Information Studies Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2780

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When Good MT Goes Bad: Undestanding and Mitigating Misleading Machine Translations
(2024) Martindale, Marianna; Carpuat, Marine; Information Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Machine Translation (MT) has long been viewed as a force multiplier, enabling monolingual users to assist in processing foreign language text. In ideal situations, Neural MT (NMT) provides unprecedented MT quality, potentially increasing productivity and user acceptance of the technology. However, outside of ideal circumstances, NMT introduces new types of errors that may be difficult for users who don't understand the source language to recognize, resulting in misleading output. This dissertation seeks to understand the prevalence, nature, and impact of potentially misleading output and whether a simple intervention can mitigate its effects on monolingual users. To understand the prevalence of misleading MT output, we conduct a study to quantify the potential impact of output that is fluent but not adequate, or ``fluently inadequate", by observing the relative frequency of these types of errors in two types of MT models, statistical and early neural models. We find that neural models were consistently more prone to this type of error than traditional statistical models. However, improving the overall quality of the MT system such as through domain adaptation reduces these errors. We examine the nature of misleading MT output by moving from an intrinsic feature (fluency) to a more user-centered feature, believability, defined as a monolingual user's perception of the likelihood that the meaning of the MT output matches the meaning of the input, without understanding the source. We find that fluency accounts for most believability judgments, but semantic features like plausibility also play a role. Finally, we turn to mitigating the impacts of potentially misleading NMT output. We propose two simple interventions to help users more effectively handle inadequate output: providing output from a second NMT system and providing output from a rule-based MT (RBMT) system. We test these interventions for one use case with a user study designed to mimic typical intelligence analysis triage workflows and with actual intelligence analysts as participants. We see significant increases in performance on relevance judgment tasks with output from two NMT systems and in performance on relevant entity identification tasks with the addition of RBMT output.
Value sets for the analysis of real-world patient data: Problems, theory, and solutions
(2024) Gold, Sigfried; Lutters, Wayne; Information Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Observational, retrospective, in silico studies based on real-world data—that is, data for research collected from sources other than randomized clinical trials—cost a minute fraction of randomized clinical trials and are essential for clinical research, pharmacoepidemiology, clinical quality measurement, health system administration, value-based care, clinical guideline compliance, and public health surveillance. They offer an alternative when randomized trials cannot provide large enough patient cohorts or patients representative of real populations in terms of comorbidities, age range, disease severity, rare conditions.Improvements in the speed, frequency, and quality of research investigations using real-world data have accelerated with the emergence of distributed research networks based on common data models over the past ten years. Analyses of repositories of coded patient data involve data models, controlled medical vocabularies and ontologies, analytic protocols, implementations of query logic, value sets of vocabulary terms, and software platforms for developing and using these. These studies generally rely on clinical data represented using controlled medical vocabularies and ontologies—like ICD10, SNOMED, RxNorm, CPT, and LOINC—which catalogue and organize clinical phenomena such as conditions, treatments, and observations. Clinicians, researchers, and other medical staff collect patient data into electronic health records, registries, and claims databases with each phenomenon represented by a code, a concept identifier, from a medical vocabulary. Value sets are groupings of these identifiers that facilitate data collection, representation, harmonization, and analysis. Although medical vocabularies use hierarchical classification and other data structures to represent phenomena at different levels of granularity, value sets are needed for concepts that cover a number of codes. These lists of codes representing medical terms are a common feature of the cohort, phenotype, or other variable definitions that are used to specify patients with particular clinical conditions in analytic algorithms. Developing and validating original value sets is difficult to do well; it is a relatively small but ubiquitous part of real-world data analysis, it is time-consuming, and it requires a range of clinical, terminological, and informatics expertise. When a value set fails to match all the appropriate records or matches records that do not indicate the phenomenon of interest, study results are compromised. An inaccurate value set can lead to completely wrong study results. When value set inaccuracy causes more subtle errors in study results, conclusions may be incorrect without catching researchers’ attention. One hopes in this case that the researchers will notice a problem and track it down to a value set issue. Verifying or measuring value set accuracy is difficult and costly, often impractical, sometimes impossible. Literature recognizing the deleterious effects of value set quality on the reliability of