Construction and Import of Ethnic Categorisations: “Allochthones” in The Netherlands and Belgium

Schematically one can distinguish two traditions related to ethnic statistics in Europe. In France, Germany and most southern European countries, the dominant statistical categorisations merely distinguish individuals on the basis of their nationality. In contrast, most northern European countries have been producing data on the ethnic and/or foreign origin of their populations. Belgium is caught somewhere in between these two traditions. The French speaking part of Belgium tends to follow the French tradition of refusing ethnic categorisation, while the Flemish (the Dutch speaking part) try to copy the Dutch model in distinguishing “allochthones” and “autochthones”. This contribution wants to offer an analysis of the construction of ethnic categories as it has been undertaken in the Dutch context. It equally wants to shed light on how the category of “allochthones” has been (partially) imported into the Belgian context and what the consequences are.Ethnic Categorisation, Statistics, “Allochthones”, the Netherlands, Belgium

Camelpox virus encodes a schlafen-like protein that affects orthopoxvirus virulence.

Camelpox virus (CMLV) gene 176R encodes a protein with sequence similarity to murine schlafen (m-slfn) proteins. In vivo, short and long members of the m-slfn family inhibited T-cell development, whereas in vitro, only short m-slfns caused arrest of fibroblast growth. CMLV 176 protein (v-slfn) is most closely related to short m-slfns; however, when expressed stably in mammalian cells, v-slfn did not inhibit cell growth. v-slfn is a predominantly cytoplasmic 57 kDa protein that is expressed throughout infection. Several other orthopoxviruses encode v-slfn proteins, but the v-slfn gene is fragmented in all sequenced variola virus and vaccinia virus (VACV) strains. Consistent with this, all 16 VACV strains tested do not express a v-slfn detected by polyclonal serum raised against the CMLV protein. In the absence of a small animal model to study CMLV pathogenesis, the contribution of CMLV v-slfn to orthopoxvirus virulence was studied via its expression in an attenuated strain of VACV. Recombinant viruses expressing wild-type v-slfn or v-slfn tagged at its C terminus with a haemagglutinin (HA) epitope were less virulent than control viruses. However, a virus expressing v-slfn tagged with the HA epitope at its N terminus had similar virulence to controls, implying that the N terminus has an important function. A greater recruitment of lymphocytes into infected lung tissue was observed in the presence of wild-type v-slfn but, interestingly, these cells were less activated. Thus, v-slfn is an orthopoxvirus virulence factor that affects the host immune response to infection

Scaling test for Wilson twisted mass QCD

We present a first scaling test of twisted mass QCD with pure Wilson quarks for a twisting angle of pi/2. We have computed the vector meson mass and the pseudoscalar decay constant for different values of beta at fixed value of r_0 m_PS. The results obtained in the quenched approximation are compared with data for pure Wilson and non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson computations. We show that our results from Wilson twisted mass QCD show clearly reduced lattice spacing errors, consistent with O(a) improvement and without the need of any improvement terms added. These results thus provide numerical evidence of the prediction in ref. [1].Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures; v2: two typos corrected, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.

Heat Island Mitigation Assessment and Policy Development for the Kansas City Region

