702 research outputs found
A Critical Review Of Post-Secondary Education Writing During A 21st Century Education Revolution
Educational materials are effective instruments which provide information and report new discoveries uncovered by researchers in specific areas of academia. Higher education, like other education institutions, rely on instructional materials to inform its practice of educating adult learners. In post-secondary education, developmental English programs are tasked with meeting the needs of dynamic populations, thus there is a continuous need for research in this area to support its changing landscape. However, the majority of scholarly thought in this area centers on K-12 reading and writing. This paucity presents a phenomenon to the post-secondary community. This research study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine peer-reviewed journals from 2003-2017, developmental online websites, and a government issued document directed toward reforming post-secondary developmental education programs. These highly relevant sources aid educators in discovering informational support to apply best practices for student success. Developmental education serves the purpose of addressing literacy gaps for students transitioning to college-level work. The findings here illuminate the dearth of material offered to developmental educators. This study suggests the field of literacy research is fragmented and highlights an apparent blind spot in scholarly literature with regard to English writing instruction. This poses a quandary for post-secondary literacy researchers in the 21st century and establishes the necessity for the literacy research community to commit future scholarship toward equipping college educators teaching writing instruction to underprepared adult learners
Two sides to every tweet: Exploring the framing, predictors, and associated consequences of online shaming
Online shaming, whereby individuals call out real or perceived wrongdoings online, has become an ever-increasing, global form of social policing. Despite the negative consequences associated with this phenomenon, most existing discussion and debate is anecdotal and media-based, with current understandings largely non-empirical, theoretical, and overall scarce. The overarching aim of this thesis was to explore the framing, predictors, and associated consequences of online shaming, which was achieved via a mixed-methods research project comprising four studies
The Political Dynamics of Electricity Sector Performance in Ghana and CĂ´te d'Ivoire
What factors drive variation in policy choices related to the electricity sector and, ultimately, in sectoral performance over time? This dissertation argues that differences in the form and intensity of competitive political pressures affect the choice and implementation of electricity sector policies and thus sectoral performance.
First, I explore bivariate relationships between commonly cited external factors â natural resource endowments, economic shocks, investment climate, droughts, and civil wars â and sectoral performance across Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings confirm associations between these factors and sectoral performance. Yet they indicate considerable unexplained variation in sectoral performance, which requires qualitative analysis.
Second, I analyze the politics of electricity sector management in Ghana and CĂ´te dâIvoire. In the 1980s and 1990s, these two countries faced similar economic and climatic crises that brought the electricity sector to its knees. Yet when the World Bank and the IMF pushed neoliberal policies as solutions for sectoral challenges, they responded differently. Liberalization and privatization policies moved forward more quickly in CĂ´te dâIvoire than in Ghana. Moreover, electricity sector performance differed in the two countries during 1990-2019. Electrification rates accelerated in Ghana, but they slowed in CĂ´te dâIvoire. CĂ´te dâIvoire improved the reliability of electricity supply more than Ghana. Electricity prices also reflected costs of service in CĂ´te dâIvoire but not in Ghana.
The comparative political analysis traces how different forms and intensity of competitive political pressures, especially coups dâĂŠtat, electoral threats, civil wars, and risks of civil wars, affect the implementation of electricity sector policies and then sectoral performance in Ghana and CĂ´te dâIvoire. I argue that intense political competition encourages Ghanaian politicians to extend electricity access to rural areas to mobilize political support and to set artificially low tariffs to appease urban residents and swing voters. Politically motivated low tariffs, coupled with unpaid subsidies and governmentsâ failure to pay their own electricity bills, result in inadequate investments in power utilities and, in turn, recurrent power shortages and outages.
