Beyond a divide: reconceptualizing digital capital and links to academic proficiency.

In the digital inequality literature, the popular notion of a “digital divide” is frequently used to discuss digital inequality; however, this framework is overly simplistic and cannot adequately capture the complex nature of digital inequality. Some scholars have adopted a framework of digital capital to attempt a multidimensional approach to this social problem, but the literature lacks consistent empirical measurements. Using U.S. data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 Survey, I seek to propose, and validate, internally consistent principal components of digital capital among 15-year-old high school students in the US. I conduct a Principal Component Analysis (PCA), resulting in five principal components: Academic Digital Usage, Perceived Digital Autonomy, Perceived Digital Competence, Casual Digital Browsing, and Knowledge-Based Digital Leisure. I then examine Chronbach’s alpha coefficient for each component to assess reliability. Next, I conduct an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis to assess how the resulting factors might predict mathematics proficiency scores, as measured by PISA, after controlling for several key background variables. In the regression model, I also include three variables related to material digital access, which were not found to be a reliable component of digital capital. The regression results show statistically significant effects on mathematics proficiency scores for each proposed component of digital capital, except for perceived digital competence. Additionally, the results indicate that home computer access has a significant, positive effect on mathematics proficiency scores. This exploratory study offers a new direction toward empirical measurement for future research on digital capital and inequality

Striking at the Roots of Crime: The Impact of Social Welfare Spending on Crime During the Great Depression

The Great Depression of the 1930s led contemporaries to worry that people hit by hard times would turn to crime in their efforts to survive. Franklin Roosevelt argued that the unprecedented and massive expansion in relief efforts “struck at the roots of crime” by providing subsistence income to needy families. After constructing a panel data set for 81 large American cities for the years 1930 through 1940, we estimate the impact of relief spending by all levels of government on crime rates. The analysis suggests that a ten percent increase in relief spending during the 1930s lowered property crime by roughly 1.5 percent. By limiting the amount of free time for relief recipients, work relief was more effective than direct relief in reducing crime. More generally, our results indicate that social insurance, which tends to be understudied in economic analyses of crime, should be more explicitly and more carefully incorporated into the analysis of temporal and spatial variations in criminal activity.

A comparison of training methods to increase neck muscle strength [thesis]

The purpose of this study WHS to determine if increases in isometric cervical muscle strength and range of movement (ROM) generated from ten weeks of training on the Multi-cervical unit (MCU) is significantly greater than the increase gained by training with the dynaband. The high rate of neck injury in the Air Force from pilots exposed to high +Gz force has instigated this research. 32 healthy subjects were split into three groups, with one group as the control, one group training on the MCU and one group training on the dynaband. Training groups completed ten weeks of resistance training in their specified mode. Pre and post testing was performed on the MCU to measure changes in isometric strength and ROM. Comparisons were made using a one way ANOVA (

A Study of Adobe Wall Moisture Profiles and the Resulting Effects on Matched Illumination Waveforms in Through-The-Wall Radar Applications

In this dissertation, methods utilizing matched illumination theory to optimally design waveforms for enhanced target detection and identification in the context of through-the-wall radar (TWR) are explored. The accuracy of assumptions made in the waveform design process is evaluated through simulation. Additionally, the moisture profile of an adobe wall is investigated, and it is shown that the moisture profile of the wall will introduce significant variations in the matched illumination waveforms and subsequently, affect the resulting ability of the radar system to correctly identify and detect a target behind the wall. Experimental measurements of adobe wall moisture and corresponding dielectric properties confirms the need for accurate moisture profile information when designing radar waveforms which enhance signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) through use of matched illumination waveforms on the wall/target scenario. Furthermore, an evaluation of the ability to produce an optimal, matched illumination waveform for transmission using simple, common radar systems is undertaken and radar performance is evaluated

Experimental Technology Prototype at Microsoft

In our project, sponsored by Microsoft, we built a proof of concept application to demonstrate the capabilities of an emerging technology when compared with a parallel implementation currently being developed using a similar technology. With technical specifications and interface mockups, we created a UI infrastructure and components such as filtered and searchable tables, dialog boxes, context menus, and navigation to allow users to manage server entities. The application makes minimal use of open source libraries for platform compatibility, but in general runs solely on a custom framework used primarily for UI layout management and for standardizing communication and XML parsing between the server and client systems

Size and Scope of Carbon County Agriculture 2019

Carbon County is located south of Duchesne and Wasatch counties in east-central Utah. Along with Emery County to the south, it is often referred to as Utah’s Castle Country. The county became industrialized very early after statehood with the arrival of the railroads and discovery of many coal beds for which the county is named. It is also a large producer of natural gas within the state. Its primary economic base today comes from regional services, retail, tourism, recreation and resource extraction. As of 2017, the population was estimated at 20,295. Price is the largest city and county seat. This fact sheet explores land ownership, growing season, crop and livestock production and the scope of agriculture in Carbon County

Rhetorically Navigating Rwandan Research Review: A Fantasy Theme Analysis

Research ethics review is foundational to protecting the rights of research participants, particularly vulnerable populations (e.g., members of socially/economically marginalized groups, people who do not speak the dominant language, illiterate/semi-literate people, pregnant women, prisoners). Internationally, the review of human subjects research is influenced by shared ethical codes such as the Belmont Report and the Declaration of Helsinki, but national and institutional contexts also frame research ethics review. Rwanda’s in-country human subjects review processes are situated within a context that includes factors such as the historical impacts of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi1 ; rapid urbanization; youth population growth; and a post-genocide political culture emphasizing economic development, security, public image, and human rights reform. Within this complex context—which some have argued is characterized by authoritarianism (Burnet, 2008), increasing government standardization (Van Hoyweghen, 1999), and intense national pride (Melvin, 2012) —researcher-generated documents play an important role in navigating Rwanda’s in-country human subjects review

Experimental Technology Prototype At Microsoft

In our project, sponsored by Microsoft, we built a proof of concept application to demonstrate the capabilities of an emerging technology when compared with a parallel implementation currently being developed using a similar technology. With technical specifications and interface mockups, we created a UI infrastructure and components such as filtered and searchable tables, dialog boxes, context menus, and navigation to allow users to manage server entities. The application makes minimal use of open source libraries for platform compatibility, but in general runs solely on a custom framework used primarily for UI layout management and for standardizing communication and XML parsing between the server and client systems