observational research results frequently recommends public repositories where high-quality value sets for reuse can be stored, maintained, and refined by successive users. Though such repositories have been available for years and populated with hundreds or thousands of value sets, regular reuse has not been demonstrated. Value set quality has continued to be questioned in the literature, but the value of reuse has continued to be recommended and generally accepted at face value. The hope for value set repositories has been not only for researchers to have access to expertly designed value sets but for incremental refinement, that, over time, researchers will take advantage of others’ work, building on it where possible instead of repeating it, evaluating the accuracy of the value sets, and contributing their changes back to the repository. Rather than incremental improvement or indications of value sets being vetted and validated, what we see in repositories is proliferation and clutter: new value sets that may or may not have been vetted in any way and junk concept sets, created for some reason but never finished. We have found general agreement in our data that the presence of many alternative value sets for a given condition often leads value set developers to ignore all of them and start from scratch, as there is generally no easy way to tell which will be more appropriate for the researcher’s needs. And if they share their value set back to the repository, they further compound the problem, especially if they neglect to document the new value set's intention and provenance. The research offered here casts doubt on the value of reuse with currently available software and infrastructure for value set management. It is about understanding the challenges value sets present; understanding how they are made, used, and reused; and offering practice and software design recommendations to advance the ability of researchers to efficiently make or find accurate value sets for their studies, leveraging and adding to prior value set development efforts. This required field work, and, with my advisors, I conducted a qualitative study of professionals in the field: an observational user study with the aim of understanding and characterizing normative and real-world practices in value set construction and validation, with a particular focus on how researchers use the knowledge embedded in medical terminologies and ontologies to inform that work. I collected data through an online survey of RWD analysts and researchers interviews with a subset of survey participants, and observation of certain participants performing actual work to create value sets. We performed open coding and thematic analysis on interview and observation transcripts, interview notes, and open-ended question text from the surveys. The requirements, recommendations, and theoretical contributions in prior literature have not been sufficient to guide the design of software that could make effective leveraging of shared value sets a reality. This dissertation presents a conceptual framework, real-world experience, and deep, detailed account of the challenges to reuse, and makes up that deficit with a high-level requirements roadmap for improved value set creation tools. I argue, based on the evidence marshalled throughout, that there is one way to get researchers to reuse appropriate value sets or to follow best practices in determining whether a new one is absolutely needed creating their own and dedicate sufficient and appropriate effort to create them well and prepare them for reuse by others. That is, giving them software that pushes them to do these things, mostly by making it easy and obviously beneficial to do them. I offer a start in building such software with Value Set Hub, a platform for browsing, comparing, analyzing, and authoring value sets—a tool in which the presence of multiple, sometimes redundant, value sets for the same condition strengthens rather than stymies efforts to build on the work of prior value set developers. Particular innovations include the presentation of multiple value sets on the same screen for easy comparison, the display of compared value sets in the context of vocabulary hierarchies, the integration of these analytic features and value set authoring, and value set browsing features that encourage users to review existing value sets that may be relevant to their needs. Fitness-for-use is identified as the central challenge for value set developers and the strategies for addressing this challenge are categorized into two approaches: value-set-focused and code-focused. The concluding recommendations offer a roadmap for future work in building the next generation of value set repository platforms and authoring tools.
Understanding Sustainability Practices and Challenges in Making and Prototyping
(2024) Dhaygude, Mrunal Sanjay; Peng, Huaishu; Information Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Democratization of prototyping technologies like 3D printers and laser cutters has led to more rapid prototyping practices for the reasons of research, product development and individual interests. While prototyping is becoming a much easier and faster process, there are many sustainability implications neglected. To investigate the current sustainability landscape within the realm of making, we conducted a comprehensive semi-structured interview study involving 15 participants, encompassing researchers, makerspace managers, entrepreneurs, and casual makers. In this paper, we present the findings from this study, shedding light on the challenges, knowledge gaps, motivations, and opportunities that influence sustainable making practices. We discuss potential future paradigms of HCI research to help resolve sustainability challenges in the maker community.
