Navigation

Author Archive | Robbie Bolton

Michael Jindra

By on November 13, 2007 in Faculty Publications

Jindra, Michael. “Video game worlds.” Society 44, no. 4 (2007): 67-73.

Abstract: The article reports on the writings about the cultural phenomenon and effect of the video game industry. It focuses on the pros and cons of gaming. Debates and arguments related to the topic is also presented. Some of the writers celebrate gaming because it display the powerful combination of entertainment, competition, and technology, while the others add a cautionary note stating that our social and moral aspect are neglected. However, all of them agree that video games is a phenomenon that will have social implications. In relation, an overview of the eletronic game industry’s technological development is offered.

Mary Darling

By on November 1, 2007 in Faculty Publications

Campolo, Tony, and Mary Albert Darling. The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice. San Franciso: Jossey-Bass, 2007.

The Stem Cell EpistlesThe God of Intimacy and Action reveals how contemplative spiritual practices can lead to greater intimacy with God and fuel passion for reaching out to others, through spreading the Good News and fostering justice for the poor and oppressed. The authors show why this combination is not only crucial but historical: it is vividly demonstrated in the lives of saints such as St Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola and Catherine of Siena.

Campolo and Darling explain mystical spirituality and its practices, and integrate them with evangelism and justice to illuminate what they call ‘holistic Christianity’. They suggest specific ways to nurture and energize one’s spirituality and show how to go beyond living a Christian life that merely emphasizes right beliefs and right behaviours.

Shasha Wu

By on September 24, 2006 in Faculty Publications

Revesz, Peter, and Shasha Wu. “Spatiotemporal reasoning about epidemiological data.” Artificial Intelligence In Medicine no. 2 (2006): 157.

Abstract: In this article, we propose new methods to visualize and reason about spatiotemporal epidemiological data. Efficient computerized reasoning about epidemics is important to public health and national security, but it is a difficult task because epidemiological data are usually spatiotemporal, recursive, and fast changing hence hard to handle in traditional relational databases and geographic information systems. We describe the general methods of how to (1) store epidemiological data in constraint databases, (2) handle recursive epidemiological definitions, and (3) efficiently reason about epidemiological data based on recursive and non-recursive Structured Query Language (SQL) queries. We implement a particular epidemiological system called West Nile Virus Information System (WeNiVIS) that enables the visual tracking of and reasoning about the spread of the West Nile Virus (WNV) epidemic in Pennsylvania. In the system, users can do many interesting reasonings based on the spatiotemporal dataset and the recursively defined risk evaluation function through the SQL query interfaces. In this article, the WeNiVIS system is used to visualize and reason about the spread of West Nile Virus in Pennsylvania as a sample application. Beside this particular case, the general methodology used in the implementation of the system is also appropriate for many other applications. Our general solution for reasoning about epidemics and related spatiotemporal phenomena enables one to solve many problems similar to WNV without much modification.

Robert Woods & Ines Jindra

By on November 13, 2005 in Faculty Publications

Knight, David A., Robert H. Woods Jr, and Ines W. Jindra. “Gender Differences in the Communication of Christian Conversion Narratives.” Review of Religious Research (2005): 113–134.

Abstract: Scholars have long sought to find the differences in the ways men and women communicate. Also, researchers have studied the field of religious conversion. Thisfirst-of-a-kind study has sought to find if gender differences arise when men and women communicate the story of their religious conversion. Forty structured in-depth interviews with 20 male and 20 female undergraduate students at a small, private Christian liberal arts university in the Midwest were used to address the stated research question. Five male and five females were selected from each grade level. A non-probability sampling procedure was used to select subjects. The final sample consisted of two Hispanics, one Black, and 37 White non-Hispanic participants. The average age of each participant was 20. Although some authors have suggested that conversion stories of men and women would be similar due to a rhythmic narrative formula and common structural elements, this study has found that significant gender differences in the communication of such narratives do arise in certain specific areas. The majority of men used adventurous metaphors, while the majority of women used peaceful metaphors to describe their conversion experiences. It was also found that the majority of men focused on themselves as the control character while most women focused on someone else. And, men described themselves as clever whereas women described themselves as foolish in their narratives.

Robert Woods

By on December 13, 2002 in Faculty Publications

Woods, Robert H. “How Much Communication Is Enough in Online Courses?- Exploring the Relationship Between Frequency of Instructor- Initiated Personal Email and Learners’ Perceptions of and Participation in Online Learning.” International Journal of Instructional Media 29, no. 4 (December 2002): 377–394.

Abstract: The researcher, an online instructor at the graduate level, considered whether more frequent delivery of instructor-initiated personal (text-only) emails outside of required class discussion formats would result in more favorable student perceptions of the student/faculty relationship, higher student ratings of perceived sense of online community, and a higher degree of satisfaction with the overall learning experience than would less fequent delivery of such instructor-initiated personal emails. The researcher was also interested whether more frequent delivery of personal emails would result in higher levels of student participation in required group discussion formats. Results: regardless of the number of personal emails sent to students throughout the semester, a statistically significant difference between groups could not be identified along the lines of perceived sense of of community, satisfaction with the overall learning experience, or personal relationship with the instructor. More frequent delivery of personalized email did not increase the amount of student participation in required discussion formats. The same positive results were achieved whether the instructor sent two (2) or fifteen (15) personal emails. Explanations for the findings are offered along with suggestions for future research. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.