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Item Open Access User Studies in Public Library Website Redesigns(2022-12-24) Theige, BeverlyThis paper highlights the importance of conducting user studies before redesigning a public library website to ensure the needs and wants of the whole community are met. It explores the eight most common user experience research methods and how they are beneficial in determining the design of a virtual public library environment. Because of their core values of access and service to all, public libraries should prioritize user experience research and include children in their user studies when redesigning their websites.Item Open Access Optimal Selection of Short-and Long-Term Mitigation Strategies for Buildings within Communities under Flooding Hazard(2022-08-09) Gupta, Himadri Sen; Nofal, Omar M.; González, Andrés D.; Nicholson, Charles D.; van de Lindt, John W.Every year, floods cause substantial economic losses worldwide with devastating impacts on buildings and physical infrastructures throughout communities. Techniques are available to mitigate flood damage and subsequent losses, but the ability to weigh such strategies with respect to their benefits from a community resilience perspective is limited in the literature. Investing in flood mitigation is critical for communities to protect the physical and socioeconomic systems that depend on them. While there are multiple mitigation options to implement at the building level, this paper focuses on determining the optimal flood mitigation strategy for buildings to minimize flood losses within a community. In this research, a mixed integer linear programming model is proposed for studying the effects and trade-offs associated with pre-event short-term and long-term mitigation strategies to minimize the expected economic losses associated with floods. The capabilities of the proposed model are illustrated for Lumberton, North Carolina (NC), a small, socially diverse inland community on the Lumber River. The mathematically optimal building-level flood mitigation plan is provided based on the available budget, which can significantly minimize the total expected direct economic loss of the community. The results reveal important correlations among investment quantity, building-level short- and long-term mitigation measures, flood depths of various locations, and buildings’ structure. Additionally, this study shows the trade-offs between short- and long-term mitigation measures based on available budget by providing decision support to building owners regarding mitigation measures for their buildings.Item Open Access Benchmarking of Academic Departments using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)(2022-04-01) Alam, T.E.; Gonzalez, A.D.; Raman, S.Purpose – The main objective of the paper is to develop an Investment Model using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) that provides a decision-making framework to allocate resources efficiently, such that the relative efficiency is improved within an available investment budget. Design/methodology/approach – DEA models are used to evaluate the efficiency of the departments relative to their peers and providing benchmarks for the less efficient departments. Secondly, the inefficiencies in departments are identified. Finally, for the less efficient departments, a decision-support system is introduced for optimizing resource allocation to improve efficiency. Findings – Five of the eighteen academic departments were determined to be inefficient, and benchmark departments were found for those departments. The most prevalent causes for inefficiency were the number of Undergraduate Students per Faculty and the Number of Graduate Students. Results from the Investment Model for Department 12 suggest increasing the Number of Faculty by 2 units and H-Index by 0.5 units, thereby, improving the relative efficiency of the department by 6.8% (88% to 94%), using $290,000 out of $500,000 investment budget provided. Originality – When an investment budget is available, no study has used DEA to develop a decision-support framework for resource allocation in academic departments to maximize relative efficiency.Item Open Access Precipitation effects on grassland plant performance are lessened by hay harvest(2022-02) Castillioni, Karen; Patten, Michael A.; Souza, LaraClimate and human management, such as hay harvest, shape grasslands. With both disturbances co-occurring, understanding how these ecosystems respond to these combined drivers may aid in projecting future changes in grasslands. We used an experimental precipitation gradient combined with mimicked acute hay harvest (clipping once a year) to examine (1) whether hay harvest influences precipitation effects on plant performance (cover and height) and (2) the role of interspecific responses in influencing plant performance. We found that hay harvest reduced the strength of precipitation effects on plant performance through changes in bare-ground soil cover. Species