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory partnered with Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) to quantify the costs and benefits from the adoption of urban heat island (UHI) countermeasures in the Kansas City region (population 1.5 million), and identify the best regional implementation pathway for MARC. The team selected cool (high-albedo) roofs and increased vegetation as the two countermeasures to evaluate. For vegetation, there were two strategies: (1) planting new trees to shade building surfaces, and (2) increasing urban irrigation (a surrogate for the use of vegetation to manage stormwater) to increase evapotranspiration. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model we simulated selected weeks during summer time, across five years (2011 2015) representing a range of normal summer conditions. We also simulated six of the most intense heatwaves that occurred between 2004 and 2016. We found under typical summer conditions (non-heatwave) average daytime (07:00 19:00 local standard time) regional near-ground air temperature reductions of 0.08 and 0.28 C for cool roofs and urban irrigation, respectively. We calculated the building electricity, electricity cost, and emission savings that result from the reduction in outdoor air temperature (indirect savings) and found maximum regional annual indirect electricity savings of 42.8 GWh for cool roofs and 85.6 GWh for urban irrigationyielding maximum regional annual indirect electricity cost savings of $5.6M ($0.05/m2 roof) and $11.1M ($0.01/m2 irrigated land), respectively, and maximum regional annual CO2 savings of 43.4 kt and 80 kt, respectively.We next evaluated the building energy, energy cost, and emission savings from reducing direct absorbed radiation on the building surfaces using cool roofs and shade trees (direct savings). For cool roofs, we found regional annual direct energy cost savings of $10.9M ($0.15/m2 roof) with regional annual CO2 savings of 66.4 kt. For shade trees, the regional annual direct energy cost savings were $21M ($21/tree) with regional annual CO2 savings of 126 kt. We investigated cool roof cost premiums (the additional cost for selecting a cool roof product in lieu of a conventional roof product, estimated to be zero to $2.15/m2) and shade tree first costs (assumed to be$100 per tree). The regional cool roof cost premium was calculated using the regional roof area per roofing material type and the range of cool roof product premiums for each material type. The extra cost of selecting cool roofs across the region ranged from $4.33M to$87.1M, while the additional shade trees planted across the region were assumed to cost $102M. When we compared the regional annual direct cost savings to the regional cool-roof cost premium and the regional shade-tree first cost, we found regional simple payback times up to 8.0 years for cool roofs and 4.9 years for trees, respectively.Since this comprehensive assessment of UHI countermeasures is a valuable methodology for other local governments to apply, we developed a step-by-step guide for others to follow. Based on the benefits and costs of the UHI countermeasures, MARC will pursue the inclusion of these countermeasures in existing regional plans where they can complement other regional priorities for transportation, climate resiliency, clean air, and hazard mitigation. They hosted a local workshop in 2016 for stakeholders to introduce the topic and will continue to share these resources to further appropriate adoption of UHI countermeasures

Language reform as language ideology: an examination of Israeli feminist language practice

textThis dissertation, an ethnographic and sociolinguistic case study of Israeli feminist practices, investigates the relationship between language use, language ideology, and the socio-cultural construction of gender and gender identity. Taking the definition of language use presented by McConnell-Ginet (1988) as a guide, I analyze both the linguistic behavior and the metalinguistic discourse of fifteen self-identified Israeli feminists, to determine how ideologies related to language, gender, and philosophies of social change interact with the structural and sociolinguistic facts of Modern Israeli Hebrew (MIH) to shape these women’s intentional and habitual practices of language use. I used the theoretical concepts of “indexicality” (Ochs 1992) and “community of practice” (Holmes and Meyerhoff 1999) to examine how the participants in my study used the linguistic resources in their socio-culture repertoire to negotiate a coherent social identity in both feminist and mainstream Jewish Israeli contexts. To date, most of the literature on feminist language practice has examined these issues in English or other Indo-European language speaking contexts. This dissertation contributes to the discussion on the relationship between language and gender by examining these issues in a Hebrew-speaking context. Hebrew, a root-and-pattern language, has a binary system of gender based noun classification in which agreement is marked on predicates as well as pronouns and adjectives. Thus, avoiding gender pre-specification of animate referents in language use, particularly spoken language, is extremely difficult. Furthermore, the association of cultural gender characteristics with the grammatical categories of MASCULINE and FEMININE, through the processes of iconization and erasure (Gal and Irvine 2000), has more implications for meanings of gendered forms. Feminist Hebrew is distinguished from the contemporary and the prescribed standard uses of Modern Israeli Hebrew in three specific ways: (1) the use of hyper-standardized FEMININE forms for referential and indexical marking of feminine gender in sex-specific contexts, (2) the use of FEMININE forms for ambiguous generic or definite inclusive reference, and (3) the overt double gendering of nominal or predicate forms (the Hebrew equivalent of he/she) in speaking or writing. The dissertation includes a detailed quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic analysis of my informants’ practices to explain how they used variables from feminist and conventional varieties of MIH to express both referential and social-indexical meaning. I discuss the possible social meanings of inter-speaker and intra-speaker variation. I explore what these meanings can (or cannot) tell us about each woman’s status in the community as well as the overall relationship between language use and the constitutive nature of the Israeli feminist community. Finally, I examine the sociolinguistic strategies employed by two women, an Israeli feminist politician and a Jewish feminist activist married to an Arab man, to explore how they use the full range of their linguistic repertoires to negotiate their identities in specific socio-cultural contexts.Linguistic

