Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet

Abstract for “Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet” This paper explores the source of the traditional practice of Chinese footbinding which first gained popularity at the end of the Tang dynasty and continued to flourish until the last half of the twentieth century.[1] Derived initially from court concubines whose feet were formed to represent an attractive “deer lady” from an Indian tale, footbinding became a wide-spread symbol among the Chinese of obedience, pecuniary reputability, and Confucianism, among other things.[2],[3] Drawing on the analyses of such scholars as Beverly Jackson, Valerie Steele and John S. Major as well as historical personal accounts, the article concludes that the underlying goal in engaging in the footbinding practice was to raise a girl’s chances of being married into a family of the highest social class possible. [1] Valerie Steele and John S. Major, China Chic: East Meets West (Singapore: Yale University Press, 1999), 37. [2] Wang Ping, Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China (University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 12. [3] Harold Koda, Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001), 152

Seismic Waves

I was studying abroad in Florence, Italy on November 9, 2016, when I awoke to the news that Donald Trump had been elected President. To say it was a shock was an understatement, like many Americans, I had never dreamed the scenario possible. At that moment, I felt more powerless and disconnected from my country than ever before. For the next few weeks, I struggled to comprehend how I personally could combat the assault on my political views and values, what stand I could take, and what impact it might have. Finally, on one of many emotional phone calls with my father, he reminded me that positive change can happen regardless of who the President is, so long as people like me refuse to be silent on the issues that matter. When I was presented with the offer to participate in the English Honors Program, I knew I wanted to use this opportunity to understand and give voice to my unique perspective on this unprecedented political moment. This collection of poems is titled Seismic Waves in allusion to the seemingly unending series of events that have rocked this nation since the election of Donald Trump. Travel bans, healthcare battles, the firing of James Comey, Neo-Nazis marching in the streets, the ending of DACA, an ongoing investigation into Russian collusion, the looming threat of war with North Korea – and those are just the highlights. But the waves have come from more than one side, as we bear witness to the rise of everyday revolution and resistance. Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, #MeToo, Time’s Up, and #NeverAgain are just a few of the movements that have garnered unparalleled support and spurred incredible action throughout the world with their clarity of message and strength of conviction. Finally, Seismic Waves deals with my personal aftershocks, exploring the lasting ways the result of the 2016 election has altered my life and relationships, and allowed me the catharsis of working through painful memories and emotions by the age-old act of putting pen to paper. Seismic Waves is everything that we’ve lived through since the election and everything that waits in the future. No matter what happens next, we’ll certainly feel it coming

Automated Find Fix and Track with a Medium Altitude Long Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft

A limitation in RPA ISR operations is loss of target track if the command link is severed. For an RPA to effectively execute the ISR mission without a command link, it needs the capability to F2T targets autonomously. Automated Find Fix and Track (AFFTRAC) was developed to help solve this problem by demonstrating a proof of concept tactical autopilot. Monocular stereo vision was used to process sequential images acquired during orbit to produce a partial structural point cloud of the original structure. This partial structural point cloud was then exploited to create a holding area density for the aircraft to stay within. A simple greedy algorithm exploited this holding area density to produce aircraft turn commands to approximate tactical ISR holding. The result was that imagery from existing MQ-9 sensors was used to provide command guidance to autonomously to maintain line of sight to a target. Overall, AFFTRAC is a promising initial framework for a tactical autopilot, but additional development is needed to mature component algorithms

Depressive Symptoms and Eating Behaviors: Do Atypical Symptoms Drive Associations with Food Attentional Bias, Emotional Eating, and External Eating?