Studying the Effects of Colors Within Virtual Reality (VR) on Psychological and Physical Behavior
(2024) Fabian, Ciara Aliese; Aston, Jason; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Color theory is an important aspect of today's world, especially when consideringuser design, technology, and art. The primary objective of this thesis is to examine how the color groups, warm and cool, affect individuals psychologically and physiologically. While combining technological advancements, physiological methods, and psychological analyses, I will try to discover the emotional associations with specific color groups and determine the psychological and physiological impact of color groups on individuals. I hypothesize that warm colors will increase heart rate and skin conductance response, which will directly correlate to emotions of stress and excitement, and cool colors will decrease heart rate and skin conductance, which is associated with the emotions of calmness and positivity. This study demonstrated that the two-color groups exhibited a notable influence on heart rate. Using the skin conductance response method yielded unanticipated results in comparison to prior research. Prior studies have shown that there is a relationship between heart rate and skin conductance response, and therefore, if one increases, then the other should also increase. This study found that when the heart rate increased, many participants experienced a decrease in skin conductance response, showcasing a contrast in physiological reaction. Furthermore, the study demonstrated a correlation between physiological changes, such as heart rate variations, and corresponding changes in participants' psychological behavior.
REVISITING SHAKESPEARE'S WORLD: OPTIMIZING DATA OUTCOMES AND INVESTIGATING CONTRIBUTOR DYNAMICS
(2024) Wang, ZhiCheng; Van Hyning, Victoria; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this study, we present our work processing data output from Shakespeare's World (2015-2019), an early transcription project hosted on the Zooniverse online crowdsourcing platform. We refined the dataset to make it more amenable to low-code tools such as OpenRefine, enabling easier exploration and reuse. Utilizing the cleaned dataset, we also explored Shakespeare's World volunteers’ contribution patterns. By documenting our process of cleaning the outcome dataset, we provide steps and insights that may be useful for other transcription projects working with data derived from the Zooniverse platform. In addition to offering one plausible way to clean and analyze Zooniverse outcome data, our study also reveals the significant contributions from both anonymous and registered Shakespeare’s World volunteers; the challenges in maintaining participation over the project’s lifespan; and how the original aggregation protocol, which was designed specifically to combine multiple transcriptions by Shakespeare’s World volunteers, resulted in fewer successfully transcribed lines than expected. These findings have broader implications for project design, volunteer engagement, and data management practices in online crowdsourced transcription projects.
Exploring The Role Of Generative Artificial Intelligence In Cultural Relevant Storytelling For Native Language Learning Among Children
(2024) Nanduri, Dinesh Kumar; Marsh, Diana E; Information Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In an era marked by the rapid disappearance of languages, UNESCO warns that nearly half of the world's linguistic heritage might soon become dormant. Despite its current health, Telugu has seen a decline in usage, reduced focus in India's educational systems, and overshadowing by dominant global languages. This thesis explores Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to counter this trend, focusing on its application in native language learning for children, key carriers of their ancestral tongues. Through scoping reviews and participatory design sessions with young Telugu-speaking learners and their guardians, the study investigates GenAI's role in enhancing language learning tailored to individual and cultural contexts. It highlights storytelling as a potent mechanism for language acquisition, facilitated by GenAI's ability to personalize learning experiences and bridge generational gaps. The research also addresses ethical considerations vital for designing GenAI tools, promoting inclusivity, bias mitigation, and cultural integrity protection. It showcases a future where technology helps prevent linguistic dormancy and empowers children to celebrate human language and cultural diversity.
Behavior Displacement in Sedentary and Screen Time Among Older Adults
(2024) Li, Mengying; Choe, Eun Kyoung; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this thesis, I examine sedentary and screen-based activities among older adults, aim- ing to offer insights for designing effective behavior displacement interventions. While displacement represents a potentially effective intervention in reducing sedentary behavior, research in this area has largely overlooked older adults. Through a 7-day diary study and debriefing interviews, I examine reasons and factors that influence older adults’ decisions to displace sedentary and screen-based activities. I find that attention demand and overall productivity and quality of activities are key factors that influence older adults’ decisions to engage in displacement. I identify internal and external catalysts for displacement and preferred displacement strategies by older adults in various conditions. These findings emphasize the importance of designing personalized and adaptive interventions to reduce sedentary time, considering the diverse preferences and agency of older adults.