Random Packings of Frictionless Particles

We study random packings of frictionless particles at T=0. The packing fraction where the pressure becomes nonzero is the same as the jamming threshold, where the static shear modulus becomes nonzero. The distribution of threshold packing fractions narrows and its peak approaches random close-packing as the system size increases. For packing fractions within the peak, there is no self-averaging, leading to exponential decay of the interparticle force distribution.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Young lesbians’ narratives of disclosure : lessons for educational psychologists

Abstract : Homosexuality is a concept that has been given a significant amount of attention in recent years. In South Africa LGBT individuals are protected by the constitution and thus allowed the freedom to publicly exhibit their sexualities. Despite these strides’ lesbians are discriminated, violently attacked and even raped in the name of curing them. Society seems to sides with the compulsory heteronormative ideals and thus creates an unfavourable platform for young lesbians to disclose. This has even taken up roots in the school context where patriarch policing is done regularly to perpetuate these ideals. Existing literature has investigated to the experience of lesbians during various phases of the process of disclosure, mainly in the familial context. The present study will explore and describe the narratives of disclosure with specific reference to the school context with hopes to provide lessons for educational psychologists. Discourse analysis will be used to explore the narratives of young lesbians who had disclosed their sexual identities wile at school. Five lesbians were sourced and invited to be interviewed. Open-ended interviews were conducted requesting the participants to discuss their narratives of disclosure. The interviews were then transcribed verbatim including relevant nonverbal behaviours and analysis of the interviews followed using relevant discourse analysis criteria. The findings of the present study suggested that in the participants disclosures were often perceived as a joke and loved ones disregarded the seriousness and often attributed it to a passing phase. Furthermore, there is a notion of pathology that is seen as the antecedent to becoming lesbian. Responses from loved one to the new sexual identity, often took the form of maladaptive coping mechanisms. It was found that there was a lack of awareness surrounding sexual identities and confusion about how to navigate the new identity. In addition, some of the participants experiences psychological symptoms as a result which could have been remedied by a mental health profession. The school context can be seen as one of the primary sites involved in the process of disclosure. In this space heteronormative ideals are latently enforced, iv when one does not subscribe to such norms they are seen as defiant, for this reason the participants experienced discrimination and even violence. The participants articulated that they would have appreciated the support of a psychologist during their disclosures. As this was not available to them, those who were fortunate enough acquired lackadaisical support from loved ones. For this reason, it is important that psychological service (individual and family therapy as well as psychoeducation) is available to such populations. The present study contributes towards a South African description of the narratives of disclosure of young lesbians. Recommendations based on the conclusions of the study’s findings have been presented as well as suggestions for future research.M.Ed. (Educational Psychology

Bodyweight Perceptions among Texas Women: The Effects of Religion, Race/Ethnicity, and Citizenship Status

Despite previous work exploring linkages between religious participation and health, little research has looked at the role of religion in affecting bodyweight perceptions. Using the theoretical model developed by Levin et al. (Sociol Q 36(1):157–173, 1995) on the multidimensionality of religious participation, we develop several hypotheses and test them by using data from the 2004 Survey of Texas Adults. We estimate multinomial logistic regression models to determine the relative risk of women perceiving themselves as overweight. Results indicate that religious attendance lowers risk of women perceiving themselves as very overweight. Citizenship status was an important factor for Latinas, with noncitizens being less likely to see themselves as overweight. We also test interaction effects between religion and race. Religious attendance and prayer have a moderating effect among Latina non-citizens so that among these women, attendance and prayer intensify perceptions of feeling less overweight when compared to their white counterparts. Among African American women, the effect of increased church attendance leads to perceptions of being overweight. Prayer is also a correlate of overweight perceptions but only among African American women. We close with a discussion that highlights key implications from our findings, note study limitations, and several promising avenues for future research

Critical structure factor in Ising systems

We perform a large-scale Monte Carlo simulation of the three-dimensional Ising model on simple cubic lattices of size L^3 with L=128 and 256. We determine the corresponding structure factor (Fourier transform of the two-point function) and compare it with several approximations and with experimental results. We also compute the turbidity as a function of the momentum of the incoming radiation, focusing in particular on the deviations from the Ornstein-Zernicke expression of Puglielli and Ford.Comment: 16 page