landforms and variations in upland and lowland typologies. The study emphasizes the agreement between experts and non-experts on extreme scenic perceptions but notes discrepancies in mid-spectrum landscapes. To overcome limitations in systematic landscape evaluations, an integrative approach is proposed. Utilizing XGBoost models, the research predicts spatial patterns of landscape aesthetics across Great Britain, based on the Scenic-Or-Not initiatives, Wildness spatial layers, and LANDMAP data. The models achieve comparable accuracy to traditional statistical models, offering insights for Landscape Character Assessment practices and policy decisions. While acknowledging data limitations and biases in crowdsourcing, the thesis discusses the necessity of an aggregation strategy to manage computational challenges. Methodological considerations include addressing the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) associated with aggregating point-based observations. The thesis comprises three studies published or submitted for publication, each contributing to the understanding of the relationship between objective and subjective measures of landscape aesthetics. The concluding chapter discusses the limitations of data and methods, providing a comprehensive overview of the research

    Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

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    This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

    Behavior quantification as the missing link between fields: Tools for digital psychiatry and their role in the future of neurobiology

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    The great behavioral heterogeneity observed between individuals with the same psychiatric disorder and even within one individual over time complicates both clinical practice and biomedical research. However, modern technologies are an exciting opportunity to improve behavioral characterization. Existing psychiatry methods that are qualitative or unscalable, such as patient surveys or clinical interviews, can now be collected at a greater capacity and analyzed to produce new quantitative measures. Furthermore, recent capabilities for continuous collection of passive sensor streams, such as phone GPS or smartwatch accelerometer, open avenues of novel questioning that were previously entirely unrealistic. Their temporally dense nature enables a cohesive study of real-time neural and behavioral signals. To develop comprehensive neurobiological models of psychiatric disease, it will be critical to first develop strong methods for behavioral quantification. There is huge potential in what can theoretically be captured by current technologies, but this in itself presents a large computational challenge -- one that will necessitate new data processing tools, new machine learning techniques, and ultimately a shift in how interdisciplinary work is conducted. In my thesis, I detail research projects that take different perspectives on digital psychiatry, subsequently tying ideas together with a concluding discussion on the future of the field. I also provide software infrastructure where relevant, with extensive documentation. Major contributions include scientific arguments and proof of concept results for daily free-form audio journals as an underappreciated psychiatry research datatype, as well as novel stability theorems and pilot empirical success for a proposed multi-area recurrent neural network architecture.Comment: PhD thesis cop

    Jury-Related Errors in Copyright

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    Copyright law is surprisingly hard. Copyright does not do what laypeople think it does, nor do its terms mean what laypeople expect. Copyright also possesses systemic indeterminacy about what it protects and the extent of that protection. For laypeople, copyright law is decidedly “user-unfriendly.” Nonetheless, copyright law reserves for lay jurors its most-litigated, most difficult, and most consequential question at trial: whether works are “substantially similar” and thus infringing.Many have criticized this allocation because in the context of copyright law, juries effectively have the power to expand or contract owners’ rights with little oversight or correction. But blaming the jury obscures other systemic factors and overlooks mistakes made by judges and litigants (as well as juries). In short, don’t blame the jurors, blame the game. To evaluate and improve the jury’s role in copyright litigation, we must look at—but also beyond—the jury and consider systemic sources of error, starting with complexities built into copyright itself.This Article focuses on copyright’s jury per se and begins to bridge the gap between copyright scholarship and the methodologically diverse generalist jury literature. Numerous high-profile jury trials underscore the jury’s importance for copyright policy, yet scholars have neglected to consider the jury’s role in light of existing generalist scholarship. Jury-Related Errors in Copyright profiles copyright’s user-unfriendliness and explores its impact by examining cases involving jury-related errors. It proposes a framework for considering reforms, arguing that copyright law must be attuned to what juries need to accomplish their tasks (via a “jury-centric” approach) as well as heeding how juries’ verdicts effectuate—or distort—copyright’s policy aims (using a “system-centric” approach). More scholarship is needed to develop future reforms but this Article provides a necessary starting point by acknowledging copyright law’s current user-unfriendliness and highlighting the significant impact of jury-related errors

    Jury-Related Errors in Copyright

    Get PDF
    Copyright law is surprisingly hard. Copyright does not do what laypeople think it does, nor do its terms mean what laypeople expect. Copyright also possesses systemic indeterminacy about what it protects and the extent of that protection. For laypeople, copyright law is decidedly “user-unfriendly.” Nonetheless, copyright law reserves for lay jurors its most-litigated, most difficult, and most consequential question at trial: whether works are “substantially similar” and thus infringing. Many have criticized this allocation because in the context of copyright law, juries effectively have the power to expand or contract owners’ rights with little oversight or correction. But blaming the jury obscures other systemic factors and overlooks mistakes made by judges and litigants (as well as juries). In short, don’t blame the jurors, blame the game. To evaluate and improve the jury’s role in copyright litigation, we must look at—but also beyond—the jury and consider systemic sources of error, starting with complexities built into copyright itself. This Article focuses on copyright’s jury per se and begins to bridge the gap between copyright scholarship and the methodologically diverse generalist jury literature. Numerous high-profile jury trials underscore the jury’s importance for copyright policy, yet scholars have neglected to consider the jury’s role in light of existing generalist scholarship. Jury-Related Errors in Copyright profiles copyright’s user-unfriendliness and explores its impact by examining cases involving jury-related errors. It proposes a framework for considering reforms, arguing that copyright law must be attuned to what juries need to accomplish their tasks (via a “jury-centric” approach) as well as heeding how juries’ verdicts effectuate—or distort—copyright’s policy aims (using a “system-centric” approach). More scholarship is needed to develop future reforms but this Article provides a necessary starting point by acknowledging copyright law’s current user-unfriendliness and highlighting the significant impact of jury-related errors