The Role of 3D Spatiotemporal Telemetry Analysis in Combat Flight Simulation
(2024) Mane, Sourabh Vijaykumar; Elmqvist, Niklas Dr; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Analyzing 3D telemetry data collected from competitive video games on the internet can support players in improving performance as well as spectators in viewing data-driven narratives of the gameplay. In this thesis, we conduct an in-depth qualitative study on the use of telemetry analysis by embedding over several weeks in a virtual F-14A Tomcat squadron in the multiplayer combat flight simulator DCS World (DCS) (2008). Based on formative interviews with DCS pilots, we design a web-based game analytics framework for rendering 3D telemetry from the flight simulator in a live 3D player, incorporating many of the data displays and visualizations requested by the participants. We then evaluate the framework with real mission data from several air-to-air engagements involving the virtual squadron. Our findings highlight the key role of 3D telemetry playback in competitive multiplayer gaming.
TRANSITIONING VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS TO UTILIZE ACCESSIBILITY TECHNOLOGY
(2024) Jo, Hyejin; Reitz, Galina; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In a world increasingly driven by visual information, this research develops the Transition Experience Interface (TEI), dedicated to supporting individuals adapting to visual impairments with advanced accessibility technologies. TEI features a user-centric design with a mobile user interface that includes tutorials, updates on new features, a voice command guide, and a progress dashboard. These components aim to reduce dependency on visual cues, enhancing digital inclusivity and promoting independence by encouraging the use of built-in accessibility features on smartphones. TEI educates users on their devices’ capabilities and fosters habitual use of these features, preparing them to rely less on vision and more on voice commands and other settings. This proactive approach helps users operate their smartphones confidently and independently as their visual function changes, bridging the gap between traditional tools and user needs, and highlighting the potential of inclusive design.
Change Detection: Theoretical and Applied Approaches for Providing Updates Related to a Topic of Interest
(2024) Rogers, Kristine M.; Oard, Douglas; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The type of user studied in this dissertation has built up expertise on a topic of interest to them, and regularly invests time to find updates on that topic. This research area—referred to within this dissertation as "change detection"—includes the user's process of identifying what has changed as well as internalizing the changes into their mental model. For these users who follow a specific topic over time, how might a system organize information to enable them to update their mental model quickly? Current information retrieval systems are largely not optimized for addressing the long-term change detection needs of users. This dissertation focuses on approaches for enhancing the change detection process, including for short documents (e.g., social media) as well as longer documents (e.g., news articles). This mixed methods exploration of change detection consists of four sections. First, this dissertation introduces a new theory: the Group-Pile-Arrange (GPA) Change Detection Theory. This theory is about organizing documents relevant to a topic of interest in order to accelerate an individual's ability to identify changes and update their mental model. The three components of this theory include: 1. Group the documents by theme; 2. Pile the grouped documents into an order; and 3. Arrange the piles in a meaningful way for the user. These steps could be applied in a range of ways, including using approaches driven by people (e.g., a research librarian providing information), computers (e.g., an information retrieval system), or a hybrid of the two. The second section of this dissertation includes the results of a survey on users' sort order preferences in social media. For this study, change detection was compared with three other use cases: following an event while it happens (experiential), running a search within social media, and browsing social media posts. Respondents recognized the change detection use case, with 66% of the respondents indicating that they perform change detection tasks on social media sites. When engaged in change detection tasks, these respondents showed a strong preference for posts to be clustered and presented in reverse chronological order, in alignment with the "group" and "pile" components of the GPA Change Detection Theory. These organization preferences were distinct from the other studied use cases. To further understand users' goals and preferences related to change detection, the third section of this dissertation includes the design and prototype implementation of a change detection system called Daybreak. The Daybreak system presents news articles relevant to a user's topic of interest and allows them to tag articles and apply tag labels. Based on these tags and tag labels, the system retrieves new results, groups them into subtopic clusters based on the user's tags, enables generation of chronological or relevance-based piles of documents, and arranges the piles by subtopic importance; for this study, rarity was used as a proxy for subtopic importance. The Daybreak system was used for a qualitative user study, using the framework method for analyzing and interpreting results. In this study, fifteen participants engaged in a change detection scenario across five simulated "days." The participants heavily leveraged the Daybreak system's clustering function when viewing results; there was a weak preference for chronological sorting of documents, compared to relevance ranking. The participants did not view rarity as an effective proxy for subtopic importance; instead, they preferred approaches that enabled them to indicate which subtopics were of greatest interest, such as pinning certain subtopics. The fourth and final component of this dissertation research describes an evaluation approach for comparing arrangements of subtopic clusters (piles). This evaluation approach uses Spearman's rank correlation coefficient to compare a user's ideal subtopic ordering with a variety of system-generated orderings. This includes a sample evaluation using data from the Daybreak user study to demonstrate how a formal evaluation would work. Based on the results of these four dissertation research components, it appears that the GPA Change Detection Theory provides a useful framework for organizing information for individuals engaged in change detection tasks. This research provides insights into users' change detection needs and behaviors that could be helpful for building or extending systems attempting to address this use case.
