10,684 research outputs found

    Support for Scotland’s Afghan refugee people: exploring social connections in Local Authorities with little previous resettlement experience

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    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63038e5312cb51595226799c/t/63d3fc37cd7c38012430c7ae/1674837055719/Afghan+Final+Report+online.pdfThis work was undertaken as part of the AMIF-funded ‘New Scots Integration – A Pathway to Social and Economic Inclusion’ ABM3 Project.pubpu

    Fillers in Spoken Language Understanding: Computational and Psycholinguistic Perspectives

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    Disfluencies (i.e. interruptions in the regular flow of speech), are ubiquitous to spoken discourse. Fillers ("uh", "um") are disfluencies that occur the most frequently compared to other kinds of disfluencies. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, there isn't a resource that brings together the research perspectives influencing Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) on these speech events. This aim of this article is to synthesise a breadth of perspectives in a holistic way; i.e. from considering underlying (psycho)linguistic theory, to their annotation and consideration in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and SLU systems, to lastly, their study from a generation standpoint. This article aims to present the perspectives in an approachable way to the SLU and Conversational AI community, and discuss moving forward, what we believe are the trends and challenges in each area.Comment: To appear in TAL Journa

    Wooster Magazine: Spring 2023

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    The spring 2023 issue of Wooster magazine features alumni influencing change in their communities around the world, including John Carwile ’81, career member of the U.S. Foreign Service; Rashmi Ekka ’08, international development consultant; Samira El-Adawy ’13, Special Olympics youth manager in the Middle East and North Africa; Ishtiaq Ghafoor ’00, a diplomat with the British Foreign Service; Sarah Haile ’03, a biostatistician at University of Zurich; Kurt Russell ’94, 2022 National Teacher of the Year; and Lauren Vargo ’13, climate change researcher in New Zealand. Also featured are students who have attended the annual Athens Democracy Forum for the past five years and recent international graduates taking advantage of opportunities to gain experience in STEM fields. The issue also includes an interview with Wooster’s incoming 13th president, Dr. Anne McCall.https://openworks.wooster.edu/wooalumnimag_2011-present/1045/thumbnail.jp

    TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF EFFORTFUL FUNDRAISING EXPERIENCES: USING INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS IN FUNDRAISING RESEARCH

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    Physical-activity oriented community fundraising has experienced an exponential growth in popularity over the past 15 years. The aim of this study was to explore the value of effortful fundraising experiences, from the point of view of participants, and explore the impact that these experiences have on people’s lives. This study used an IPA approach to interview 23 individuals, recognising the role of participants as proxy (nonprofessional) fundraisers for charitable organisations, and the unique organisation donor dynamic that this creates. It also bought together relevant psychological theory related to physical activity fundraising experiences (through a narrative literature review) and used primary interview data to substantiate these. Effortful fundraising experiences are examined in detail to understand their significance to participants, and how such experiences influence their connection with a charity or cause. This was done with an idiographic focus at first, before examining convergences and divergences across the sample. This study found that effortful fundraising experiences can have a profound positive impact upon community fundraisers in both the short and the long term. Additionally, it found that these experiences can be opportunities for charitable organisations to create lasting meaningful relationships with participants, and foster mutually beneficial lifetime relationships with them. Further research is needed to test specific psychological theory in this context, including self-esteem theory, self determination theory, and the martyrdom effect (among others)

    The Adirondack Chronology

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    The Adirondack Chronology is intended to be a useful resource for researchers and others interested in the Adirondacks and Adirondack history.https://digitalworks.union.edu/arlpublications/1000/thumbnail.jp

    Publicizing the global town-square: social media platforms as addressees of public obligations in the United States and Germany

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    This dissertation analyses the legal protection the users of social media platforms, the town-squares of our times, in Germany and the United States (US) enjoy before state courts. It particularly focusses on the obligations of social networks to observe the fundamental rights of their users. The stark differences between both countries in today’s jurisprudence and regulation are traced back to the general interpretation of the functions of fundamental rights by the US Supreme Court and the German Bundesverfassungsgericht. The dissertation introduces in its Chapter 2 the constitutional jurisprudence on the effects of fundamental rights on private relationships in both countries. While the US Supreme Court has underlined its understanding of the state as exclusive addressee of constitutional obligations by its development of the state action-doctrine, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht has emphasised the role of fundamental rights as “objective value order” which not only binds the state but also affects private relationships. Chapter 3 outlines the doctrines which are applied to limit private autonomy for the benefit of the weaker contractual party in both countries. Such doctrines are either based on the market power a private entity has, such as the common carrier-doctrine in the US and obligations to contract in Germany, or rooted in the public function an entity serves, namely the public forumdoctrine in the US and the concept of public institutions in Germany. In particular the latter were historically not designed for private relationships but deploy nonetheless effects on individuals and corporations under particular circumstances. Following that, the adoption of the doctrines to the non-physical world, e.g. communication systems, is described. These developments of the legal doctrines culminate into the different approaches courts in both countries have taken for the application of public obligations to social platforms. Chapter 4 discusses legislative proposals and current regulation in the US and Germany, including proposals made on EU level. The dissertation concludes that the varying degrees of regulation reflect the respective stances the courts in both countries have taken on applying public obligations on private entities

