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Papers & Publications

We applied critical pedagogy in the college classroom by asking students what topics they would want covered in their Introduction to Sociology courses if they were given the power to decide. Students were also asked to explain why they were interested, and uninterested, in learning about the topics they chose from our questionnaire. Survey data was collected from 191 students at a southeastern community college; the majority were not sociology majors. Overall, students were the most interested in learning about culture, deviance, race, and gender issues. Students were the least interested in learning about topics concerning urbanization and the economy. We found that students are typically interested in topics that are related to general curiosities or are applicable to the students’ personal lives or future careers. However, students were vaguer in their responses regarding why they were uninterested in learning about particular sociological topics; most students claimed that they were simply “just uninterested.” These results support the claim that a student’s desire to learn material is guided by how personally invested he or she is in the topic. By implementing a critical pedagogical teaching approach in the classroom, professors could increase student interest, thus fostering more successful and satisfied students.

‘It Relates to My Everyday Life.’ Critical Pedagogy and Student Explanations of Interest in Sociology Course Topics

Forematter for Volume 5 of Papers & Publications.

Forematter

The effects of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on finance and monetary policy continue to be widespread. Now, policymakers are seeking to determine the best approach for managing and resolving the crisis; one such strategy has been to delegate more legitimacy to independent central banks. When will a political leader support or undermine the legitimacy of an independent central bank in the aftermath of an economic crisis? We argue that the central mechanism for determining a change in views of central bank legitimacy is the optimism of the political elites. Therefore, if a government is optimistic about its chances of retaining power and securing economic recovery, it will be more likely to issue positive, legitimizing statements toward its independent central bank. We test this argument using the compelling and critically important case of the European Central Bank following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and we determine that the level of political optimism has a strong impact on the continued legitimacy of independent central banks. In so doing, our study highlights the complicated strategic political choice of using central banks to respond to financial crises.

Optimism in Independence: The European Central Bank after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis

In a novel written about All the King's Men, this critical analysis serves as a closer look at the [wo]man behind the curtain. "The Puppeteer" scrutinizes Robert Penn Warren's use of gender in relation to politics, power, and puppet strings through his female character Sadie Burke. All the King's Men is praised for being the insightful chronicle of Willie Stark's journey from rags to riches, who is rumored to serve as the fictional representation of Louisiana Governor Huey Long. It is also celebrated for the tantalizing coming-of-age narrative of Warren's narrator Jack Burden, in which Burden grapples with his reconciliation of self and morality. However, the novel's numerous accolades fail to recognize the brilliance of Warren's attention to gender. This critical analysis takes a closer look at operative femininity within the masculine world of politics, and dares to declare that a female serves as the most important character of them all.

The Puppeteer: An Analysis of the Implications of Gendered Spheres through Sadie Burke in All the King’s Men

­­­­The ultimate goal of Computer Vision is to instruct a computer to understand and interpret visual signals and images in real time and to instruct a computer to react to the environment around them. In this work, we describe a system that allows a micro aerial vehicle (MAV), equipped with an onboard camera, to detect and track a moving target object. In an alternative implementation, the MAV instead searches the environment for the target object and flies to it. Due to the limited capability of the drone’s integrated processor, image processing is performed by a ground-based computer that also determines the necessary flight corrections and communicates them to the vehicle. The complete system, comprised of the MAV, off-board computer, and software, operates autonomously, a necessary condition for many of the applications for which such systems may be useful.

Computer Vision Based Object Detection and Tracking in Micro Aerial Vehicles

The piece uses primary colors to illustrate the beginning of everything. These colors are a metaphor for creation. The blues represent the water; the living energy that allow us to life. Red represents fire and the creation of life. The brown the earth that provide us with everything humans need. The spiral motif represents air: the last element in the recipe for the creation of the humans. I chose to make the painting abstract creating an intentional movement throughout the painting that expresses a feeling of chaos.

Maleiwa: A Story of Creation

Biographies of authors featured in Volume 5 of Papers & Publications.

Author Biographies

The future of automotive engineering lies in intelligent vehicles. The combined effects of multiple intelligent sub-systems will provide drivers with essential feedback to increase driving safety and reduce fuel wasted in unnecessary acceleration and inefficient traffic routing. Discrete intelligent sub-systems have been increasingly incorporated into consumer vehicles for decades, and continue to evolve. The revolutionary next step in development is fully integrating intelligent capabilities into a total vehicle control system. This may be accomplished through a multilevel control architecture, starting with sensor fusion.
Fused sensors, such as LiDAR and RADAR, will provide their inputs to a single virtual model from which a control computer may plot an optimum trajectory. Fully informed of the environment immediately surrounding the vehicle, a trajectory following the road and traffic controls will be plotted. As the vehicle follows this path, its sensors continually update the virtual model and provide obstacle avoidance and updated guidance information.
Finally, a reverse kinematic approach, applied to a fully electric drivetrain, will enable the vehicle to respond to its driving environment, and compensate for unknown conditions. If an emergency maneuver becomes necessary, the optimal combination of brake and steering application will be computed to prevent loss of control.

From Sensor to Street – Intelligent Vehicle Control Systems

Abstract
Purpose: This study explored the perspectives of nursing students and faculty on health disparities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health issues in an undergraduate BSN program.
Methods: Study participants included a convenience sample of 167 nursing students and 16 faculty members (total 183) from a rural southeast regional university in the United States.
Results: Of the respondents; 71% indicated that they had not received classroom or clinical instruction specific to the LGBT community compared to 29% who had received or provided instruction in LGBT health issues. Among students, the majority indicated they seldom received instruction on health concerns such as depression, suicide, and mental health issues that often affect the LGBT community. A chi-square test of independence found a significant interaction (X2(1) =19.739, p=.000) that indicated participants that perceived they were equipped with resources on LGBT health issues were also interested in gaining additional knowledge to provide culturally competent care.
Conclusions: To continue to build on the progress made, healthcare providers need to examine their own personal biases toward the LGBT community. The need to include LGBT topics in nursing curricula to prepare a culturally competent workforce is essential to meet the health needs of all populations. Nurses are in a unique position to lead the way in creating change and directing the course of action to improve the quality of life and health outcomes for all, including the LGBT individuals.
Key words: Health disparities, LGBT community, nursing students, nursing faculty

The Gaps in Health Care of the LGBT Community: Perspectives of Nursing Students and Faculty

Scholars like Peter Turchi argue that the relationship between literature and geography is important to consider when looking at a text. While this discipline, called literary cartography, is on the forefront in Europe, it is only seldom considered by American scholars. My paper shows that a simple literary cartography approach allows us to read a novel from a new perspective. For this purpose I have chosen “The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta” by John Rollin Ridge which follows the fictionalized Mexican bandit Joaquín Murieta on his exploits through California. Through pinning each place in the novel onto a Google Map and tracing them chronologically, we create a map that shows the area he covers and his journey. This allows us to read the novel as a travelogue, while further work may allow us to layer data on socio-economic status, population and other aspects of 1850 California to draw further conclusions. Using the approach of literary cartography, we can reestablish this novel as an important historical artifact because it is the first novel published in California as well as the first novel published by a Native American and because it maps a realistic journey through California. I argue that using literary cartography as a means of text analysis opens up new perspectives to literature and helps us connect fictional texts to reality while shedding new light on the importance of literary cartography to literary criticism.

Papers & Publications (Vol. 5)

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