Media Downloading, Uploading, and Sharing Among College Students

On many occasions over recent years the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has made national headlines with its large-scale effort to launch civil suits against individuals alleged to be involved in illegal downloading of copyrighted material over the Internet including many college students. By reputation, college students are among the most active users of digital media obtained through peer-to-peer downloading and similar techniques. We conducted a three-phase study to understand student beliefs and behavior in the areas of media downloading, copyright, intellectual property ownership, and computing security. The research included a small cohort of personal interviews, an anonymous paper and pencil survey of 164 students, and a Web-based survey with 402 respondents

Common Ground: Exploring the intersection between information, technology, art and design

University research is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary in both the nature of the problems being investigated and the makeup of the teams of researchers that tackle these complex challenges. Information schools are in a unique position to participate across a range of these projects. This poster describes an initiative to discover potential areas for collaboration between Syracuse University???s iSchool and the College of Visual and Performing Arts, focusing on the synergies between information, technology, art and design

Information Security Awareness and Information Security Practices of Internet Users in Bolivia: A Socio-Cognitive View

In this study, the authors look at the factors that influence individual information security practices of internet users in Bolivia. The research model uses social cognitive theory to explain the individual cognitive factors that influence the information security behavior of Internet users. The model includes individuals’ beliefs about the individual abilities to competently use computer information security tools and their information security awareness in the determination of effective information security practices. The operationalization of the constructs that are part of the research model such as information security practice as the dependent variable, self-efficacy, and information security awareness as independent variables, are presented both in Spanish and English. In this study, we offer the analysis of a survey of 255 internet users from Bolivia who replied to our survey and provided responses about their information security behavior. A discussion about information security awareness and practices is presented. En este estudio, los autores analizan los factores que influyen en las prácticas individuales de seguridad de la información de los usuarios de Internet en Bolivia. El modelo de investigación utiliza la teoría social cognitiva para explicar los factores cognitivos individuales que influyen en el comportamiento de seguridad de la información de los usuarios de Internet. El modelo incluye las creencias de las personas sobre las habilidades individuales para utilizar de manera competente las herramientas de seguridad de la información y su conocimiento de la seguridad de la información en la determinación de prácticas efectivas de seguridad de la información. La operacionalización de constructos que forman parte de nuestro modelo de investigación, como la práctica de la seguridad de la información como variable dependiente, la autoeficacia y la conciencia de seguridad de la información como variables independientes, se presentan tanto en español como en inglés. En este estudio, ofrecemos el análisis de una encuesta a 255 usuarios de Internet de Bolivia que respondieron a nuestra encuesta y proporcionaron respuestas sobre su comportamiento de seguridad de la información. Se presenta una discusión sobre la conciencia y las prácticas de seguridad de la información

Information Security Practices in Latin America: The case of Bolivia

In this paper, we present a social/behavioral study of individual information security practices of internet users in Latin America, specifically presenting the case of Bolivia. The research model uses social cognitive theory in order to explain the individual cognitive factors that influence information security behavior. The model includes individuals’ beliefs about their abilities to competently use computer information security tools and information security awareness in the determination of effective information security practices. The operationalization of constructs that are part of our research model, such as information security practice as the dependent variable, self-efficacy and information security awareness as independent variables , are presented both in Spanish and English. In this study, we offer the analysis of a survey of 255 Internet users from Bolivia who replied to our survey and provided responses about their information security behavior. A discussion about information security awareness and practices is presented

Loss of Sustained Activity in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Response to Repeated Stress in Individuals with Early-Life Emotional Abuse: Implications for Depression Vulnerability

Repeated psychosocial stress in early-life has significant impact on both behavior and neural function which, together, increase vulnerability to depression. However, neural mechanisms related to repeated stress remain unclear. We hypothesize that early-life stress may result in a reduced capacity for cognitive control in response to a repeated stressor, particularly in individuals who developed maladaptive emotional processing strategies, namely trait rumination. Individuals who encountered early-life stress but have adaptive emotional processing, namely trait mindfulness, may demonstrate an opposite pattern. Using a mental arithmetic task to induce mild stress and a mindful breathing task to induce a mindful state, we tested this hypothesis by examining blood perfusion changes over time in healthy young men. We found that subjects with early-life stress, particularly emotional abuse, failed to sustain neural activation in the orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) over time. Given that the vmPFC is known to regulate amygdala activity during emotional processing, we subsequently compared the perfusion in the vmPFC and the amygdala in depression-vulnerable (having early-life stress and high in rumination) and resilient (having early-life stress and high in mindfulness) subjects. We found that depression-vulnerable subjects had increased amygdala perfusion and reduced vmPFC perfusion during the later runs than that during the earlier stressful task runs. In contrast, depression-resilient individuals showed the reverse pattern. Our results indicate that the vmPFC of depression-vulnerable subjects may have a limited capacity to inhibit amygdala activation to repeated stress over time, whereas the vmPFC in resilient individuals may adapt to stress quickly. This pilot study warrants future investigation to clarify the stress-related neural activity pattern dynamically to identify depression vulnerability at an individual level

Loss of Sustained Activity in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Response to Repeated Stress in Individuals with Early-Life Emotional Abuse: Implications for Depression Vulnerability