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Depression is an emerging risk factor for obesity; however, it is unclear whether certain depressive symptoms drive this relationship. Recent evidence suggests that atypical major depressive disorder (MDD) – whose key features include the reversed somatic-vegetative symptoms of hyperphagia (increased appetite) and hypersomnia (increased sleep) – is a stronger predictor of future obesity than other MDD subtypes. The present study sought to examine food attentional bias (increased attention to food cues), emotional eating (eating in response to negative emotions), and external eating (eating in response to external food cues) as candidate mechanisms of the depression-to-obesity relationship. This cross-sectional laboratory study hypothesized that total depressive symptom severity, hyperphagia severity, and hypersomnia severity would all be positively associated with measures of food attentional bias, emotional eating, and external eating. Data were collected from a sample of 95 undergraduate students. Depressive symptom severity was measured using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-20); two measures of food attentional bias were obtained from eye tracking with high calorie food images: direction bias and duration bias; and emotional eating and external eating were assessed using the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Simultaneous regression models (adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, body mass index, and subjective hunger) revealed total depressive symptom severity and hypersomnia severity were not associated with measures of food attentional bias, while hyperphagia severity was negatively associated with direction bias but not associated with duration bias for high and low calorie food images. Findings related to emotional and external eating are consistent with previous literature: total depressive symptom severity and hyperphagia severity were positively associated with both emotional eating and external eating, and the pattern of results suggests that hyperphagia may be driving relationships between depressive symptoms and these eating behaviors. Hypersomnia severity was not associated with emotional eating and external eating, suggesting this symptom does not play an important role in the relationships between depressive symptoms and these eating behaviors. Future studies should examine prospective associations of hyperphagia severity with food attentional bias, emotional eating, and external eating in larger, more representative samples

Acknowledgement, Education, Memory: Reframing the Cemetery Landscapes of the Enslaved

The landscape holds onto the nearly imperceivable cemeteries of the formerly enslaved population that have been erased through time, development, and censure of historical narratives in Louisiana. Immediate action is necessary to retie censured chronicles of enslavement to the landscape, educating the public on deep-rooted systemic racism in the contemporary environment. This thesis aims to provide reparations to the Black and descendant communities of southern Louisiana. This work acknowledges the remaining cemetery fragments, reframing and knitting them together as a network of spaces that uphold a more holistic memory of the past. The role of landscape architecture extends beyond site specific design, creating nested interventions that layer land policy, institutional support, and memorial landscape design. Each layer acts as a sieve, filtering accessibility from educational resources to the specific cemetery locations of the formerly enslaved. Ultimately focusing on providing safe and physical access to Black and descendent communities. An educational institution brings together multi-disciplinary resources that advocate for, provide monetary support to, and further research the preservation of enslaved cemeteries. Traditional notions of preservation are challenged; moving away from systems architectural merit and laborious compilation site history that dominates historical landscape preservation. Instead, a network of cemetery sites protected through land easements argues the larger contextual importance of slavery in the state and national dialogue. To create a barrier of privacy between educational and physical access, a series of road-side memorials interventions are designed. Together, layered approaches of policy, education, and design can be utilized in landscape architecture to engage with complex site and audience challenges. Despite the focus on Louisiana, this work is applicable broader the United States who have historic legacies of slavery nestled within their landscape

PARADOXES OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS PLANNING

During two research projects to identify the difficulties associated with information systems planning (ISP), it became apparent that IS managers and users often do not apply a number of commonly accepted guidelines for successful ISP. This paper reports some instances in which the guidelines were not applied. It also explains the neglect of the guidelines and the incentives ISP participants had for not applying them. The findings suggest further research and also have practical implications for IS managers

Nitrogen isotopes in deep time

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for life, and its sources and cycling have varied over earth history. Stable isotope ratios of nitrogen compounds (expressed as δ15N, in ‰) are preserved in the sedimentary record and track these changes, providing important insights into associated biogeochemical feedbacks. Here we review the use of nitrogen stable isotope geochemistry in unravelling the evolution of the global N cycle in deep time. We highlight difficulties with preservation, unambiguous interpretations, and local versus global effects. We end with several case studies illustrating how depositional and stratigraphic context is crucial in reliably interpreting δ15N records in ancient marine sediments, both in ancient anoxic (Archean) and more recent well oxygenated (Phanerozoic) environments.Postprin