    Conscience and Consciousness: British Theatre and Human Rights.

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    This research project investigates a paradigm of human rights theatre. Through the lens of performance and theatre-making, this thesis explores how we came to represent, speak about, discuss, and own human rights in Britain. My framework of ‘human rights theatre’ proposes three distinctive features: firstly, such works dramatise real-world issues and highlights the role of the state in endangering its citizens; secondly, ethical ruptures are encountered within and without the drama, and finally, these performances characteristically aspire to produce an activist effect on the collective behaviours of the audience. This thesis interrogates the strategies theatre-makers use to articulate human rights concerns or to animate human rights intent. The selected case-studies for this investigation are ice&fire’s testimonial project, Actors for Human Rights; Badac Theatre; Jonathan Holmes’ work as director of Jericho House; Cardboard Citizens’ youth participation programme, ACT NOW; and Tony Cealy’s Black Men’s Consortium. Deliberately selecting companies and performance events that have received limited critical attention, my methodology constellates case-studies through original interviews, durational observation of creative working methods and proximate descriptions of practice. The thesis is interested in the experience of coming to ‘consciousness’ through human rights theatre, an awakening to the impacts of rights infringements and rights claiming. I explore consciousness as a processual, procedural, and durational happening in these performance events. I explore the ‘éffect’ of activist art and examine the ways in which makers of human rights theatre aim to amplify both affective and effective qualities in their work. My thesis also considers the articulation of activist purpose and the campaigning intent of the selected theatre-makers and explores how their activism is animated in their productions. Through the rich seam of discussion generated by the identification and exploration of the traits of a distinctive human rights theatre, I affirm the generative value of this typological enquiry

    Towards better support for high-functioning autistic learners in a mainstream sixth form classroom

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    This conceptual Dissertation emerged from my personal professional experiences as the Head of Additional Learning Support and Inclusion at a London Sixth Form College. The study considers the ways in which support for 16 to 19-year-old autistic learners who are deemed as high functioning might be improved. Initially I analyse current educational policy and legislation, using Martha Nussbaum’s version of the Capabilities Approach as an analytical lens. I argue that an education system based on a commodified, meritocratic, standardised, and neoliberal understanding of success has had a detrimental impact on both the flourishing and working relationships of high-functioning autistic learners and their teachers in the classroom. I contend that this type of education system focuses on employability skills using narrow understandings of human flourishing and what it means to be human. I suggest that Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach offers an alternative value system based on the recognition of human dignity and a broader and deeper understanding of what it means to be human by acknowledging and embracing different ways of thinking and being. I then discuss the difficulties high-functioning autistic learners encounter with social communication and functioning and feeling misunderstood which, I argue, are compounded by the pressures caused by the current meritocratic commodified education system. Additionally, and following Nussbaum’s work on emotions, I argue that key to the improvement of the understanding and support of high-functioning autistic learners in the classroom is a dialogical, empathetic, and compassionate working relationship between the teacher and the learner, both of whom are on a mutual learning journey. I then discuss how this relationship can be enhanced with the values of Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach practically implemented using Armstrong’s Positive Niche Construction. I contend, in my conclusion, that this approach to education will benefit not only high functioning autistic learners but all learners

    Walking with the Earth: Intercultural Perspectives on Ethics of Ecological Caring

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    It is commonly believed that considering nature different from us, human beings (qua rational, cultural, religious and social actors), is detrimental to our engagement for the preservation of nature. An obvious example is animal rights, a deep concern for all living beings, including non-human living creatures, which is understandable only if we approach nature, without fearing it, as something which should remain outside of our true home. “Walking with the earth” aims at questioning any similar preconceptions in the wide sense, including allegoric-poetic contributions. We invited 14 authors from 4 continents to express all sorts of ways of saying why caring is so important, why togetherness, being-with each others, as a spiritual but also embodied ethics is important in a divided world
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