Personal Objects as Design Materials
(2024) Elsayed-Ali, Salma; Chan, Joel; Bonsignore, Elizabeth; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
While Participatory Design focuses on inclusion of users, in practice, Participatory Design may often fall short of its inclusive ideals. This is problematic as it could lead to disempowerment, inactive participation, and alienation of users. An important avenue for inclusion is to enable users, particularly those who are marginalized, to enact aspects of their identities and lived experiences in design. Materials, both tangible and intangible, are an important way that this enactment may be accomplished; yet materials are often overlooked and imposed on users in design. This can be problematic as the materials selected may not be relevant or useful to users’ situated contexts or goals, or, at worst, could lead to exclusion. My dissertation seeks to understand how we might support users to enact core aspects of their identities and lived experiences in Participatory Design. To do this, I propose an approach that shifts control of design materials to users by inviting them to bring in personal objects from their lives. Using Research through Design, I developed a sociotechnical system called Talisman consisting of techniques to scaffold users’ selection and interaction with their personal objects in the design process. Over the course of a year, I collaborated with three distinct communities to embed Talisman in co-design workshops alongside young adults who are underrepresented in STEM education. These communities included: 1) A STEM education nonprofit based in Chicago focused on creating youth-led “Safe Spaces;” 2) A high school summer internship program based in Baltimore focused on Environmental Justice; and 3) a faculty-led research project at the College of Information Studies focused on redesigning undergraduate programming education to support diverse learners in light of Generative AI. I share direct observations and accounts from young adults into their experiences bringing in and engaging with their personal objects in the design of solutions for their communities. Afterwards, I present a cross-case analysis of the three case studies in which Talisman was deployed and discuss its implications for Participatory and Assets-based design practice within the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
Archival Workers as Climate Advocates
(2024) Wickner, Amy; Shilton, Katie; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Real-life examples of climate response under material constraints capture the risks facing archives, records, and archival workers amid environmental change, and the factors that complicate climate action. In this dissertation, I sought to understand how climate, environment, and ecology shape archival workers' experiences, practices, and perspectives on the future, including their norms and expectations for making change. I used three interconnected methods: a critical review of six decades of scholarly and professional literature; a literary analysis of archival practices in seven climate fiction texts; and interviews with 13 archivists concerned about climate change. The core argument of this dissertation is that forms of slow violence – Nixon's term for harm that “occurs gradually and out of sight” – produce unresolvable double binds, which catalyze archival workers into a community of climate advocates. This research finds that archival workers are trying to pursue principled work in conditions that prevent them from doing so – not only the material limitations of work sites, but also political obstacles to taking climate action. They develop politically expedient strategies and tactics in response to local circumstances, while using public statements and campaigns to extend their advocacy across the field. As climate advocates, they oscillate between positions as insiders and outsiders in the field, never settling in one stance from which to effect change. While they share a commitment that archives matter to climate response, complexity and contradiction hold them together as a community of advocates. Two key points of disagreement lie at the buzzing center of this community: first, whether archives are primarily resources or obstacles to climate action; and second, to what extent archival climate responses should align with or resist power relations that organize the state of the field (and the planet). There's ample knowledge in the archives field of the significance of climate change, the environmental impacts to and of archival work, the need for archivists to respond to the crisis, and methods for responding. However, such answers make little difference in everyday change-making, if they don't also face head-on the material conditions of archival work and the political relations that determine and reproduce those conditions.