On the other hand, I argue that existential threats, mainly contestations over Ivorian identity and citizenship and civil war, slowed electrification programs with governments prioritizing regime and national stability. My study shows that (the risks of) civil wars crowd out ordinary concerns like electricity provision. However, when political life returns to normal, high competition drives governments to mollify voters by extending access to electricity and setting below-cost tariffs. Low competition allows governments to make policy changes they view as solutions for sectoral challenges but might defer short-term voter gratification. I demonstrate that low electoral threats encouraged the privatization of the state-owned electricity company in CĂ´te dâIvoire. In contrast, intense political competition discouraged ruling elites from privatizing the national electricity distributor in Ghana
The Progress of the Vampire, or a Historical Typology of the Character's Fictional Representations
The objective of my dissertation is to reveal the fictional progress of the vampire, to demonstrate how in the Anglo-Saxon vampire representations we have got from the antagonistic parasitic bloodsuckers to the vampire figures living in symbiosis with human beings, which are both part of contemporary popular culture.
To accomplish this, I study the English literary texts depicting the nineteenth-century antagonists, then Riceâs twentieth-century sympathetic vampire, which tries to get rid of the opposition to humans but fails to do so, and finally the Meyerean twenty-first-century integrated vampire succeeding in the process.
In the twentieth century, the film was the primary source of the spreading and maintenance of the vampire myth in popular culture. The films of Murnauâs Nosferatu and Browningâs Dracula were still adaptations of Stokerâs work, from which, as a sequel of the latter, Hillyerâs work entitled Draculaâs Daughter departed. The Dracula films of the Hammer Film Productions took this further, which, after the icon of BĂŠla Lugosi appearing in Browningâs film, featured another icon universalising Dracula in Christopher Leeâs portrayal. These still adapted the nineteenth-century monster figures, then the films of Badhamâs Dracula and Coppolaâs Bram Stokerâs Dracula liberated the character.
With the appearance of electronic texts, the present also represents a medial change. The most integrated platform of electronic databases is Apple Books. From here, I have selected Naylorâs vampire short stories, which exhibit the contemporary fictional character traits by the diverse vampire figures appearing in the first vampire universe published in the database.
Discussing all these, I present the vampire figure in a historiographic, intermedial and comparative analysis, thus I establish a character typology as well as highlight the allusive and synergic relations among its elements. My conclusion is that the vampire canon constitutes the progress of the vampire and heightens the figure in popular perception by innovation, modernising and actualising the figure, and iteration of elements found in previous works, which represents continuity with them
Fast batched asynchronous distributed key generation
We present new protocols for threshold Schnorr signatures that work in an asynchronous communication setting, providing robustness and optimal resilience. These protocols provide unprecedented performance in terms of communication and computational complexity. In terms of communication complexity, for each signature, a single party must transmit a few dozen group elements and scalars across the network (independent of the size of the signing committee). In terms of computational complexity, the amortized cost for one party to generate a signature is actually less than that of just running the standard Schnorr signing or verification algorithm (at least for moderately sized signing committees, say, up to 100).
For example, we estimate that with a signing committee of 49 parties, at most 16 of which are corrupt, we can generate 50,000 Schnorr signatures per second (assuming each party can dedicate one standard CPU core and 500Mbs of network bandwidth to signing). Importantly, this estimate includes both the cost of an offline precomputation phase (which just churns out message independent presignatures ) and an online signature generation phase. Also, the online signing phase can generate a signature with very little network latency (just one to three rounds, depending on how throughput and latency are balanced).
To achieve this result, we provide two new innovations. One is a new secret sharing protocol (again, asynchronous, robust, optimally resilient) that allows the dealer to securely distribute shares of a large batch of ephemeral secret keys, and to publish the corresponding ephemeral public keys. To achieve better performance, our protocol minimizes public-key operations, and in particular, is based on a novel technique that does not use the traditional technique based on polynomial commitments . The second innovation is a new algorithm to efficiently combine ephemeral public keys contributed by different parties (some possibly corrupt) into a smaller number of secure ephemeral public keys. This new algorithm is based on a novel construction of a so-called super-invertible matrix along with a corresponding highly-efficient algorithm for multiplying this matrix by a vector of group elements.