performance were mainly influenced by change in abiotic factors, often responding negatively, as hay harvest increased bare-ground amount. Conversely, altered precipitation without hay harvest promoted plant species performance through abiotic factors change first, followed by biotic. Most species, including the dominant grass Schizachyrium scoparium, increased their performance with greater leaf area index (proxy for canopy structure). Our experiment demonstrates that plant performance responds directly to abiotic factors with hay harvest, but indirectly without hay harvest. Positive effects of increasing precipitation were likely due to microhabitat amelioration and resource acquisition, thus inclusion of hay harvest as a disturbance lessens positive impacts of biotic variables on species performance to climate change.Item Open Access College and Career Resources for Indigenous Students(2021-07) Tennell, CourtneyThe purpose of this quick look guide is to connect Indigenous students in Oklahoma to resources available through Indigenous Nations and organizations to fund and support their college education and career readiness.Item Open Access “You’re in apple land but you are a lemon:” Connection, Collaboration, and Division in Early ‘70s Indian Country(2020-07-01) Truden, JohnIn the first years of the 1970s, Indian Country became paradoxically more interwoven and yet also more divided. Three case studies from Oklahoma’s Indigenous communities illustrate this transformation. Beginning in the mid-1960s, a boom in Indigenous media allowed Indigenous people to communicate far more quickly over once prohibitive distances. In western Oklahoma, Southern Cheyenne parents relied upon Navajo ideas to form their own indigenous controlled school in early 1973. As a result of these exchanges between previously removed people, new indigenous communities emerged along ideological lines rather than those of tribal citizenship or ethnic identity. A few months earlier, the National Indian Youth Council’s Oklahoma chapters, one such evolving ideological community out of many in the United States, successfully brought attention to and changed a key state policy affecting indigenous students in public schools. Even as Indigenous activists collaborated with new vigor, corresponding divisions emerged in existing Indigenous communities; Native people began to debate the meaning of the messages new communities popularized. The American Indian Movement attempted to hold its 1973 national convention at Pawnee, Oklahoma, only to find that Indigenous people in the region did not support the gathering as the movement’s leaders anticipated. Together, these three case studies present a portrait of a diverse, indigenous world that facilitated collaboration through Native media yet wrought with emerging ideological schisms.Item Open Access Aligned Set of STM Images(2020-08-06) Yothers, MitchellA movie generated from 22 constant-current scanning tunneling microscope images acquired over 8 hours on August 14, 2017. . Bias voltage –1.00 V, tunneling current 1.0 pA. Trace images. Each image has been corrected to remove distortion and aligned so that image features are in the same location throughout the movie.Item Open Access Concerning gamer identity: An examination of individual factors associated with accepting the label of gamer(2019-03) Howe, William; Livingston, Dalaki; Lee, Sun KyongThis study examined characteristics of players that self-identified as gamers. Participants (N=476) were asked to complete an online survey and provide information about their video game play. Analyses of the survey responses found support for gamers being younger, men, and playing more. We also found that some of the genres of play and technology used diverged from previous research. The two most surprising findings were that gamers preferred to play on consoles more than on computers, and massive-multiplayer online games were not the most played genre. This paper contributed to research in three ways: previous assumptions surrounding gamer identity and demographics were tested, the genre of games and method of play were examined to refine the definition of a gamer, and the implications of gamer identity were discussed.Item Open Access Social exchange is in the game: Communication and resource flow in an Xbox gaming clan(2018) Howe, William; Lee, Sun KyongThis study examined the international social network of a bounded Battlefield 4 gaming clan considering social exchange theory. We found that more central members of the clan contributed more time and money to the clan than others. In addition, central members of this clan revived other members in-game more often. This study extends social exchange theory from face-to-face interaction to the virtual world, by showing communicative factors that influence online gaming networks, and to game studies by offering results applicable to online gaming clans. This study also shows how gamers engage in various social exchanges and earn central positions within the network