Repeated psychosocial stress in early-life has significant impact on both behavior and neural function which, together, increase vulnerability to depression. However, neural mechanisms related to repeated stress remain unclear. We hypothesize that early-life stress may result in a reduced capacity for cognitive control in response to a repeated stressor, particularly in individuals who developed maladaptive emotional processing strategies, namely trait rumination. Individuals who encountered early-life stress but have adaptive emotional processing, namely trait mindfulness, may demonstrate an opposite pattern. Using a mental arithmetic task to induce mild stress and a mindful breathing task to induce a mindful state, we tested this hypothesis by examining blood perfusion changes over time in healthy young men. We found that subjects with early-life stress, particularly emotional abuse, failed to sustain neural activation in the orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) over time. Given that the vmPFC is known to regulate amygdala activity during emotional processing, we subsequently compared the perfusion in the vmPFC and the amygdala in depression-vulnerable (having early-life stress and high in rumination) and resilient (having early-life stress and high in mindfulness) subjects. We found that depression-vulnerable subjects had increased amygdala perfusion and reduced vmPFC perfusion during the later runs than that during the earlier stressful task runs. In contrast, depression-resilient individuals showed the reverse pattern. Our results indicate that the vmPFC of depression-vulnerable subjects may have a limited capacity to inhibit amygdala activation to repeated stress over time, whereas the vmPFC in resilient individuals may adapt to stress quickly. This pilot study warrants future investigation to clarify the stress-related neural activity pattern dynamically to identify depression vulnerability at an individual level

What Attracts Women to the IT Field? The First Process of Occupational Socialization

Socialization in an occupation differs in important ways from organizational socialization. Entering a defined occupation is apt to involve a lifelong commitment, yet it is one that individuals often drift into gradually. Entering occupations involves five different, but overlapping processes: attraction, access, adjustment, identification and commitment (Trice & Beyer, 1993). The first of these five processes refers to the specific features of the occupation that get individuals attention and attract them to the occupation. Such features include specific members of the occupation to whom newcomers get attracted such as successful heroes and mentors. It could also be the activities distinctive of the occupational culture or the kinds of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards that the occupation appears to offer. This research study focuses on the attraction process of occupational socialization to the information technology (Ahuja, 2002) field of female students in order to understand women’s experiences and initial perceptions of the IT occupation. This study gathers empirical evidence from current female students in IT-related majors based on a qualitative approach and the use of focus groups as the elicitation technique. The goal of our research study is to contribute to a better understanding of the initial process of occupational socialization of female students in IT majors. The findings of this study, we believe, can help in improving and customizing recruitment strategies for female students that would emphasize the most attractive features of the IT occupation as perceived by women. In this research in progress we present the findings of our study based on eight focus groups conducted with students of three IT related academic majors in two academic institutions in the United States

Psychological and neural mechanisms of trait mindfulness in reducing depression vulnerability

Mindfulness-based interventions are effective for reducing depressive symptoms. However, the psychological and neural mechanisms are unclear. This study examined which facets of trait mindfulness offer protection against negative bias and rumination, which are key risk factors for depression. Nineteen male volunteers completed a 2-day functional magnetic resonance imaging study. One day utilized a stress-induction task and the other day utilized a mindful breathing task. An emotional inhibition task was used to measure neural and behavioral changes related to state negative bias, defined by poorer performance in inhibiting negative relative to neutral stimuli. Associations among trait mindfulness [measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)], trait rumination, and negative bias were examined. Non-reactivity scores on the FFMQ correlated negatively with rumination and negative bias following the stress induction. Non-reactivity was inversely correlated with insula activation during inhibition to negative stimuli after the mindful breathing task. Our results suggest non-reactivity to inner experience is the key facet of mindfulness that protects individuals from psychological risk for depression. Based on these results, mindfulness could reduce vulnerability to depression in at least two ways: (i) by buffering against trait rumination and negative bias and (ii) by reducing automatic emotional responding via the insula

Education for eScience Professionals: Integrating Data Curation and Cyberinfrastructure

Large, collaboratively managed datasets have become essential to many scientific and engineering endeavors, and their management has increased the need for "eScience professionals" who solve large scale information management problems for researchers and engineers. This paper considers the dimensions of work, worker, and workplace, including the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for eScience professionals. We used focus groups and interviews to explore the needs of scientific researchers and how these needs may translate into curricular and program development choices. A cohort of five masters students also worked in targeted internship settings and completed internship logs. We organized this evidence into a job analysis that can be used for curriculum and program development at schools of library and information science

Discerning Emotions in Texts

We present an empirically verified model of discernable emotions, Watson and Tellegen’s Circumplex Theory of Affect from social and personality psychology, and suggest its usefulness in NLP as a potential model for an automation of an eight-fold categorization of emotions in written English texts. We developed a data collection tool based on the model, collected 287 responses from 110 non-expert informants based on 50 emotional excerpts (min=12, max=348, average=86 words), and analyzed the inter-coder agreement per category and per strength of ratings per sub-category. The respondents achieved an average 70.7% agreement in the most commonly identified emotion categories per text. The categories of high positive affect and pleasantness were most common in our data. Within those categories, the affective terms “enthusiastic”, “active”, “excited”, “pleased”, and “satisfied” had the most consistent ratings of strength of presence in the texts. The textual clues the respondents chose had comparable length and similar key words. Watson and Tellegen’s model appears to be usable as a guide for development of an NLP algorithm for automated identification of emotion in English texts, and the non-expert informants (with college degree and higher) provided sufficient information for future creation of a gold standard of clues per category