How Can Debugging With Physical Computing Be More Playful For Children?
(2024) Zeng, Danyi; Williams-Pierce, Caro; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In response to the ongoing call for the education of computational thinking, I explored how debugging activities in a physical computing environment can be more playful and learnable for children. While a lot of studies have addressed the importance of debugging in generic programming learning, the benefits and challenges of physical computing implementation in classrooms, or the potential of playfulness in STEM education, few research focused on an interdisciplinary conversation that sought design solutions to bring playfulness into the learning experience and to improve the user experience cohesively. In this study, based on a synthetical understanding of the relevant studies from computer science, human-computer interaction, and education, I situated the concept of fragile knowledge into the complex, multiple-object environment of physical computing. Accordingly, I designed two debugging projects on micro:bit for 8 participants at KidsTeam at the University of Maryland to understand their intuitive approaches to debugging in the physical computing environment. I analyzed the video data of the two 90-minute sessions and applied semantic coding to examine and compare the participants’ earning experiences, including typical progress and failures. The qualitative findings revealed: 1) the differentiation in the process of debugging between the first-time and returning learners of programming, 2) the participants’ passion for customizing after success by upgrading their projects or testing the limit of the physical chip, and 3) two forms of spontaneous collaborations. Across those experiences, I further identified the failures without feedback caused by the micro:bit’s current coding environment and extended Fish Tanks and Sandboxes, two playful learning principles, to provide design insights for future physical debugging activities that support the findings above.
The Effect of an Integrated Knowledge Management Architecture on Organizational Performance and Impact: The Case of the World Bank
(2003) Fonseca, Ana Flavia; Soergel, Dagobert; Information Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Using the World Bank as Case Study, this dissertation investigates the impact of knowledge management programs on the organization performance by using a combination of three methods: Records Analysis, Interviews and Outcome Mapping. The study had two phases: quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. The Knowledge Management Program of the World Bank has had a direct and beneficial impact on its operations. The Program changed internal staff behavior, improved the sharing of information and knowledge within the organization, and promoted the design and application of participatory knowledge strategies in the countries. New knowledge products as well as strong country participation and ownership to the projects studied resulted from these changes. However, the study also shows that this impact is far from being sufficiently significant to influence or help make the knowledge management program fully integrated with the organization core processes and products. The gap between the KM Program architecture and other programs and initiatives focusing on making this concept operational within the Bank remains an issue. In spite of the fact that knowledge management principles are being mainstreamed in core services, the difference is still very wide between the overall goals of the Knowledge Bank and their translation into the implementation of knowledge products and services in the countries. The research did confirm previous research in the field of knowledge management and validated the findings from other case studies. The results of the study also allowed for the identification of 10 criteria for mainstreaming knowledge management programs within organizations and identified characteristics of knowledge delivery processes that were effective for knowledge absorption . . The importance of "how to" and "procedural knowledge"; the importance "horizontal knowledge exchanges" and a number of other elements, were confirmed as factors affecting knowledge absorption and positive changes in user behavior.
“But Hold Me Fast and Fear Me Not” Comparing Gender Roles in the Ballad Tam Lin and Medieval and Renaissance Scotland.
(2023) Conant, Charlotte; Bianchini, \Janna; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Tam Lin, a medieval Scottish Ballad tells the story of an unusually forceful young Lady Janet. Janet does many of the feats of strength in her story, defies her father, refuses to behave as a ‘good Christian woman’ might and suffers no consequences for her actions. She ends her story successfully married to a noble Christian man, having saved him from the evil pagan Fairy Queen. This ballad has been popular for centuries, and has been cited as a ballad unique to Scotland that represents Scottish culture. The ballad contains ideas that one might think contradictory to the ideas of a medieval Christian society, yet the ballad was so popular it had a ballet (now lost) and has survived for at least four hundred years. This dissertation examines the differences and similarities between the lack of consequences Janet suffers and what real women in Scotland from the Medieval Ages to the Early Modern period would have experienced. It also will delve into the various cultural groups that contributed to the ‘Scottish Nature’ of the ballad. Stories are told by humans all across the world, a ballad, likely sung in a group, in order to continue being told, must not go against the inherent social rules of the people performing it, or else act as a cautionary tale. However, since Janet does not end her story suffering, Tam Lin is not meant to be a cautionary tale. Why then, was this ballad, that might appear to be so contradictory to the society that was telling it, have managed to survive (and be so popular) to the current day and age.
