Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science

dissertationOver the last decade, social media has emerged as a revolutionary platform for informal communication and social interactions among people. Publicly expressing thoughts, opinions, and feelings is one of the key characteristics of social media. In this dissertation, I present research on automatically acquiring knowledge from social media that can be used to recognize people's affective state (i.e., what someone feels at a given time) in text. This research addresses two types of affective knowledge: 1) hashtag indicators of emotion consisting of emotion hashtags and emotion hashtag patterns, and 2) affective understanding of similes (a form of figurative comparison). My research introduces a bootstrapped learning algorithm for learning hashtag in- dicators of emotions from tweets with respect to five emotion categories: Affection, Anger/Rage, Fear/Anxiety, Joy, and Sadness/Disappointment. With a few seed emotion hashtags per emotion category, the bootstrapping algorithm iteratively learns new hashtags and more generalized hashtag patterns by analyzing emotion in tweets that contain these indicators. Emotion phrases are also harvested from the learned indicators to train additional classifiers that use the surrounding word context of the phrases as features. This is the first work to learn hashtag indicators of emotions. My research also presents a supervised classification method for classifying affective polarity of similes in Twitter. Using lexical, semantic, and sentiment properties of different simile components as features, supervised classifiers are trained to classify a simile into a positive or negative affective polarity class. The property of comparison is also fundamental to the affective understanding of similes. My research introduces a novel framework for inferring implicit properties that 1) uses syntactic constructions, statistical association, dictionary definitions and word embedding vector similarity to generate and rank candidate properties, 2) re-ranks the top properties using influence from multiple simile components, and 3) aggregates the ranks of each property from different methods to create a final ranked list of properties. The inferred properties are used to derive additional features for the supervised classifiers to further improve affective polarity recognition. Experimental results show substantial improvements in affective understanding of similes over the use of existing sentiment resources

#BlackLiteracyLivesMatter: REVEALING AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS’ MULTIMODAL LITERACY PRACTICES IN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS AT A COMMUNITY CENTER

This study investigated the multimodal literacy practices of African American adolescents as they navigated online social networks. Participants ranged from ages 13 to 17 and resided in an inner city East Coast neighborhood. Data collection tools included an online social network survey, online social networking activities log, audio recorded literacy interviews, and screenshots. Pieces of data were carefully analyzed and coded for potential literacy practices. The study revealed four distinct literacy practices of this particular group of African American adolescents: communication, entertainment, information gathering, and taking a stance. Participant data defined each multimodal literacy practice while explaining how and why skills and experiences combined to create the practice. Engagement in online social networks involved these multimodal literacy practices. Often they involved interactions with peers and family members. Participants did not readily compare their multimodal online social network literacy practices to traditional forms of literacy, however, they used traditional words such as reading, writing, and spelling to explain their skills and experiences. Literacy was brought to life in a unique way through the words and multiple modes of communication, entertainment, information gathering, and stance taking of participants. This study questions ‘what’ and possibly ‘whose’ literacy counts. Technology and its affordances allowed participants to engage in practices through multiple modes. Additionally, this group of African American adolescents exposed an avenue through which race related injustices and tensions might be expressed through multimodal literacy practices in online social networks. The results of this study encourages future research to examine what literacy counts, whose literacy counts, and how or why adolescents engage through literacy practices. #BlackLiteracyLivesMatte

Civic Engagement Strategies for The City of Redmond

84 pagesThe City of Redmond worked with public relation students at the University of Oregon to find solutions for increasing civic engagement. The following pages include recommendations culled from eight different plans developed by student teams during the academic term, with each team taking on the same challenge of heightening citizen involvement in the City of Redmond. Separated by target audience, this report includes strategies and tactics for social media enhancement, improving media relations, establishing city committees, and planning special events. By targeting varying audiences, such as working class families, parents, high school students, and the Hispanic/Latino(a) communities, the City of Redmond has the opportunity to improve citizen awareness and involvement in city planning and initiatives

Feasibility and performance analysis of middleware support for a situated virtual-physical civic engagement platform

