Reading Guide

This is a tool to support students in generously reading course materials. The guide invites users to read texts generously by first bracketing critique and prioritizing depth of understanding of the arguments articulated in the text as well as the author\u27s background and perspective

Bridging Bayesian, Frequentist And Fiducial Inferences Using Confidence Distributions

Bayesian, frequentist, and fiducial (BFF) inferences are much more congruous than have been perceived historically in the scientific community (e.g., Reid and Cox (2015); Kass (2011); Efron (1998)). Most practitioners are probably more familiar with the two dominant statistical inferential paradigms, Bayesian inference and frequentist inference. The third, lesser known fiducial inference paradigm was pioneered by R.A. Fisher in an attempt to define an inversion procedure for inference as an alternative to Bayes’ theorem. Although each paradigm has its own strengths and limitations subject to their different philosophical underpinnings, this chapter intends to bridge these different inferential methodologies by calling upon confidence distribution theory and Monte-Carlo simulation procedures, thereby increasing the range of possible techniques available to both statistical theorists and practitioners across all fields

\u3cstrong\u3eIt\u27s, Like, Just Science:\u3c/strong\u3e Exploring the Use of the Discourse Marker \u3cem\u3eLike\u3c/em\u3e in Casual Scientific Communication

Discourse markers (DMs) are a grammatical category that include words that contribute non-content meaning to an utterance, including um and like. DMs are often heavily linked to prescriptivist teachings because of the association that they impede the perceived credibility of the speaker. In this study, I conduct a quantitative analysis on the impact of the English DM like on the ability of participants to remember and understand scientific information presented to them in an audio format. I examined four different like frequencies: zero, low (10 likes per 1000 words), medium (50 likes per 1000 words), and high (100 likes per 1000 words). I found that there were only marginal differences between the performance of participants who heard different frequencies of like around a given piece of information. However, I found that there was a significant difference in the standard deviations for participant performance at the highest like frequency, indicating that while lower like frequencies tend to have a more consistent impact on the performance of participants, the highest frequency causes both strongly positive and strongly negative impacts on different participants’ performance. I propose that the familiarity of different like frequencies in everyday contexts impacts this difference in standard deviation. Therefore, while there is no universal correlation between like frequency and listener comprehension, the frequency of like does have an impact on how the listener responds to the scientific audio

Inclusion and Hegemony: Reading Salmān al-Fārisī\u27s Conversion Story

In the otherwise expansive medieval Arabic literature, the scarcity of information concerning the conversion process of the early Islamic community piques interest in the handful of existing conversion narratives.One particular narrative that stands out is the conversion story of Salmān al-Farisi, recounting his transformation from a devout Zoroastrian to a dedicated companion of Prophet Muhammad. In the compilation of stories of Salmān al-Farisi by Louis Massignon named Khabar Salmān, the persistence of many plot elements across different accounts of the story suggests a deliberate process of repetition and canonization. Recognizing the Salmān al-Farisi story as a site of memory, curation, and elite intentions, this paper considers the purpose of the story in forging Muslim identity, managing intergroup dynamics, and maintaining political power within the early Islamic community

With Liberty and Justice For All? The U.S. Internment of Japanese Peruvians During World War II

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States committed to a policy of interning more than 120,000 Japanese Americans. While Japanese American detention remains the most researched instance of wartime internment, the U.S. incarceration of Japanese Peruvians merits equal attention. The political forces behind Japanese Peruvian internment transcended the more common explanations that haunt so much of literature today. Racism and hysteria played their respective roles in this history of wartime internment, but as the war progressed, other reasons for Japanese internment emerged. On January 4, 1942, the Japanese began interning American civilians in the Philippines. Days later, the U.S. State Department decided to hold Japanese Peruvians hostage for the purpose of aiding American repatriation. America used hostage-taking as a political instrument of war, facilitating the return of more than 3,000 American citizens. Such retaliation, however, came at the human cost of interning more than 1,000 Japanese Peruvians without charge in places like Crystal City, Texas

A Loving Compilation Of Ecopoems: An Anthology Of My Favorites From The Ecopoetry And Climate Crisis Course Syllabus And Beyond

This anthology draws from a series of poems that I read as a college junior in a humanities-focused environmental studies class at Swarthmore College, as well as ecopoems that I have read in my own free time. It is meant to honor each of these poems that touched me in a unique way, which I will discuss in my commentary. For some, I was drawn to the poem’s overall message, or strong sensory language, or the identity of the poet that seeped through. I love poetry as a medium of expression, even though I sometimes struggle to find my poetic voice. Throughout this anthology, there is no one cohesive theme, except for the genre of ecopoetry, of course. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy these musings, and come away with a new sense of appreciation, curiosity, and wonder for these poems. Thank you for reading

