2015 Friends of The University of Montana Herbarium Newsletter

Plant Endemism in Montana / Peter Lesica -- Notes from the Board / Jessie Salix -- 2015 Friends of the Herbarium Annual Meeting -- A Celebration in Honor of Peter Stickney / Shannon Kimball -- Farewell to Marilyn / Shannon Kimball -- MONTU News Briefs -- Vascular Collection Photographs Going On-line / A. Grace Johnson -- Volunteers Keep Us Running! / Marilyn Marler -- Activities -- Thanks to Our Volunteers

Let\u27s Bring Dayton Together - Final Op-Ed

Thanks to fifteen community volunteers who worked, debated, and brainstormed on the Dayton Together Charter Development Committee, we are releasing a draft charter—the Dayton Metro government. Our model is a Council-Manager government, incorporating professional management that has served our communities well for a century. It includes a mayor voted on by all 535,000 residents, one at-large countywide council seat, and 9 geographic districts, with the mission of bringing the community together to tackle shared opportunities and challenges

Hollins Columns (1986 Sept 25)

Table of Contents: BSA Running Strong—1990 Elections—Corner Columns—Hollins Column Staff Members—Conservative Politics At Work—We’d Like to Make a Point—Heard It Through the Grapevine: Women on the Move—Stepping Stones—Public Forum—W&L Schedule—Lime Kiln Arts [Theatre Production Announcement]—Thanks for Your Support [Sports Highlights]—Bits ‘n Pieces—Ripples (poem)—Correction to the Sept. 11 Issue—Student Art—Collegiate Crossword—Truman Scholarship (1989)—Hollins Volunteers—Robel, Our Souper Man—Opera Society Auditionshttps://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/newspapers/1203/thumbnail.jp

Introduction to the special issue : civil society in Ukraine : building on Euromaidan legacy

The idea of this Special Issue appeared in early 2014, when the heat of the fire on Kyiv’s Independence Square had not fully cooled down and when many civic activists and newborn volunteers had turned their ceaseless energy to yet another fire first in Crimea and then in Eastern Ukraine. The events that seemingly put the state of Ukraine on the brink of its very existence were evolving too fast, but civil society’s response to them was no less prompt and adaptive. Volunteers and activists were trying on new roles each day as they were helping those escaping persecution, repression and hostilities, equipping and maintaining those who fought with weapons or joining their ranks, developing reform agenda and drafting legislative proposals. What seemed astounding back then, and still does today, was how those thousands of volunteers and millions of “ordinary citizens” who mobilized to support new civic initiatives took over the functions of the weak and nearly collapsed state eroded by corruption, nepotism, the neglect of its citizens and of the country’s national interests. Challenging a post-Soviet monster disguised behind the mask of electoral democracy and market economy, citizens were bringing in a new social contract based on trust and solidarity on which a new state could be built. The speed of events and the scale of civil society engagement precluded any long-term comprehensive analysis, yet researchers’ zeal to reflect upon what looked as a tectonic move in Ukraine’s political and social development took over. At first, our idea was to co-author an article examining civil society’s role in a post-Euromaidan Ukraine, but soon enough the task became too big. The initial idea thus evolved into producing an edited volume with different authors looking into their respective fields of civil society in Ukraine in order to grasp at least a small portion of change. We are grateful to many researchers in Ukraine and abroad who responded to our call for papers in May 2016 and who contributed their ideas to this Special Issue. Some of these ideas eventually turned into articles and we would like to give special thanks to those colleagues who bore with us through rounds of revisions till the very end of this journey. Their articles made this Special Issue happen. We are also grateful to the Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal for hosting this Special Issue and for supporting our initiative from the early stages through review and editing to the publication process. We would like to thank UACES – the Academic Association for Contemporary European Studies, UESA – the Ukrainian European Studies Association and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy for their financial and logistical support in organizing the Final Conference of this project, which took place at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy on November 21, 2017, the fourth anniversary of the Euromaidan. We are also enormously grateful to all the participants of the Conference for their remarks, comments and questions. Finally, we would like to extend our gratitude to the Kyiv office of Baker McKenzie, which has provided financial support to the publication of this Issue

Democracy Defended: Findings from the 2020 Election

Despite an unprecedented series of challenges—a global pandemic, extreme weather, rampant misinformation, voter intimidation, and coordinated efforts to disenfranchise millions of voters of color—Black voters turned out in record numbers in 2020 to have their voices heard in one of our nation's most important election years.But let's be clear. The election did not go smoothly. Record turnout nationally and in many states was only possible thanks to a Herculean effort on the part of many non-profit organizations and many thousands of individuals and volunteers, as well as the enormous sums of money spent on election security and countering misinformation