Abstract. With the prevalent ubiquitous computing technologies, it is possible to explore novel solutions for supporting civic engagement as a set of urban practices. One interesting urban practice is the soapbox, traditionally conceived as wooden structure, from where to hold impromptu speeches. For this thesis, a novel soapbox prototype with ubiquitous computing mediated technologies is introduced, with our focus on the feasibility and performance analysis of its middleware support, investigating how our middleware is able to meet the goals of a situated virtual-physical civic engagement platform. Based on our empirical evaluations, it is demonstrated that our prototype is effective to support civic engagement and serve purpose of continuously soapbox streaming

Southeast Ohio Summer/Fall 2018

Table of contents: Best in Shade ... 4 A Healthy Community ... 6 Fountain of Youth ... 8 Rooted in Wellness ... 10 A Tight Knit Group ... 12 A New Chapter ... 14 Bound by Ambition ... 15 Gallipolis\u27 Festival for Freedom ... 16 Bridging the Beans ... 17 Spin it to Win it ... 18 Making History in Marietta ... 20 Ultra Motivated ... 26 A Fest for Fitness and Ferment ... 29 Legacy of Ohio\u27s Ancient Land ... 30 Happy Trails... to Us ... 32 Pushing Past Probation ... 34 Behind-bar Budgets ... 35 Courting New Treatments ... 37 Adams County\u27s Historic Hideaway ... 37 A Tribute to Shenandoah\u27s Tragedy ... 42 Yesterday\u27s Play ... 44 Coach Ryan Adams\u27 Real Life Field Work ... 46https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/southeast-ohio/1004/thumbnail.jp

Conspiracy Theories, MIllennialism, and the Nation: Understanding the collective voice in improvisational millennialism

The following critical appraisal presents eight interlinked works that apply and extend Michael Barkun’s (2003) concept of ‘improvisational millennialism’. This body of work demonstrates that, as Barkun suggests, the concept is widely applicable to the online communities in which stigmatized knowledge is widely accepted. Moreover, it extends the definition to consider how improvisational millennialism provides ill-defined or dispossessed communities a means of articulating a collective relationship to historical time as well as a crude means of shoring up basic assumptions of group membership. Mythical pasts and millennial expectation provide the opportunity for shared eschatological orientation whilst the dualism of conspiracy theories demarcates between the communities and their outsiders. This critical review demonstrates how the journal articles and book chapters collected in the appendices provide specific examples of the application and extension of improvisational millennialism. The examples chosen are varied but a persistent theme drawn out through analysis is the role that national cultures – official and official – are articulated through improvisational millennialism. The examples include consideration of how the depiction of millennial beliefs in the mass media contribute to national cultural constructs but more typically focus on the use of improvisational millennialism in online communities. Of the latter, the greater number of examples are concerned with improvisational millennialism within the neo-fascist milieu. Mobilised by conspiracy theories with apocalyptic subtexts, the far right reliance on improvisational millennialism demonstrates the implicit danger of the increased incursion of stigmatized knowledge into the cultural mainstream. This critical review serves to show that despite being typified by a syncretic bricolage of unconnected ideas and traditions, improvisational millennialism is reflective of both social and political realities.N/

Prospectus, November 2, 2011

PARKLAND HOSTS NATIONAL DEPRESSION SCREENING DAY, Parkland Theatre Presents: Dead Man\u27s Cell Phone, Corporations Recruit Web-Savvy Students as Campus Insiders, Federal Changes on Student Loans Causing Anxiety, Halloween Decorating Contest Winners Announced, Songs of Hope and Joy Concert Announced, What Do You Think of the Flu Shot?, Parkland Students to Help Build New Playscape, Android Apps for College Students, Why Congress Must Put People Back to Work, A Tax Reform Fairy Tale, Parkland Cobras Basketball Season Preview: Men\u27s and Women\u27s Teams Hold High Expectationshttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2011/1018/thumbnail.jp

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 26, Number 2, Summer 2016

Contents include coverage of the 2016 Commencement ceremony and features about the BSU Undergraduate Honors Program and external grants that fund campus programs and research projects. Also featured is 2016 graduate Emmanuel Boakye-Appiah, whose photography and video skill has led to a contract with VH1. Also Bridgewater and Alumni News.https://vc.bridgew.edu/br_mag/1070/thumbnail.jp