Virtual Library Events Catered Towards Teens: Surveying Event Wants and Ideas in Order to Increase Engagement in the Fairfax County, VA Library System
(2023) Bowman, Melissa June; Sturge, Jennifer; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
During the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, many public libraries systems turned to virtual programming to increase engagement during the time of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. Three years out of the pandemic, many libraries have scaled back the virtual programming catalog, focusing instead on in-person events. In the Fairfax County, Virginia Public Libraries System, a programming gap existed in the virtual events catered towards teens. This thesis uses interviews with Fairfax County Public Libraries staff and a survey of local teens to discern what kind of virtual programming teens attend; and what virtual events teens would like to see in the future. Library Staff indicated that virtual events were scaled back in favor of in-person events to increase engagement with the other library services. Teens surveyed stated that while in-person events were often attended, there was a need for more virtual events. The conclusion from the interviews and from the survey results indicate that library systems do not need to come up with a specific “virtual only” programming, but rather find a balance of in-person and virtual programming, perhaps by streaming in-person events, to meet the wants and needs of the teen users.
“WHAT PERSONS, MASCULINE OR FEMININE”: EXAMINATIONS OF IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION AND QUEER POTENTIALITIES IN WESTERN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
(2023) Taylor, Erin; Bianchini, Janna; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this thesis, I argue that medieval people in Latin Europe had complex, overlapping identities and experiences of gender and sexuality that developed in their specific temporal and geographical contexts. The internal understandings of identities and the external expressions and interpretations of such identities are sites of historical possibility—and sources of potential inter-and intra-personal conflicts Medieval writings like Le Roman de Silence demonstrate how these identities could be constructed and expressed for literary and rhetorical purposes. Extant court cases, including those of John/Eleanor Rykener, Vitoria of Lisbon, and Katherina Hetzeldorfer, demonstrate the complexity of lived experiences of identity, and how deviation from accepted community and cultural norms could prove dangerous. It is impossible to assert such identities of gender and sexuality for historical figures of the medieval era with complete certainty, but the exploration of these identities is necessary for a fuller understanding and representation of the period and the people who lived throughout it.
MULTISCALE, MULTITEMPORAL ASSESSMENT OF CHIMPANZEE (Pan troglodytes) HABITAT USING REMOTELY SENSED DATASETS
(2023) Jantz, Samuel M; Hansen, Matthew C; Geography/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
All four sub-species of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, are listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and their populations continue to decline due to human activities. Effective conservation efforts require information on their population status and distribution. Traditional field surveys are expensive and impractical for covering large areas at regular time intervals, making it difficult to track population trends. Given that chimpanzees occupy a large range (2.3 x 106 km2), new cost-effective methods and data are needed to provide relevant information on population status and trends across large geographic and time scales. The objective of this dissertation is to help fill this gap by leveraging freely available and regularly updated remotely sensed datasets to map and monitor chimpanzee habitat across their range. This research begins by first producing annual forest cover and change maps for the Greater Gombe (GGE) and Greater Mahale ecosystems (GME) in western Tanzania using Landsat phenological metrics and machine learning methods. Canopy cover was predicted at 30-meter resolution and the Cumulative Sums (CuSum) algorithm was applied to the canopy cover time series to detect forest loss and gain events between 2000-2020. An accuracy assessment showed the CuSum algorithm was able to detect forest loss well but had more difficulty detecting gradual forest gain events. A total of 276,000 ha (+/- 27,000 ha) of gross forest loss was detected between 2000 and 2020 in the GGE and GME; however, loss was not spread equally among the two ecosystems. The results show widespread forest loss in the GME, contrasted with net forest cover gain in the GGE. Next, the annual forest cover maps, and additional derived variables, were used to train an ensemble model to predict the relative encounter rate of chimpanzee nest sightings in the GGE and GME. Model output exhibited a strong linear relationship to chimpanzee abundances and population density estimated from a recent ground survey, enabling model output to be linearly transformed into population estimates. The