The Proceedings of 14th Australian Digital Forensics Conference, 5-6 December 2016, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

Conference Foreword This is the fifth year that the Australian Digital Forensics Conference has been held under the banner of the Security Research Institute, which is in part due to the success of the security conference program at ECU. As with previous years, the conference continues to see a quality papers with a number from local and international authors. 11 papers were submitted and following a double blind peer review process, 8 were accepted for final presentation and publication. Conferences such as these are simply not possible without willing volunteers who follow through with the commitment they have initially made, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the conference committee for their tireless efforts in this regard. These efforts have included but not been limited to the reviewing and editing of the conference papers, and helping with the planning, organisation and execution of the conference. Particular thanks go to those international reviewers who took the time to review papers for the conference, irrespective of the fact that they are unable to attend this year. To our sponsors and supporters a vote of thanks for both the financial and moral support provided to the conference. Finally, to the student volunteers and staff of the ECU Security Research Institute, your efforts as always are appreciated and invaluable. Yours sincerely, Conference Chair Professor Craig Valli Director, Security Research Institut

Honouring Ancestry, Celebrating Presence : the Grand Opening of the Nunalleq Culture and Archaeology Center

Acknowledgements Firstly, we want to acknowledge the contribution by Stephan Jones, first Director of the Nunalleq Culture and Archaeology Center and Director of QHI, who is sadly no longer with us. Stephan was one of the organisers behind the cultural workshops and celebration, and had fate wanted differently, his name would be found among the authors of this paper. Thank you to Crystal Carter and Carl Nicholai for reporting on the culture workshops, and for the kind permission to use your beautiful pictures. We are grateful to all the artists who made the workshops possible, and to all the workshop participants who made them so successful and enjoyable. We also extend our thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on our paper. Thanks to everyone in Quinhagak who contributed to the Potluck and celebration, and special thanks to the Quinhagak dancers for your performance. We cannot leave without mentioning all the researchers and volunteers who have dedicated their time to Nunalleq over the years. Finally, we are extremely grateful to the people of Quinhagak for their constant support—without you none of this could have happened. Funding The stakeholder workshop was founded by AHRC workshop grant AH/R01423/1. The culture workshops were arranged with the support of grants from The CIRI Foundation and Alaska State Council on the Arts.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Learning by volunteer computing, thinking and gaming: What and how are volunteers learning by participating in Virtual Citizen Science?

Citizen Science (CS) refers to a form of research collaboration that engages volunteers without formal scientific training in contributing to empirical scientific projects. Virtual Citizen Science (VCS) projects engage participants in online tasks. VCS has demonstrated its usefulness for research, however little is known about its learning potential for volunteers. This paper reports on research exploring the learning outcomes and processes in VCS. In order to identify different kinds of learning, 32 exploratory interviews of volunteers were conducted in three different VCS projects. We found six main learning outcomes related to different participants' activities in the project. Volunteers learn on four dimensions that are directly related to the scope of the VCS project: they learn at the task/game level, acquire pattern recognition skills, on-topic content knowledge, and improve their scientific literacy. Thanks to indirect opportunities of VCS projects, volunteers learn on two additional dimensions: off topic knowledge and skills, and personal development. Activities through which volunteers learn can be categorized in two levels: at a micro (task/game) level that is direct participation to the task, and at a macro level, i.e. use of project documentation, personal research on the Internet, and practicing specific roles in project communities. Both types are influenced by interactions with others in chat or forums. Most learning happens to be informal, unstructured and social. Volunteers do not only learn from others by interacting with scientists and their peers, but also by working for others: they gain knowledge, new status and skills by acting as active participants, moderators, editors, translators, community managers, etc. in a project community. This research highlights these informal and social aspects in adult learning and science education and also stresses the importance for learning through the indirect opportunities provided by the project: the main one being the opportunity to participate and progress in a project community, according to one's tastes and skills

More Real than Real: A Study on Human Visual Perception of Synthetic Faces

Deep fakes became extremely popular in the last years, also thanks to their increasing realism. Therefore, there is the need to measures human's ability to distinguish between real and synthetic face images when confronted with cutting-edge creation technologies. We describe the design and results of a perceptual experiment we have conducted, where a wide and diverse group of volunteers has been exposed to synthetic face images produced by state-of-the-art Generative Adversarial Networks (namely, PG-GAN, StyleGAN, StyleGAN2). The experiment outcomes reveal how strongly we should call into question our human ability to discriminate real faces from synthetic ones generated through modern AI