As protocols for verifiably sharing a secret key with an associated public key and the technology of super-invertible matrices both play a major role in threshold cryptography and multi-party computation, our two new innovations should have applicability well beyond that of threshold Schnorr signatures
Managing Fish or Governing Fisheries? An Historical Recount of Marine Resources Governance in the Context of Latin America â The Ecuadorian Case
The narratives and images about ocean and its resources governance, their use and value have deep roots in human history. Traditionally, the contemporary images of fish and fisheries have been shaped under the cultural construction of power, wealth and exclusion, and also as one of poverty and marginalization. This perception was formed on early notions of natural (marine) resources access and use that were born within the colonial machinery that ruled the world from the Middle Ages until late XVII. This research explores the historical overview of marine resources usage and governance in Latin America, from a âcritical approach to developmentâ perspective, by following a narrative description based on a âthree actsâ format. It illustrates how and to what extent politics, power and knowledge have deeply influenced policies and practices at exploring the marine and terrestrial resources and at managing fish and seafood, historically, and how the fisheries resourcesâ management practices are influenced by principles of appropriation, regulation and usage, put in place already in the XV century that were imposed at the conquering and colonization of the Americas, disregarded previous governance practices. This article argues that fisheries governance cannot be improved without some appreciation for the social, historical, geopolitical, and cultural significance of the fishing resources themselves, of the perceptions of them by humans, and of the interactions Global North-Global South. The analysis also opens the dialogue about what kind of ocean and governance âscienceâ we want, to support decisions, policies and practices regarding fisheries governance. Final thoughts highlight a reflection about whose knowledge is created and used to support decision and policy making in Ecuador
World History, Volume 1: To 1500
World History, Volume 1: to 1500 is designed to meet the scope and sequence of a world history course to 1500 offered at both two-year and four-year institutions. Suitable for both majors and non majors World History, Volume 1: to 1500 introduces students to a global perspective of history couched in an engaging narrative. Concepts and assessments help students think critically about the issues they encounter so they can broaden their perspective of global history. A special effort has been made to introduce and juxtapose peopleâs experiences of history for a rich and nuanced discussion. Primary source material represents the cultures being discussed from a firsthand perspective whenever possible. World History, Volume 1: to 1500 also includes the work of diverse and underrepresented scholars to ensure a full range of perspectives
David versus Goliath: The Power of Weakness in Asymmetric WarfareâLessons from History
Under what conditions do violent nonstate actors (VNA) succeed against states? Why does David sometimes beat Goliath? Since at least the time of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian Wars, the realist narrative in international relations measures power primarily in relative, coercive, and deterrent terms. Strong states should accordingly face fewer constraints and enjoy more options while pursuing their national interests. Unconventional warfare, and its subsets of terrorism and insurgency, shouldâgiven these circumstances, end in VNA failure. Sometimes, however, VNAs find success. By comparing the literature on historical and current case studies, I propose that a set of preconditions and two mechanisms help explain âthe power of weakness.â After it decides to abandon peaceful conflict resolution, the weak side must cultivate the cause that inspires its members to kill and die, to torture and suffer. Next, it requires safe havens. If the VNA cannot avoid the stateâs reach, its initial wave of attacks may likely constitute its final wave of attacks. Inspiration and sanctuary thus provide the weak side enough space and time for a stalemate. The stateâs daunting power advantages, however, make space and time necessary but not sufficient conditions for weak side success. The first mechanism that can begin to transform the existing power balance combines state miscalculation and VNA competitive adaptation. The strong sideâs blunders must border on the spectacular. For the weak side to survive the stateâs initial onslaught, it must harden its organization, coerce and cajole its community, eliminate rivals, and generate a range of goals. Although the VNA may grow and even evolve into a proto-state, it may still not achieve its political goals until external pressures intervene. My second mechanism accordingly examines how other states, international institutions, diasporas, and international norms finalize VNA success. The paradox that power does not necessarily translate to success may help clarify why states that lose unconventional conflicts often retain vast reserves of soldiers and resources. The power of weakness implies that terrorism and insurgency are forms of politics, and hence not to be understood strictly, or even primarily in military terms. Finally, the potential power of weakness can explain asymmetric warfareâs persistence throughout history. Why do groups with guns and grievances, across successive generations, make the seemingly âfutileâ decision to fight states? A general theory of VNA success can inform analysis of when, and under what circumstances weak sides may, or may not prevail
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