model predicted the two ecosystems harbor just over 3,000 individuals, which agrees with the upper limit of population estimates from ground surveys. Most importantly, the model can be applied to annually updated variables enabling the detection of potential population shifts caused by changes in landscape condition. Model output indicates a possible population reduction in portions of the GME, while the GGE is predicted to have increased its ability to sustain a larger population. Finally, Random Forests regression was used to relate predictor variables, primarily derived from Landsat data to a coarse resolution, range-wide habitat suitability map enabling the prediction of habitat suitability at 30 meter resolution. The model showed good agreement with the calibration data; however, there was considerable variation in predictive capability among the four chimpanzee sub-species. Elevation, Landsat ETM+ band 5 and Landsat derived canopy cover were the strongest predictors; highly suitable areas were associated with dense tree canopy cover for all but the Nigeria-Cameroon and Central Chimpanzee sub-species. The model can detect changes in suitability to support monitoring and conservation planning across the chimpanzee range. Results from this dissertation highlight the promise of integrating continuously updated satellite data into habitat suitability models to detect changes through time and inform conservation efforts for chimpanzees at multiple scales.
Exploring Changes in Communication between Native English Speakers (NES) and Non-native English Speakers (NNES) with the Aid of Facial Expression Recognition Feedback in Group Videoconferencing
(2023) Yang, Jialun; Lee, Heera; Master in Information Management; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
One of the frequent communication challenges in group meetings between native English speakers (NES) and non-native English speakers (NNES) is confusion experienced by the NNES while communicating in English with the NES. To address this, I proposed integrating a facial expression recognition tool with a video conferencing platform to help NES enhance their ability to identify NNES’ confused moments and promote effective communication with NNES. The study was conducted on a video conferencing platform to investigate how precisely the NES and the facial expression recognition tool identify the confused moments of the NNES in comparison with the self-report of the NNES. Furthermore, this study explored the impact of such identification on how the NES adjusted their communication approach when interacting with the NNES in subsequent group meetings. The findings revealed that the self-reports of NNES played a significant role over the facial expression recognition tool, enabling the NES to better perceive the confused moments of the NNES. As a result, the NES gained a better understanding of the NNES and improved their ability to communicate effectively during the meeting. Although using the facial expression recognition tool to detect the NNES’ confusion during the meeting was underestimated by the NES in this study, it provided me a valuable opportunity to investigate the context of how NNES, NES, and the tool identify the confused moments of the NNES. This highlighted the importance of considering the NNES’ self-reports and their facial expressions within the context to improve the current facial expression recognition tool.
Stable Science and Fickle Bodies: An Examination of Trust and the Construction of Expertise on r/SkincareAddiction
(2023) DeCusatis, Cara Maria; Sauter, M.R.; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
While there is considerable research on the topic of trust when it comes to health information or news media, there is less work examining how trust and expertise are conceptualized for information that may straddle both subjective and objective approaches to knowledge. In this thesis, I use the subreddit r/SkincareAddiction as a field site to examine how users construct skincare expertise and position skincare expertise in relation to formalized bioscience and experiential knowledge. Building on Science and Technology Studies’ theories of lay expertise and embodiment, I investigate how users interpret, share, and enact skincare and subreddit competence, discern trustworthy information, and negotiate the boundaries of science. Through a grounded theory analysis of subreddit posts and comments, I argue that r/SkincareAddiction users engage in forms of boundary work to preserve the expertise of medical professionals and the perceived infallibility of science. I argue that such delineations both uphold formalized systems of expertise and make space for alternative, community-specific forms of skincare expertise. This community-specific expertise is reified through community norms and agreed upon beliefs, such as the understanding that “your mileage may vary” and “everyone’s skin is different”. I situate these community beliefs within feminist understandings of embodied knowledge and argue that these beliefs are what afford users participation in “expert” conversations from which they might otherwise be excluded.

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