The Neoliberal Starfish Conspiracy

No abstrac

The Research Practices and Needs of Non-Profit Organizations in an Urban Center

How do nonprofit organizations use data and research? What challenges do they face in conducting research and managing data? In spring of 2004, 80 nonprofit organizations in Toledo, Ohio returned a survey on their research and data needs and practices. The survey found that nonprofits collect data on a wide variety of topics, but do not use much of the data that they collect, and do not collect much data that could be useful for other groups, particularly neighborhood organizations. The average nonprofit in the survey has five employees and four volunteers who, together, spend 56 hours per week collecting, managing, and reporting on data. Nearly half of the organizations have no staff or volunteers with formal research training. The others have only one or two people with formal research training. More than half indicated a need for training on how to conduct evaluations, how to use data management software, how to conduct research, and how tofindfunding

Community-Based Research and the Two Forms of Social Change

As community-based research (CBR) takes hold in academic settings, where there is vast expertise in producing research but a dearth of experience in producing practical outcomes, there is a risk that CBR will produce little of consequence. This paper begins by arguing that part of the problem is the result of CBR practitioners assuming that research is, in itself, causal. Yet it is only when research is embedded in an effective overall social change strategy that it matters. The present paper develops a model specifying the role of research in both local and broader social change strategies. The overall model focuses on a community change cycle, based in community organizing, that begins with a participatory effort to diagnose some community condition, then develops a prescription for that condition, followed by an implementation of the prescription and an evaluation of the outcomes. Research can play a role at each stage of the process, but only as part of a broader strategy linking knowledge, action, and power. The paper concludes by showing the kinds of training and community relationships that academics will need to make CBR matter

Is Community Informatics Good for Communities? Questions Confronting an Emerging Field

This paper addresses a number of questions confronting the emerging field of community informatics. First, is it a field of study or a field of practice? Second, is the focus of community informatics on communities, information, or technology? Third, does community informatics serve elites, academics, community workers, or community workers? The paper moves from these questions to develop an empowerment model for community informations, emphasizing a community development approach combined with an information focus and a participatory process. It concludes with the question of whether community informatics should strive to be a supporting field rather than develop as an independent arena of study or practice

Advancing Toledo\u27s Neighborhood Movement through Participatory Action Research: Integrating Activist and Academic Approaches

This paper first develops the methodology of participatory action research as a research process originating from community-defined needs, involving community members in conducting the research, and leading to community-based action Within this research model, we discuss the difficulty of integrating the roles of activist and researcher Secondly, the paper describes the outcomes of the coordinated efforts of an activist academic and a professional community organizer who have engaged in a series of research projects to increase the organizational effectiveness and urban redevelopment capacity of community-based development organizations in Toledo, Ohio. Thirdly, the paper evaluates our project, discussing how we addressed the problem of integrating activist and researcher role

Homelessness: The Service Providers\u27 Perspective On Blaming the Victim

Service providers who work with the homeless are frequently characterized as victim blamers. Eighteen service providers who work with homeless people were interviewed. The victim-blaming typification oversimplifies service providers\u27 views on homelessness and of the individuals their programs serve. Service providers have a wholistic analysis of homelessness which encompasses both individual and systemic components

Structuration, ICTs, and Community Work

This paper reports upon the outcomes of an action research project which took place with a network of neighbourhood houses (community-based organisations) in the Western Region of Melbourne, Australia. Our first aim was to engage community-based organisations, through participatory action research techniques, to develop information and knowledge management plans for an electronic community network. Our second was to integrate structuration theory and theories of participatory action research, in order to provide a new context for understanding how ICTs can be used with community-based organisations. The paper reports on the major issues found in the research, and plans developed to address those issues

Detection of Solid Pigment in Dermatoscopy Images using Texture Analysis

Background/aims: Epiluminescence microscopy (ELM), also known as dermoscopy or dermatoscopy, is a non-invasive, in vivo technique, that permits visualization of features of pigmented melanocytic neoplasms that are not discernable by examination with the naked eye. ELM offers a completely new range of visual features. One such feature is the solid pigment, also called the blotchy pigment or dark structureless area. Our goal was to automatically detect this feature and determine whether its presence is useful in distinguishing benign from malignant pigmented lesions. Methods: Here, a texture-based algorithm is developed for the detection of solid pigment. The factors d and a used in calculating neighboring gray level dependence matrix (NGLDM) numbers were chosen as optimum by experimentation. The algorithms are tested on a set of 37 images. A new index is presented for separation of benign and malignant lesions, based on the presence of solid pigment in the periphery. Results: The NGLDM large number emphasis N2 was satisfactory for the detection of the solid pigment. Nine lesions had solid pigment detected, and among our 37 lesions, no melanoma lacked solid pigment. The index for separation of benign and malignant lesions was applied to the nine lesions. We were able to separate the benign lesions with solid pigment from the malignant lesions with the exception of only one lesion, a Spitz nevus that mimicked a malignant melanoma. Conclusion: Texture methods may be useful in detecting important dermatoscopy features in digitized images and a new index may be useful in separating benign from malignant lesions. Testing on a larger set of lesions is needed before further conclusions can be made

Neural Networks Skin Tumor Diagnostic System

In this study, a malignant melanoma diagnostic system is designed using a straightforward neural network with the back-propagation learning algorithm. Eleven features are automatically extracted from skin tumor images. The correct diagnostic rate of this system is better than the average rate of 16 dermatologists who based their diagnosis with only the slide images

A Novel Morphological Operator to Calculate Euler Number

This paper introduces a novel morphological operator to calculate the Euler number for binary images. The operator is based on the condition of eight-connectedness for foreground and four-connectedness for background. It is significantly faster than the previous operators. The morphological operations used in border detection are discusse