Expungement and Limiting Public Access to Alaska Criminal Case Records in the Digital Age

A criminal record results in a number of different barriers to reentry into the community for former offenders. These barriers — also called collateral consequences — can be mitigated by reducing the extent to which criminal records are visible to employers, landlords, and others. This article provides an overview of the complexity involved in limiting public access to criminal records, processes adopted in other states, and recent legislative proposals and current options in Alaska.[Introduction] / Background / Criminal Records in the Digital Age: National Overview / Expungement and Criminal Records in Alaska / Going Forward // SIDEBARS / The Model Penal Code / Federal REDEEM Act of 2015 / Recent Legislative Proposals on Criminal Records in Alaska / Data on CourtView / Alaska Court Rules of Administration—Case Information / Expungement Resource

Transitioning Through Middle Age with an Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury: A Qualitative Description of Changes in Physical Function: A Dissertation

Over 260,000 Americans are living with a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Medical advances have increased the longevity of individuals living with SCI into middle age and beyond. The majority of these individuals are living with an incomplete SCI (NSCISC, 2012), and the proportion of incomplete injuries is rising (DeVivo, 2012). There is little research that specifically examines the changes in physical function experienced by individuals aging with a traumatic incomplete SCI. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe the changes in physical function experienced by participants with a traumatic incomplete SCI aging through middle age. Data were collected through moderately structured individual interviews (N=17), in either a face-to-face (n=6) or an email (n=11) format. The seventeen participants ranged in age from 35 to 65 years, with a 16 to 36 year duration of injury. Participants described changes in various body systems and recalled the timing of those changes as they transitioned through their middle years. Qualitative content analysis revealed that participants described primarily gradual changes including decreased muscle strength, decreased endurance, weight gain, and wear and tear changes. When asked to identify sources of information about physical changes, participants predominantly emphasized their lack of knowledge about anticipated changes. Further content analysis revealed three themes related to this transition. Participants likened their experience to travelling through uncharted territory. They described strategies for living in uncharted territory that help them to prevent or manage changes in physical function, with sub-themes of being vigilant in their self-assessment and self-management practices, investing time in figuring out what changes they experienced and why those changes happened, and staying positive. They also described the importance of recognizing the impact of changes. These findings provide a foundation for understanding this age-related transition, and identify the need for further research to support effective self-management strategies and efficient mechanisms for disseminating this knowledge to people with SCI, their caregivers and families. In acute and chronic patient care settings, nurses are well-positioned to be a valuable support and information source for individuals living with an incomplete SCI

A Reflective Commentary on Fractal Epistemology

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Information, communication, advocacy, and complaint: how the spouse of a man with aphasia managed his discharge from hospital

Background: The impact of stroke and aphasia has been recognised as a family problem for many years with studies highlighting spouses’ need for information at different times along the recovery journey, for practical and emotional support, recognition, and respite. In particular, the decision-making around discharge from hospital, or planning for rehabilitation, is not always collaborative even though family involvement assists family members to plan and adjust to their new caring role. Aims: This study aims to explore how the wife of a man with aphasia managed his discharge from hospital in the acute phase post-stroke. It provides an opportunity for health professional learning and sensitisation through the detailed analysis of a de-identified but a real case that happened to reflect key issues reported by families in previous research: lack of information, poor communication with healthcare professionals, and the need for advocacy. Methods and procedures: The data for this paper are drawn from two sources: a single in-depth interview with the wife collected as part of an earlier large multi-site study that included interviews with 48 family members of people with aphasia after stroke; and two complaint letters she wrote to the hospital and two letters received back. This study uses a narrative analysis of the interview, and a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) analysis of the letters in order to shed light on the key issues of information, communication, and advocacy. Outcomes and results: The narrative analysis of the interview and the SFL analysis of the letters together help to unpack the reasons why the wife felt motivated to write a complaint letter to the hospital where her husband had been admitted post-stroke. The letters themselves demonstrate careful choices of language for both parties, with the hospital discounting the wife’s concerns and closing down the exchange. They also reflect a profound misunderstanding by the hospital about the functional consequences of aphasia and its impact on the family. Conclusions: It is important that family members, taking on a caring role for people with aphasia after stroke, are supported with clear information and good communication in acute settings. This may enable them to be engaged in the recovery process as partners with healthcare teams and more effectively support adjustments to poststroke life in the longer term

Beyond Information: The Role of Territory in Privacy Management Behavior on Social Networking Sites

This study draws on communication privacy management theory to explore aspects of social networking sites (SNSs) that may influence individual privacy management behaviors and conceptualizes two behaviors for managing privacy on SNSs: private disclosure (for managing information privacy) and territory coordination (for managing territory privacy). Evidence from two studies of SNS members indicates that perceptions of trespassing over agreed-upon virtual boundaries within SNSs affects risk beliefs regarding information privacy and territory privacy differently. These distinct privacy risk beliefs, in turn, influence two privacy management behaviors. Theoretically, this study demonstrates that a more complete conceptualization of individual privacy management on SNSs should consider both information privacy and territory privacy; and that territory coordination is a more significant indicator of privacy management behaviors on SNSs than private disclosure. From a practical standpoint, this study provides guidance to SNS platform organizations on how to reduce individuals’ privacy risk beliefs, encourage users to share private information, and potentially build larger online communities

The Online Coffee Klatch: What are Tech Women Talking About?

Though the topic has been a focus of study for years, researchers are still grappling with the antecedents of turnover for women in technology-related professions. One potential antecedent of turnover that has yet to receive much attention in the information systems (IS) literature is gender discrimination. As a first step, the goal of this study is to understand what is on the minds of tech women regarding gender discrimination, and the potential link between perceived gender discrimination and turnover intention. To address this goal, emails posted over two years to a forum for women involved in computing were analyzed using Semantria for Excel. This analysis allowed us to study large quantities of unstructured data culled from the women’s email communications. Based on the preliminary analysis, it appears that the perception that women are unwelcome in the technology-related professions persists. The next steps and potential implications are provided

The Influence of Demands and Resources on Emotional Exhaustion with the Information Systems Profession

Using the Job Demands-Resources Model of Burnout as an organizing framework, this study examines multiple models of the antecedents of emotional exhaustion with the profession among IS workers via a new structural equation modeling software, WarpPLS. Data were analyzed from 293 IS professionals representing various industries across the United States. This study provides empirical evidence regarding the mediating role of the demands of the profession and the considerable influence of affective connections to the profession (i.e., career-family conflict, psychological contract violation and connection to the profession) on emotional exhaustion with the IS profession. These findings highlight the importance of understanding how complex relationships influence emotional exhaustion with the profession. Researchers interested in the causes of burnout in IS professionals may want to focus on further exploring the affective connections to the profession as they were found to be key factors directly and indirectly influencing emotional exhaustion with the profession

Enabling Quantum Shift Learning: A Preliminary Study in Transforming Object Oriented Learning

Experienced structured programmers often find it difficult to learn object oriented techniques. At the root of this difficulty is the phenomenon of cognitive interference: a student’s prior knowledge actively interferes with the learning of the new skill. This paper describes cognitive interference, its impact on the learning of OO programming, and our method of circumventing this interference. A preliminary field experiment was conducted to test this method. The results indicate that through the use of quantum shift learning techniques the students were able to shift from structured thinking to object oriented thinking without cognitive interference