Trapped

The full-length contemporary ballet Trapped used Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" to examine contemporary issues surrounding the life and brutal death of transgender teen Gwen Araujo. The new work premiered at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center Feb. 22nd and 23rd at 8:00 p.m. I was inspired by the airing of the Lifetime channel made-for-TV movie "A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story." The movie was based on a true story. It told the story of a teen who was violently attacked and killed by three men. They killed her after learning that she was biologically male. After seeing the movie, I wanted to take the opportunity to hear and think about her story, and to share it with a new audience. The dance is supported by Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Trapped altered the well-known synopsis and merged it with Gwen's story. In both versions, a woman dies violently in the end and that is the common factor between the works. The cast of Trapped include 11 dancers from the University of Maryland. Each night the ensemble hosted a talk back with the National Community Engagement Campaign on the issues raised by the piece

Note and Comment

Safeguarding the Criminal Defendant - Every now and then a new attack is made somewhere in the United States upon the rule prohibiting comment before the jury upon the fact that the defendant in a criminal case has not testified as a witness in his own behalf. At the present time an effort of this kind is being made in the Michigan legislature, and the introduction of the bill drew quite a little storm of protest from the State press as a dangerous inroad upon our ancient guarantees of personal liberty and security. In fact, however, it directly touches nothing more ancient than a statutory privilege which dates from the year i86i. By the Public Acts of that year the disability of parties to actions to testify as witnesses in this State was removed, but it was expressly provided that defendants in criminal cases could not be compelled to testify, but might do so or not at their own pleasure. (Act No. 125, §2). In 1881 an amendment to this statute was passed providing, as to the defendant in a criminal case, that his neglect to testify shall not create any presumption against him, nor shall the court permit any reference or comment to be made to or upon such neglect. (Pub. Acts, 188I, No. 245). And this is the form it retains in the Judicature Act. (Ch. 17, §64)

Using Topological Statistics to Detect Determinism in Time Series

Statistical differentiability of the measure along the reconstructed trajectory is a good candidate to quantify determinism in time series. The procedure is based upon a formula that explicitly shows the sensitivity of the measure to stochasticity. Numerical results for partially surrogated time series and series derived from several stochastic models, illustrate the usefulness of the method proposed here. The method is shown to work also for high--dimensional systems and experimental time seriesComment: 23 RevTeX pages, 14 eps figures. To appear in Physical Review

BESC knowledgebase public portal†

The BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) is undertaking large experimental campaigns to understand the biosynthesis and biodegradation of biomass and to develop biofuel solutions. BESC is generating large volumes of diverse data, including genome sequences, omics data and assay results. The purpose of the BESC Knowledgebase is to serve as a centralized repository for experimentally generated data and to provide an integrated, interactive and user-friendly analysis framework. The Portal makes available tools for visualization, integration and analysis of data either produced by BESC or obtained from external resources

Schooling and Poor Children in 19th-Century America

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68138/2/10.1177_000276429203500307.pd

Medicinal plants used by women in Mecca: urban, Muslim and gendered knowledge

Background: This study explores medicinal plant knowledge and use among Muslim women in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Ethnobotanical research in the region has focused on rural populations and male herbal healers in cities, and based on these few studies, it is suggested that medicinal plant knowledge may be eroding. Here, we document lay, female knowledge of medicinal plants in an urban centre, interpreting findings in the light of the growing field of urban ethnobotany and gendered knowledge and in an Islamic context. Methods: Free-listing, structured and semi-structured interviews were used to document the extent of medicinal plant knowledge among 32 Meccan women. Vernacular names, modes of preparation and application, intended therapeutic use and emic toxicological remarks were recorded. Women were asked where they learnt about medicinal plants and if and when they preferred using medicinal plants over biomedical resources. Prior informed consent was always obtained. We compared the list of medicinal plants used by these Meccan women with medicinal plants previously documented in published literature. Results: One hundred eighteen vernacular names were collected, corresponding to approximately 110 plants, including one algae. Of these, 95 were identified at the species level and 39 (41%) had not been previously cited in Saudi Arabian medicinal plant literature. Almost one half of the plants cited are food and flavouring plants. Meccan women interviewed learn about medicinal plants from their social network, mass media and written sources, and combine biomedical and medicinal plant health care. However, younger women more often prefer biomedical resources and learn from written sources and mass media. Conclusions: The fairly small number of interviews conducted in this study was sufficient to reveal the singular body of medicinal plant knowledge held by women in Mecca and applied to treat common ailments. Plant availability in local shops and markets and inclusion in religious texts seem to shape the botanical diversity used by the Meccan women interviewed, and the use of foods and spices medicinally could be a global feature of urban ethnobotany. Ethnobotanical knowledge among women in Islamic communities may be changing due to access to mass media and biomedicine. We recognise the lack of documentation of the diversity of medicinal plant knowledge in the Arabian Peninsula and an opportunity to better understand gendered urban and rural knowledge