Semantic Modeling of Analytic-based Relationships with Direct Qualification

Successfully modeling state and analytics-based semantic relationships of documents enhances representation, importance, relevancy, provenience, and priority of the document. These attributes are the core elements that form the machine-based knowledge representation for documents. However, modeling document relationships that can change over time can be inelegant, limited, complex or overly burdensome for semantic technologies. In this paper, we present Direct Qualification (DQ), an approach for modeling any semantically referenced document, concept, or named graph with results from associated applied analytics. The proposed approach supplements the traditional subject-object relationships by providing a third leg to the relationship; the qualification of how and why the relationship exists. To illustrate, we show a prototype of an event-based system with a realistic use case for applying DQ to relevancy analytics of PageRank and Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS).Comment: Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE 9th International Conference on Semantic Computing (IEEE ICSC 2015

Leadership Preparation Programs and Social Justice, Lessons Learned from a Graduate School of Education

This dissertation examines the influence of a graduate school of education on adult learning to determine if transformative learning has taken place. This qualitative study analyzed the stories and experiences of six graduate students to determine if there had been transformative learning and if transformative learning had influenced leadership behaviors that promote social justice in schools. A steady demographic shift over the years has resulted in schools with a higher percentage of minority and poor students. Many of these students are in marginalized in schools. In these marginalized schools, social justice reforms are necessary to address the needs of all students. As the principals encountered issues of social justice through the graduate school’s courses, their awareness of social justice increased and their comfort level for discussing these issues was enhanced. The participants identified the professors’ influence, diversity of the students enrolled in the courses, and the need for self-reflection as key components to their adult learning. This study suggests the need for leadership preparation programs to examine their curriculums and pedagogy to maximize transformative learning and the ability to promote social justice

Combining community-based research and local knowledge to confront asthma and subsistence-fishing hazards in Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Activists in the environmental justice movement are challenging expert-driven scientific research by taking the research process into their own hands and speaking for themselves by defining, analyzing, and prescribing solutions for the environmental health hazards confronting communities of the poor and people of color. I highlight the work of El Puente and The Watchperson Project--two community-based organizations in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, that have engaged in community-based participatory research (CBPR) to address asthma and risks from subsistence-fish diets. The CBPR process aims to engage community members as equal partners alongside scientists in problem definition, information collection, and data analysis--all geared toward locally relevant action for social change. In the first case I highlight how El Puente has organized residents to conduct a series of asthma health surveys and tapped into local knowledge of the Latino population to understand potential asthma triggers and to devise culturally relevant health interventions. In a second case I follow The Watchperson Project and their work surveying subsistence anglers and note how the community-gathered information contributed key data inputs for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Cumulative Exposure Project in the neighborhood. In each case I review the processes each organization used to conduct CBPR, some of their findings, and the local knowledge they gathered, all of which were crucial for understanding and addressing local environmental health issues. I conclude with some observations about the benefits and limits of CBPR for helping scientists and communities pursue environmental justice

Formula-SAE: Shift System and Controls

Problem statement: Formula SAE has been at VCU for the last three years and the team is now getting to the point of having the formula car ready to run and drive. One of the things that needs to be finished for this to happen is the installation of a shifting system. Rationale: Once completed, the FSAE team will be one step closer to having a competition ready formula car. While a major part of the team is the members’ love of all things fast, we also believe that the car will provide exposure to the VCU School of Engineering through competitions and promotional events. Approach: This design will provide a reliable, safe, and user-friendly system that provides quick responding shifts for the FSAE formula car. A micro-controller is to be programmed to take shift commands from the driver (sent via paddles located on the steering column), and process them into signals. These signals will then be sent to a pneumatic system that will perform the clutch and shift operations. In addition, the micro-controller will provide feedback of its operation to the driver using instrument cluster LED indicators. Anticipated Results and Conclusions: Currently, the team plans on having the system designed and installed well in advance of April 2015. The system will provide 2 driving modes: one for the drag portion of competition and one for the street course portion. Complete shifting times are predicted be to within 1 millisecond of driver input.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1060/thumbnail.jp

Super-Rangers: the early years of Army Special Forces 1944-1953

The United States Army Special Forces is an unconventional warfare organization of the United States Army with roots in World War II. Soldiers and civilian policymakers who participated in guerilla warfare during that war saw unconventional warfare as a way to further American interests in situations where a conventional army could not operate effectively. In the postwar national security policy battles, these soldiers and government officials fought for a permanent unconventional warfare unit in the US Army. By 1951 They had successfully argued for the establishment of Army Special Forces Groups utilizing guerilla warfare to fight Soviet Communism in the event of a general war. The problems of understanding and defining unconventional warfare, however, crippled the ability of Army Special Forces to instigate guerilla warfare against the Soviet Union wherever and whenever needed

Community Insurgency: Constituency, School Choice, and the Common Good

This study explores the ways in which the democratic notion of the people may be enacted in the school choice arena. Through an investigation of a charter school movement in a rural and segregated district in the Deep South, we explore themes of the constituent paradox that enabled the community to move beyond individual interests towards an expression of the common good. It is argued that for the people to be invoked via the democratic claim, they must identify more deeply than the institutions of their representation and recognize an expanded form of individualism defined through participation over consumption

Joint Doctrine Ontology: A Benchmark for Military Information Systems Interoperability

When the U.S. conducts warfare, elements of a force are drawn from different services and work together as a single team to accomplish an assigned mission. To achieve such unified action, it is necessary that the doctrines governing the actions of members of specific services be both consistent with and subservient to joint Doctrine. Because warfighting today increasingly involves not only live forces but also automated systems, unified action requires that information technology that is used in joint warfare must be aligned with joint doctrine. It requires also that the separate information systems used by the different elements of a joint force must be interoperable, in the sense that data and information that is generated by each element must be usable (understandable, processable) by all the other elements that need them. Currently, such interoperability is impeded by multiple inconsistencies among the different data and software standards used by warfighters. We describe here the on-going project of creating a Joint Doctrine Ontology (JDO), which uses joint doctrine to provide shared computer-accessible content valid for any field of military endeavor, organization, and information system. JDO addresses the two previously mentioned requirements of unified action by providing a widely applicable benchmark for use by developers of information systems that will both guarantee alignment with joint doctrine and support interoperability