    Properties, agronomic uses and public perceptions of faecal sludge biochar

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    Since 2000 the proportion of the population in low and middle- income nations that use “unimproved” sanitation facilities is increasing, in 2020 3.5 billion people lacked access to safely managed sanitation facilities. Inadequate sanitation facilities and lack of clean water are key factors in the contraction of diarrheal disease which is responsible for the deaths of approximately 525,000 children every year (WHO, 2017).Faecal sludge collected from on-site sanitation facilities is often dumped into the local environment or reused untreated on farmland. The recycling and re-use of faecal sludge can improve sanitation in developing nations as well as playing a pivotal role in the development of a circular economy within the agriculture industry. Here, biochars derived from faecal sludge were characterized with regards to a potential end-use in agriculture. All faecal sludge biochars were found to have high ash content which contributed to the high pH values measured. All biochars recorded relatively low carbon content and BET porosimetry indicated low specific surface areas. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed similar organic surface groups for each biochar. X-ray diffraction analysis differed slightly between biochars, but all displayed a high mineral content (Si, Ca, K and Mg).Faecal sludge biochar was investigated as a soil amendment/fertilizer with acidic soil in two experiments; one conducted in an outdoor greenhouse in natural sunlight and one in a controlled temperature laboratory under a 24-hour photoperiod. It was found that faecal sludge biochar addition to acidic soil increased crop yield, fruit number, plant height and plant biomass and also reduced water runoff in Micro-Tom tomatoes. A combined biochar and fertilizer treatment together produced plants with greater plant height, and tomato yield. The high pH biochar initiated a liming effect which increased nutrient availability as evident in the combined biochar and fertilizer treatment. Under continuous light conditions biochar addition increased plant height, and tomato yield compared to control. However, biochar addition resulted in greater continuous light-induced leaf injury compared to the combined biochar and fertilizer treatment. The combined fertilizer and biochar treatment with a lower rate of biochar plus the addition of nutrients significantly reduced continuous light-induced leaf injury.A survey investigating the public perception of biochar as a soil enhancer in agriculture focusing on faecal sludge derived biochar was conducted. This revealed the “disgust effect” – a “squeamishness” associated with the use of faecal sludge biochar by members of the public. Also, gender differences, issue awareness, and age need to be taken into consideration when enforcing management and policy decisions regarding the land application of faecal sludge biochar

    Hearing, Seeing, and Reading is Believing: A Study of Undergraduate Women and Messages About Careers

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    This study sought to understand how undergraduate women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds make meaning of the different career messages they receive and how those messages shape their early career decisions. The study was framed by vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) and meaning making. Participants reflected on the career messages they received from childhood through their college education. By using photos and images submitted in advance by each participant, participants were able to delve deeper into the meaning they derived from each image/photo as it related to their ideas about career paths. This study findings advance the understanding of messages about careers that are received by undergraduate women and amplify the importance of support and agency in making career decisions. Practical implications for women students and their families include participating in groups or programs with students with shared identities, career interests, and goals. Implications for career counselors, academic advisors, and student affairs professionals include further academic and career integration, cross-training of collective advising staff, and continual development of new strategies for reaching out to women students

    Fight Fire with Fire: Hacktivists' Take on Social Media Misinformation

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    In this study, we interviewed 22 prominent hacktivists to learn their take on the increased proliferation of misinformation on social media. We found that none of them welcomes the nefarious appropriation of trolling and memes for the purpose of political (counter)argumentation and dissemination of propaganda. True to the original hacker ethos, misinformation is seen as a threat to the democratic vision of the Internet, and as such, it must be confronted on the face with tried hacktivists' methods like deplatforming the "misinformers" and doxing or leaking data about their funding and recruitment. The majority of the hacktivists also recommended interventions for raising misinformation literacy in addition to targeted hacking campaigns. We discuss the implications of these findings relative to the emergent recasting of hacktivism in defense of a constructive and factual social media discourse

    The Future Role of Strategic Landpower

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    Recent Russian aggression in Ukraine has reenergized military strategists and senior leaders to evaluate the role of strategic Landpower. American leadership in the European theater has mobilized allies and partners to reconsider force postures for responding to possible aggression against NATO members. Although Russian revisionist activity remains a threat in Europe, the challenges in the Pacific for strategic Landpower must also be considered. At the same time, the homeland, the Arctic, climate change, and the results of new and emerging technology also challenge the application of strategic Landpower. This publication serves as part of an enduring effort to evaluate strategic Landpower’s role, authorities, and resources for accomplishing the national strategic goals the Joint Force may face in the next conflict. This study considers multinational partners, allies, and senior leaders that can contribute to overcoming these enduring challenges. The insights derived from this study, which can be applied to both the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, should help leaders to consider these challenges, which may last a generation. Deterrence demands credible strategic response options integrated across warfighting functions. This valuable edition will continue the dialogue about addressing these issues as well as other emerging ones.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1959/thumbnail.jp
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