“Students find corporate reforms absurd”: Bryn Mawr Student’s Mobilization for Divestment from Apartheid South Africa

In 1986, Bryn Mawr College’s endowment held $8 million or 8.33$96 million endowment in investments tied to Apartheid in South Africa. In line with other major US institutions who believed they must act moral in the face of violent and exploitative system of racial discrimination, the Board of Trustees, the governing body that oversees college operations and finances, proposed a plan in 1985 to divest from subsidiaries of their stock in South Africa if Apartheid was still in place 24 months later in 1987. This came at the tail end of the international movement to oppose and end Apartheid through economic pressures. Bryn Mawr students would reject this plan, occupying buildings and mobilizing campus to disrupt Board meetings. Students said they would not rest until full divestment. Their movement held a shared commitment to ending Apartheid in South Africa and to ending racism in the United States. This paper narrates how the social and economic movements against Apartheid panned out at Bryn Mawr College in the 1980s. Based on my original primary source research at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges’ special collections, I uncover the tactics and frameworks of the student movement to divest as well as the college’s response. Inevitably, the administration took partial measures to accommodate some of the demands of the student movement for divestment. The nexus between the student movement for divestment and the college administration took new heights in 1986. In this year, the students rejected the college’s newly presented plan for divestment, as they understood it as a mere palliative measure in the face of the violence and racism of Apartheid. To understand the student zeitgeist at the time , I illuminate the historical context of the movement against Apartheid by situating it in relation to the preceding anti-War and Civil Rights movements. The later era of activism precipitated into the New Left movement, which was a radical student movement grounded in ideas of political and economic democracy. I provide readers with a primer on the foundations of ethical investment in South Africa. The college’s plan embodied the corporate responsibility ethos of the 80s, which sought to maintain capitalism and pacify very popular alternatives through modest reforms. These principles undergirded Bryn Mawr College’s eventual divestment strategy, which sought to maintain profit and to make a statement about their opposition to the political system of Apartheid. To make this argument, I draw on archival discussions of corporate responsibility politics and the theory of change they espouse which forwarded reform through pressuring the companies they held stock in. I engage in an analysis of discourses emerging from a school-sponsored trip to South Africa in the winter of 1986, which was dubbed a “Peace Mission Fact Finding Trip.” This analysis is essential to understanding student and faculty perspectives, as there was not a consensus on the subject. In the end, Bryn Mawr adopted a divestment plan that was in the name of corporate responsibility. They wrote letters to the corporations they held stock in who had subsidiaries in South Africa, and asked what they were going to do to end Apartheid. The school sold $651,558 in 1986 of stock from the 5 companies, a mere 0.67% of the total endowment

Tokyo-bot: Emulating Industrial Automation

Our E90 project was to design, assemble, and program an omni-directional robot that integrated a web camera to intelligently sort (and ideally transfer from one location to another) colored boxes. The purpose of this project was to simulate an industrial workplace setting where similar types of sorting processes occur, and be able to optimize them. Developing a robot with high maneuverability combined with object detection capabilities could prove to be useful in optimizing workflows in warehouses and processing factories where items constantly need to be located and transported. With three group members, each with their own specializations, the project was divided up into mechanical prototyping/development, implementing swerve drive kinematics with software, and implementing object/color detection with computer vision software

From Crisis to Care: Non-Profit Approaches to Homelessness and Mental Health in Philadelphia Throughout COVID-19

In this study, I explore the intersection of homelessness and mental health in Philadelphia through the lens of three non-profit organizations dedicated to addressing these challenges. Central questions guiding this research include: “How do these organizations understand and integrate mental health considerations into their missions and services? How did the Covid-19 pandemic impact their services?” My methodology involves analyzing data from the City of Philadelphia\u27s Office of Homeless Services to understand homelessness trends, while also examining non-profit organizations\u27 responses to COVID-19 challenges. This includes assessing mission alignment, financial management, and service provision through mission statement analysis, financial allocation, and comparing service provision with funding. Limitations acknowledged include incomplete data from organizations and the inability to directly engage with service recipients due to time constraints. I discovered that the efforts undertaken by these organizations are indeed making a difference, yet there is still considerable work to be done. This includes placing a greater emphasis on adopting a housing-first approach, which has proven effective in assisting homeless individuals in securing and maintaining long-term housing while enhancing their capacity to access and utilize mental health treatments when necessary