Contesting and Constructing Gender, Sexuality, and Identity in Women\u27s Roller Derby

In this dissertation project I use the case of women’s roller derby to examine gender resistance in spaces produced and dominated by women. I examine the challenges and strategies roller derby participants deploy in resistance to the gender binary and its gender mandates, and whether or not these strategies and cultural expressions are oppositional or political. Through a combination of ethnography, participant-observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of web and print media on roller derby, I explain how women’s roller derby participants construct identity, varying types of femininities, and engage in forms of cultural resistance through their sport. I analyze the political and cultural challenges skaters and the sport of roller derby pose to the gender binary, mainstream gender expectations, and understandings of femininity and sexuality, and investigate how those challenges manifest at the level of individual identity, roller derby organization, and roller derby cultural symbolism. I argue that the skaters’ embodied practices challenge and disrupt notions of gender, sexuality, body, and identity

Potpourri: reflections from husband/wife academic editors

The authors provide a review of some of the more notable experiences they have had editing an academic journal and dealing with other editors of journals and books over the past thirty-five years. They address the use of the English language, poor scholarship, the refereeing process and the possible demise of economic education as a scholarly activit

Potpourri: reflections from husband/wife academic editors

The authors provide a review of some of the more notable experiences they have had editing an academic journal and dealing with other editors of journals and books over the past thirty-five years. They address the use of the English language, poor scholarship, the refereeing process and the possible demise of economic education as a scholarly activit

Uncovering Teaching Faculty Personas to Understand Comfort Levels in Using Technology in Their Online Classes

Faculty’s knowledge about, and comfort with, the use of technology tools are key components in online teaching. Faculty are not only expected to be adept with basic computer functionality, like creating and editing documents and managing files, but also in navigating their institutions Learning Management System (LMS) and utilizing course teaching technologies and tools. Together these areas comprise a significant portion of design and facilitation of an online course and are related to learning outcomes. When engaging with the online learning environment, it is thus critical for each instructor to consider their personal level of comfort utilizing various online technology tools and resources. For faculty to be successful in the online classroom space, identification of individual needs and skills associated with teaching online must be determined, and resources curated. Over the spring and summer of 2022, 40 UNLV faculty across 10 colleges were interviewed about their experiences in online teaching with the aim to uncover prevailing themes that will serve to inform future interactions and professional development offerings. Growth through professional development, combined with use of online tools and targeted teaching resources by instructors can result in more robust course creation and preparation, elevated student support and learning outcomes, and enhanced student engagement and success.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1194/thumbnail.jp

Simulated LSST Survey of RR Lyrae Stars throughout the Local Group

We report on a study to determine the efficiency of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) to recover the periods, brightnesses, and shapes of RR Lyrae stars' light curves in the volume extending to heliocentric distances of 1.5 Mpc. We place the smoothed light curves of 30 type ab and 10 type c RR Lyrae stars in 1007 fields across the sky, each of which represents a different realization of the LSST sampling cadences, and that sample five particular observing modes. A light curve simulation tool was used to sample the idealized RR Lyrae stars' light curves, returning each as it would have been observed by LSST, including realistic photometric scatter, limiting magnitudes, and telescope downtime. We report here the period, brightness, and light curve shape recovery as a function of apparent magnitude and for survey lengths varying from 1 to 10 years. We find that 10 years of LSST data are sufficient to recover the pulsation periods with a fractional precision of ~10^(–5) for ≥90% of ab stars within ≈360 kpc of the Sun in Universal Cadence fields and out to ≈760 kpc for Deep Drilling fields. The 50% completeness level extends to ≈600 kpc and ≈1.0 Mpc for the same fields, respectively. For virtually all stars that had their periods recovered, their light curve shape parameter φ_31 was recovered with sufficient precision to also recover photometric metallicities to within 0.14 dex (the systematic error in the photometric relations). With RR Lyrae stars' periods and metallicities well measured to these distances, LSST will be able to search for halo streams and dwarf satellite galaxies over half of the Local Group, informing galaxy formation models and providing essential data for mapping the Galactic potential. This study also informs the LSST science operations plan for optimizing observing strategies to achieve particular science goals. We additionally present a new [Fe/H]-φ_31 photometric relation in the r band and a new and generally useful metric for defining period recovery for time domain surveys

The Effects of Equine-Assisted Therapy on Gait in Adults with Parkinson’s Disease: A Preliminary Analysis

