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Humans care about things. The truth of this claim is obvious, yet scholars who have evaluated student interventions and outcomes in higher education have largely neglected how student values might inform their experience with those interventions and outcomes. This chapter will rely on a philosophical conceptualization of a particular type of value known as “caring” to explore what students value as they weigh various collegiate decisions. Elaborating on findings from a qualitative study of 143 college students from eight American universities, I will summarize previous findings related to what students cared about, how those cares were structured, and what the cares and structures meant for students' pathways through college. The categorical and theoretical patterns I share demonstrate how students approached values in ways that have not typically been considered by scholars or institutional administrators. After summarizing my previous findings, I offer a conceptual argument for a “dialectical” approach that considers the mutually formative interaction between student and institutional values. The practical result of naming and understanding the dialectic realities of values in higher education is the opportunity for institutions to use their relatively greater agency to help individual students pursue what is worth pursuing without reducing the agency of those students. Thus, the dialectic places necessary boundary lines on both the institution and the student while also clarifying the opportunity to help students develop moral expertise and navigate their collegiate pathways successfully.

University rankings and metrics have become an increasingly prominent basis of student decisions, generalized university reputation, and the resources university’s attract. We review the history of metrics in higher education and scholarship about the influence of ranking on the position and strategic behavior of universities and students. Most quantitative analyses on this topic estimate the influence of change in university rank on performance. These studies consistently identify a small, short-lived influence of rank shift on selectivity (e.g., one rank position corresponds to ≤1% more student applicants), comparable to ranking effects documented in other domains. This understates the larger system-level impact of metrification on universities, students, and the professions that surround them. We explore one system-level transformation likely influenced by the rise of rankings. Recent years have witnessed the rise of enrollment management and independent educational consultation. We illustrate a plausible pathway from ranking to this transformation: In an effort to improve rankings, universities solicit more applications from students to reduce their acceptance rate. Lower acceptance rates lead to more uncertainty for students about acceptance, leading them to apply to more schools, which decreases the probability that accepted students will attend. This leads to greater uncertainty about enrollment for students and universities and generates demand for new services to manage it. Because these and other system-level transformations are not as cleanly measured as rank position and performance, they have not received the same treatment or modeling attention in higher education scholarship, despite their importance for understanding and influencing education policy.

Group cohesion is among the most researched constructs linked to team effectiveness, and performance (Rosh, Offermann, & Van Diest, 2012). While meta-analytic evidence has established strong linkages between cohesion and performance (e.g., Beal, Cohen, Burke, & McLendon, 2003), the functions and structure of cohesion have received limited attention within this literature. In this chapter, we begin to address this gap in the literature by reviewing extant knowledge regarding the structural and functional properties of cohesion to introduce an integrative framework of the function and structure of cohesion. Our framework is designed to address two key questions: (1) Why are groups cohesive – that is, what function(s) does cohesion serve for an individual and/or groups? and (2) What are the elemental forms of cohesion within groups – that is, what is the structure of cohesion within teams? Our integrative framework posits that cohesion serves two main functions within groups: an affective and an instrumental function. These functions serve to characterize the structure of cohesion into four conceptually related but distinct facets that include interpersonal and group belongingness; and social and task elements of cohesion. Furthermore, we specify that these elemental facets occur both horizontally (among individuals with similar standing within groups) and vertically (among individuals with different standing within the groups). We discuss advantages and disadvantages of our framework and conclude with implications for research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to build a mobile visual search service system for the protection of Dunhuang cultural heritage in the smart library. A novel mobile visual search model for Dunhuang murals is proposed to help users acquire rich knowledge and services conveniently.

First, local and global features of images are extracted, and the visual dictionary is generated by the k-means clustering. Second, the mobile visual search model based on the bag-of-words (BOW) and multiple semantic associations is constructed. Third, the mobile visual search service system of the smart library is designed in the cloud environment. Furthermore, Dunhuang mural images are collected to verify this model.

The findings reveal that the BOW_SIFT_HSV_MSA model has better search performance for Dunhuang mural images when the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) and the hue, saturation and value (HSV) are used to extract local and global features of the images. Compared with different methods, this model is the most effective way to search images with the semantic association in the topic, time and space dimensions.

Dunhuang mural image set is a part of the vast resources stored in the smart library, and the fine-grained semantic labels could be applied to meet diverse search needs.

The mobile visual search service system is constructed to provide users with Dunhuang cultural services in the smart library. A novel mobile visual search model based on BOW and multiple semantic associations is proposed. This study can also provide references for the protection and utilization of other cultural heritages.

An efficient device simulation method is presented, which has been derived from mapping the results of a complete two‐dimensional (2‐D) analysis onto an equivalent lumped element network. The method is currently being used to predict latch‐up sensitivities of CMOS process design.

Aims to facilitate a clearer understanding of the issues involved in formulating and implementing an electronic data interchange (EDI) strategy. In particular, analyses the potential benefits to be derived from EDI implementation, outlining operational and management difficulties likely to arise as a result of implementation. Examines the inter – and intra‐organizational issues to which EDI gives rise. This involves a discussion of the relationship between EDI and related developments such as quick response (QR), just‐in‐time (JIT) and electronic funds transfer (EFT). Outlines the relationship between EDI and EFT, arguing that EDI‐EFT has the potential to redefine organizational cash management policies and strategies, particularly in relation to the “float”, as well as the relationship between organizations and their respective financial institutions. Concludes that EDI is both complex and costly to implement and careful cost benefit analyses as well as senior management support are required.

Spiritual ecology explores the interface of religions and spiritualities on the one hand, and environments, ecologies, and environmentalisms on the other. As an international environmental movement, spiritual ecology involves a multitude of diverse leaders, organizations, and initiatives. They share a common concern and commitment to pursuing the vital role of religion and spirituality in environmentalism to complement secular approaches to environmental problems and issues from the local to the global levels. Here, after some background, spiritual ecology as a component of the phenomena of international environmental movements is exemplified through three cases: the Green Belt Movement beginning in Kenya, the Green Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation affiliate of the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund).

Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of irresponsibility by public actors who breach a societal trust they assume. This research focuses on the issue of “Peak Farmland,” a rendering of global carrying capacity that, we suggest, qualifies for what Freudenburg called “privileged discourse” and possibly recreancy. Scholars identified with dematerialized progress argue that finite farmland in the face of increasing population will improve human welfare and spare land for nature. This iconoclasm presents an arena for testing academic probity with respect to global food security. After an overview of past carrying capacity debates, we summarize the “Peak Farmland” position of the dematerialization school and suggest an important blind spot: the dematerialization of the global land base itself. Gathering the results of multiple studies on land loss, we offer evidence that the world’s warehouse of productive land is not just peaking but eroding on a grand scale. Ignoring this form of dematerialization while proclaiming nearly unlimited carrying capacity for Earth’s denizens strains the meaning of responsible scholarship.