in return for their investment of time, money, and communication.Item Open Access Manager–employee communication in the# MeToo Era: The role of gender similarity and context ambiguity in ethical leadership(2020) Meeks, Lindsey; Howe, WilliamSexual harassment is a widespread problem in the American workplace. Managers must understand how their employees perceive ethical leadership in this context. This includes current undergraduates—managers’ future employees. Undergraduates are entering the workforce in a climate of heightened awareness due to the #MeToo movement and federally required collegiate sexual violence training. Grounded in scholarship on ethical leadership and feminist standpoint theory, the experiment compares U.S. undergraduates’ perceptions of male and female managers across common workplace scenarios and examines their evaluations of managers’ traits and behaviors. Analysis reveals (a) what manager behavior is deemed ethical, (b) a general preference for female managers, and (c) that women evaluate female managers more positively than male managers. This study’s findings provide important implications for employee–manager communicative exchanges.Item Open Access Socialization, face negotiation, identity, and the United States Military(2020) Shpeer, Maria; Howe, WilliamIn this study, we examine stories told about basic training in the United States military. We question how these experiences are related to stories told post-exit. We collected website stories (N = 100) and in-depth interviews (N = 18) for analysis. The theoretical underpinnings of socialization, face negotiation, and identity guided this analysis. We note three themes throughout these stories that suggest that (1) military members adopt facework strategies performed by drill sergeants, (2) these facework strategies are used after exit, (3) military socialization normalizes typically nonnormative behavior.Item Open Access Performance Analysis of Message Dissemination Techniques in VANET using Fog Computing(2018) Paranjothi, AnirudhVehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANET) is a derived subclass of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) with vehicles as mobile nodes. VANET facilitate vehicles to share safety and non-safety information through messages. Safety information includes road accidents, natural hazards, roadblocks, etc. Non-safety information includes tolling information, traveler information, etc. The main goal behind sharing this information is to enhance road safety and reduce road accidents by alerting the driver about the unexpected hazards. However, routing of messages in VANET is challenging due to packet delays arising from high mobility of vehicles, frequently changing topology and high density of vehicles, leading to frequent route breakages and packet losses. This report summarizes the performance analysis of safety and non-safety message dissemination techniques in VANET based on the fog computing technique. Three main metrics to improve the performance of message dissemination are: 1) delay, 2) probability of message delivery, and 3) throughput. Analysis of such metrics plays an important role to improve the performance of existing message dissemination techniques. Simulations are usually conducted based on the metrics using ns-2 and Java discrete event simulator. The above three performance metrics and results published in literature help one to understand and increase the performance of various message dissemination techniques in a VANET environment.Item Open Access Revisiting a Water Conflict in Southeastern Oklahoma 6 Years Later: A New Valuation of the Willingness to Pay for Ecosystem Services(2020-01-22) Burch, Claire; Busch, Michelle; Higgins, Edward; Bittner, Steven; Perera, Nuwanthika; Neal, Kevin; Burkett, Lawrence; Castro, Antonio J.; Anderson, ChristopherIn recent years, researchers have begun to adopt a perspective evaluating “winners and losers” regarding the consumption and value of ecosystem services. “Winners” tend to benefit from the ecosystem service and “losers” absorb most associated costs. Our study focuses on water use in Oklahoma (USA) and a plan to divert water from the Kiamichi River in southeastern Oklahoma for consumption at residences in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Our study is, in part, a follow-up from an initial 2013 survey of Oklahoma City residents and residents of the Kiamichi. For this paper, a survey was distributed within the state of Oklahoma to evaluate changes to ecosystem service willingness to pay and valuation. This survey also included an experimental element assessing if exposure to additional information about ecosystem services influenced respondents on ecosystem service valuation, or willingness to pay. Our results generally aligned with those found in the 2013 survey. Oklahoma City residents are not aware of where their water is coming from and are not willing to pay to protect ecosystem services, despite an overall increase in activism. Our results