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic, progressive, neurological disorder caused by the destruction of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain. To treat motor symptoms of PD, individuals may choose alternative modes of exercise, such as equine-assisted therapy (EAT), to improve physiological health. PURPOSE: To determine changes in gait following 8 weeks of Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) in older men with PD. METHODS: Six older adults (age = 68.0 ± 8.6 yrs; height = 178.6 ± 8.3 cm; weight = 93.4 ± 16.3 kg; Hoehn and Yahr classification = 2.8 ± 0.4; time since diagnosis = 7.3 ± 5.0 yrs) performed two, 60-minute riding sessions weekly for 8 weeks. Before, midway, immediately after, and at two points following the EAT program (at 8 weeks and 16 weeks), spatiotemporal parameters of gait were measured using motion capture with infrared markers strategically placed on lower-body anatomical landmarks. Participants walked at a self-selected speed without the use of an assistive device in the capture space for 15 consecutive strides, turned around, and walked back across the space. Gait velocity, step length, time spent in stance phase, time spent in swing phase, toe clearance were collected. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis-of-variance and a Bonferroni correction with a significance level of 0.05. RESULTS: Gait velocity (101.8 ± 29.1 vs. 109.2 ± 34.9 vs. 116.3 ± 32.8 vs. 105.7 ± 26.2 vs. 108.0 ± 25.4 cm/s for pre-EAT, midway through EAT, immediately post-EAT, 8 weeks after EAT concluded, and 16 weeks after EAT concluded, respectively) was significant across all time points (p = 0.03). All other variables were statistically similar (p \u3e 0.05) across all time points. CONCLUSION: There is an observable trend towards significance in each gait variable immediately after 8 weeks of EAT. The study is ongoing and will further explore these differences

Horn Coupled Multichroic Polarimeters for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarization Experiment

Multichroic polarization sensitive detectors enable increased sensitivity and spectral coverage for observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). An array optimized for dual frequency detectors can provide 1.7 times gain in sensitivity compared to a single frequency array. We present the design and measurements of horn coupled multichroic polarimeters encompassing the 90 and 150 GHz frequency bands and discuss our plans to field an array of these detectors as part of the ACTPol project

M Dwarfs in SDSS Stripe 82: Photometric Light Curves and Flare Rate Analysis

We present a flare rate analysis of 50,130 M dwarf light curves in SDSS Stripe 82. We identified 271 flares using a customized variability index to search ~2.5 million photometric observations for flux increases in the u- and g-bands. Every image of a flaring observation was examined by eye and with a PSF-matching and image subtraction tool to guard against false positives. Flaring is found to be strongly correlated with the appearance of H-alpha in emission in the quiet spectrum. Of the 99 flare stars that have spectra, we classify 8 as relatively inactive. The flaring fraction is found to increase strongly in stars with redder colors during quiescence, which can be attributed to the increasing flare visibility and increasing active fraction for redder stars. The flaring fraction is strongly correlated with |Z| distance such that most stars that flare are within 300 pc of the Galactic plane. We derive flare u-band luminosities and find that the most luminous flares occur on the earlier-type M dwarfs. Our best estimate of the lower limit on the flaring rate (averaged over Stripe 82) for flares with \Delta u \ge 0.7 magnitudes on stars with u < 22 is 1.3 flares hour^-1 square degree^-1 but can vary significantly with the line-of-sight.Comment: 44 pages, 13 figure

Multi-wavelength Characterization of Stellar Flares on Low-mass Stars using SDSS and 2MASS Time Domain Surveys

We present the first rates of flares from M dwarf stars in both red optical and near-infrared (NIR) filters. We have studied ~50,000 M dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 area and 1321 M dwarfs from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Calibration Scan Point Source Working Database that overlap SDSS imaging fields. We assign photometric spectral types from M0 to M6 using (r – i) and (i – z) colors for every star in our sample. Stripe 82 stars each have 50-100 epochs of data, while 2MASS Calibration stars have ~1900 epochs. From these data we estimate the observed rates and theoretical detection thresholds for flares in eight photometric bands as a function of spectral type. Optical flare rates are found to be in agreement with previous studies, while the frequency per hour of NIR flare detections is found to be more than two orders of magnitude lower. An excess of small-amplitude flux increases in all bands exhibits a power-law distribution, which we interpret as the result of flares below our detection thresholds. In order to investigate the recovery efficiency for flares in each filter, we extend a two-component flare model into the NIR. Quiescent M0-M6 spectral templates were used with the model to predict the photometric response of flares from u to Ks . We determine that red optical filters are sensitive to flares with u-band amplitudes 2 mag, and NIR filters to flares with Δu 4.5 mag. Our model predicts that M0 stars have the best color contrast for J-band detections, but M4-M6 stars should yield the highest rate of NIR flares with amplitudes of ΔJ ≥ 0.01 mag. Characterizing flare rates and photometric variations at longer wavelengths is important for predicting the signatures of M dwarf variability in next-generation surveys, and we discuss their impact on surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope