Contesting the Dominance of Neoliberalism: The Ideograph as a Force for Social Change

Recent scholars have challenged the notion that neoliberalism is a coherent, dominant, and monolithic ideology on the basis of its diverse, transnational intellectual origins and the varied ways it has been applied in practice across the world. Further, they call into question the usefulness of conceiving neoliberalism as an utterly hegemonic power, because such a conception precludes the possibility for any resistance or social change in the future. I use McGee’s (1980) theory of the ideograph to understand neoliberalism’s dominance and rise to power, positing that neoliberalism has ascended in the United States because it has appropriated and redefined the ideographs that are the basis of the shared American rhetorical culture. I then explore the possibilities for resistance against neoliberalism, arguing that dominant ideologies must be contested in positive ways that go beyond mere denunciation or posturing against — that is, it is not enough to be an “anti-neoliberal.” Finally, I suggest, following (Touraine, 2001), that social actors may move “beyond neoliberalism” by contesting its dominance on the level of the ideograph, seeking to (re)-define and (re)-conceptualize the values and collective commitments that establish the American people as a “public.

Shared Governance at Virginia Commonwealth University: Increasing Awareness of Shared Governance Among Faculty

Abstract SHARED GOVERNANCE AT VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: INCREASING AWARENESS OF SHARED GOVERNANCE AMONG FACULTY By Andrea H. Becker, Carlton H. Goode, Jennifer C. Rivers, Melissa W. Tyler A capstone project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2022. Capstone Chair: Jonathan D. Becker, Ph.D., Department of Educational Leadership The primary focus of this study is to understand and define the concept of shared governance as practiced at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The researchers approached the study through three guiding questions: What is shared governance as understood through relevant literature and practice; What are the current faculty perceptions of shared governance at VCU; How can awareness of shared governance be increased at the institution? A naturalistic study was conducted including a thorough literature review and narrative data collection from focus groups, individual interviews, and a modified charrette. Participants included faculty across the institution from a variety of ranks, units, and demographics. The study found faculty perceptions and literature speak to two overarching ways to experience shared governance at VCU: structure and culture. Structural components included the lack of standardized systems, workflow, and communication methods between university stakeholders. Cultural components encompassed decreased trust, engagement, and value of engaging in shared governance. Using the information collected, this paper offers recommendations for a collective definition of shared governance and strategies for increasing awareness. Keywords: shared governance, faculty governance, participatory governance, structure, communication, recognition, trust, transparenc

Use of Two Pathogen-inhibiting Streptomyces Isolates for Biocontrol of Scab Disease of Raphanus sativus

Streptomyces species are ubiquitous soil bacteria that are promising as biological control agents due to their prolific antibiotic production that can inhibit soil-borne plant pathogens. This includes Streptomyces scabies, which causes scab disease on underground storage organs. The goal of this research was to test two Streptomyces isolates that have known inhibitory and biocontrol abilities against S. scabies in a potato (Solanum tuberosum) agricultural system for their effectiveness in biocontrol of this pathogen in a radish (Raphanus sativus) greenhouse assay. Pathogenic S. scabies were mixed into either pasteurized or unpasteurized soil prior to planting. Radish seeds or radish roots were soaked in a spore suspension of the two biocontrol Streptomyces isolates. Controls of treatments without the pathogen and the biocontrol Streptomyces were included. Radish plants were grown to maturity. Upon harvesting, the radish taproot was rated for scab disease and tuber weight and length were determined. Disease levels were reduced in the presence of the two biocontrol Streptomyces. Taproot weight was greater in the treatments that included the biocontrol Streptomyces. In addition, evidence was sought to determine the ability of these Streptomyces isolates and other pathogen-inhibiting bacteria to enter into an endophytic relationship with the radish plant. For this, several protocols were assessed to try to optimize the isolation of endophytic bacteria from stem and taproot tissue. Surface-sterilized tissue sections (stem and taproot) or macerated stem tissue spread on agar plates have indicated the presence of several bacterial endophytes, including two putative Streptomycete isolates from the stem tissue sections. The search for additional endophytic bacteria capable of inhibiting the scab pathogen are currently underway. The results of this study are promising for the use of these Streptomyces isolates for biocontrol against scab disease in radish