indicate that a smaller number of significant factors determining willingness to pay for ecosystem service maintenance were identified than the study in 2013. Exposure to additional information had no effect on peoples’ preferences. We found that public opinion surrounding environmental support is context-specific, political conservatism may not always impede valuation of environmental protections. We conclude that cultural, moral, and political values interact in their influence on expressions of valuation and willingness to pay for ecosystem services.Item Open Access Natural Gas Utilization: A Case Study of GTW AND GTL Technologies(2019-08-01) Ajagbe, OluwatobiThis paper itemizes different utilization technology that could be used to monetize natural gas asset and a comparative techno-economic study of the use of Gas-to-Wire (GTW) technology and Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) to monetize a gas asset was also carried out. A study of this nature is necessary given the increase in the fraction of natural gas in the global energy mix, lower cost of exploration and production of gas reserve and the dip in natural gas price experienced in recent years. The comparative study includes two scenarios describing the different production condition of the gas asset. Economic metrics such as Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and, Payback Period were used to assess the project yield for the two utilization projects. Sensitivity analysis was carried out on certain market drivers used in the analysis to ascertain the level of influence of each driver on the project yield and to compare how do their level of influence differ with each project. Monte-Carlo simulation was also used to analyze the level of risk involved in the two utilization. A research of this nature is expected to serve as a guide to a natural gas producer in this era of abundance, but a low price when considering various options on how to monetize their natural gas assets.Item Open Access Temperature effects in the thermal conductivity of aligned amorphous polyethylene—A molecular dynamics study(2018-09-10) Muthaiah, Rajmohan; Garg, JivteshWe analyze, through molecular dynamics simulations, the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity (k) of chain-oriented amorphous polyethylene (PE). We find that at increasing levels of orientation, the temperature corresponding to a peak k progressively decreases. Un-oriented PE exhibits the peak k at 350K, while aligned PE under an applied strain of 400% shows a maximum at 100K. This transition of peak k to lower temperatures with increasing alignment is explained in terms of a crossover from disorder to anharmonicity dominated phonon transport in aligned polymers. Evidence for this crossover is achieved by manipulating the disorder in the polymer structure and studying the resulting change in temperature corresponding to peak k. Disorder is modified through a change in the dihedral parameters of the potential function, allowing a change in the relative fraction of trans and gauche transformations. The results shed light on the underlying thermal transport processes in aligned polymers and hold importance for low temperature applications of polymer materials in thermal management technologies.Item Open Access The Search for an Austrian Nation, 1918-1933(2017-03) Kierig, Anna EleanorItem Open Access On Superherology(2018-08) Hammonds, KyleIn 2012, Travis Langley’s book Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight introduced the term “superherologist,” indicating Langley’s belief that scholars who study superheroes belong to a unique field of study. This presentation seeks to explore historical academic standards for the constitution of disciplines, fields, and topics, and hold them against Langley’s claim that superhero studies warrant their own field. Further, if “superherology” does indeed qualify as an academic field (versus a mere topic, subject, etc.), what are the boundaries of the field and how should researchers engage in appropriate scholarship for the subject matter? The legitimacy of superhero studies in academia is bound up in whether superherologists fit the historical boundaries of rigorous scholarship. Further, this presentation does not solely seek theoretical ground for determining whether superhero studies belongs in scholarship; a praxical approach to superhero studies is suggested through a discussion of the questions: 1) Who can be a superherologist? and 2) What are the practical aims and scope of superherology? Ultimately, the presentation will conclude that superhero fans all have the opportunity to engage in superherological work.Item Open Access The Great Pacific Northwest Carbon Sink: Grab Your Clogs, It’s Time to Dance(2013) Doughty, RussellItem Open Access The Land of Freedom: US GHG Emissions and Population Growth to Drive Global Climate Change(2013) Doughty, RussellItem Open Access Pine and Oak Herbivores in the Ouachitas & Ozarks: Lessons in a Changing Climate(2013) Doughty, Russell