Feasibility-Guided Safety-Aware Model Predictive Control for Jump Markov Linear Systems

In this paper, we present a framework that synthesizes maximally safe control policies for Jump Markov Linear Systems subject to stochastic mode switches. Our approach builds on safe and robust methods for Model Predictive Control (MPC), but in contrast to existing approaches that either optimize without regard to feasibility or utilize soft constraints that increase computational requirements, we employ a safe and robust control approach informed by the feasibility of the optimization problem. When subject to inaccurate hybrid state estimation, our feasibility-guided MPC algorithm generates a control policy that is maximally robust to uncertainty in the system's modes. Additionally, we formulate the notion of safety guarantees for multiple-model receding horizon control using Control Barrier Functions (CBF) to enforce forward invariance in safety-critical settings. We simulate our approach on a six degree-of-freedom hexacopter under several scenarios to demonstrate the utility of the framework. Results illustrate that the proposed technique of maximizing the robustness horizon, and the use of CBFs for forward-invariance, improve the overall safety and performance of Jump Markov Linear Systems

Optimality Guarantees for Particle Belief Approximation of POMDPs

Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide a flexible representation for real-world decision and control problems. However, POMDPs are notoriously difficult to solve, especially when the state and observation spaces are continuous or hybrid, which is often the case for physical systems. While recent online sampling-based POMDP algorithms that plan with observation likelihood weighting have shown practical effectiveness, a general theory characterizing the approximation error of the particle filtering techniques that these algorithms use has not previously been proposed. Our main contribution is bounding the error between any POMDP and its corresponding finite sample particle belief MDP (PB-MDP) approximation. This fundamental bridge between PB-MDPs and POMDPs allows us to adapt any sampling-based MDP algorithm to a POMDP by solving the corresponding particle belief MDP, thereby extending the convergence guarantees of the MDP algorithm to the POMDP. Practically, this is implemented by using the particle filter belief transition model as the generative model for the MDP solver. While this requires access to the observation density model from the POMDP, it only increases the transition sampling complexity of the MDP solver by a factor of $\mathcal{O}(C)$, where $C$ is the number of particles. Thus, when combined with sparse sampling MDP algorithms, this approach can yield algorithms for POMDPs that have no direct theoretical dependence on the size of the state and observation spaces. In addition to our theoretical contribution, we perform five numerical experiments on benchmark POMDPs to demonstrate that a simple MDP algorithm adapted using PB-MDP approximation, Sparse-PFT, achieves performance competitive with other leading continuous observation POMDP solvers

Characterizing groundwater flow and heat transport in fractured rock using Fiber-Optic Distributed Temperature Sensing

International audienceWe show how fully distributed space-time measurements with Fiber-Optic Distributed Temperature Sensing (FO-DTS) can be used to investigate groundwater flow and heat transport in fractured media. Heat injection experiments are combined with temperature measurements along fiber-optic cables installed in boreholes. Thermal dilution tests are shown to enable detection of cross-flowing fractures and quantification of the cross flow rate. A cross borehole thermal tracer test is then analyzed to identify fracture zones that are in hydraulic connection between boreholes and to estimate spatially distributed temperature breakthrough in each fracture zone. This provides a significant improvement compared to classical tracer tests, for which concentration data are usually integrated over the whole abstraction borehole. However, despite providing some complementary results, we find that the main contributive fracture for heat transport is different to that for a solute tracer

The use of ASBOs against young people in England and Wales: lessons from Scotland

The Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) is one of the best known measures used to tackle anti-social behaviour. In keeping with the popular conception, the order is frequently used against young people. Of all ASBOs issued in England and Wales up to the end of 2005, roughly 40% were imposed on under-18s. This article begins with a brief outline of the three principles at the heart of the celebrated Scottish children’s hearings system. With reference to these principles, and to the provisions which govern the use of the order against 12–15 year olds north of the border, the article then discusses five areas of concern about the use of ASBOs against young people in England and Wales: the readiness to resort to ASBOs; the forum for ASBO applications; the terms of ASBOs; publicising the details of ASBOs; and custodial net-widening. The article ends by suggesting reforms to the ASBO regime in England and Wales insofar as it is used against young people