Opening the Closet Door: Exploring the Role of Social Media in the Coming Out Process for Individuals who Self-Identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Queer (LGBQ)

Social media has become synonymous with every day communication in our technologically advanced society. Individuals use it to share information, make plans with friends and keep up with folks geographically dispersed from them. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals often use social media to find other individuals with whom they can share about their sexual orientation. In this study we use qualitative methods to examine the role of social media in the coming out process and the experiences of individuals who self-identify as LGBQ. We focus on one emergent theme: feelings of decreased risk in sharing online

Secret agent insiders to whiteness: mixed race women negotiating structure and agency

In this dissertation, I explore the life stories of sixteen adult mixed race women who have one white parent and one parent who is a person of color. I examine how these women navigate their hybridity, what we can learn from their stories in our efforts to communicate across lines of racial difference, and what experiences the participants share that cross racial and ethnic lines. Data sources include multiple individual and group interviews with predominately middle-class, educated women living in San Francisco/Oakland, Albuquerque, and Boston. I coded the interview transcripts for themes and patterns and situated my analyses in relation to discourses of postcolonial hybridity, multiraciality, and social justice. In relation to navigating hybridity, the women's experiences reveal an interplay between personal agency, claimed through fluid identities, and limitations to social mobility and acceptance created by social, cultural, and institutional structures. When asked or compelled to choose, all participants chose to align themselves with people of color. I identify several factors that contribute to their ability to communicate across lines of racial difference including physical ambiguity, learning about multiple world views early in life, keen observation, and active listening. Several shared experiences emerged that crossed racial lines. The women in my study largely rejected their white identities, experienced their identities in fluid ways despite this rejection, claimed the right to self-identify racially/ethnically, and sought community with other mixed race people. One of the most significant findings is the degree to which many of the participants' stories were dedicated to discussions of cultural whiteness, which they viewed as inextricably linked to racism and white supremacy. This work adds to the small but growing field of mixed race studies and provides information on improving education for social justice. These narratives serve as embodied experiences of hybridity, challenging the disembodied postcolonial hybridity theories prevalent in the literature that disregard the actual lived experiences of "hybrid"/mixed race people. The stories and analysis also reveal ways in which racism and white privilege are enacted on social and institutional levels, and raise questions about theories of diversity built on racial binaries

LiSET: A framework for early-stage life cycle screening of emerging technologies

While life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool often used to evaluate the environmental impacts of products and technologies, the amount of data required to perform such studies make the evaluation of emerging technologies using the conventional LCA approach challenging. The development paradox is such that the inputs from a comprehensive environmental assessment has the greatest effect early in the development phase, and yet the data required to perform such an assessment are generally lacking until it is too late. Previous attempts to formalize strategies for performing streamlined or screening LCAs were made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, mostly to rapidly compare the environmental performance of product design candidates. These strategies lack the transparency and consistency required for the environmental screening of large numbers of early‐development candidates, for which data are even sparser. We propose the Lifecycle Screening of Emerging Technologies method (LiSET). LiSET is an adaptable screening‐to‐LCA method that uses the available data to systematically and transparently evaluate the environmental performance of technologies at low readiness levels. Iterations follow technological development and allow a progression to a full LCA if desired. In early iterations, LiSET presents results in a matrix structure combined with a “traffic light” color grading system. This format inherently communicates the high uncertainty of analysis at this stage and presents numerous environmental aspects assessed. LiSET takes advantage of a decomposition analysis and data not traditionally used in LCAs to gain insight to the life cycle impacts and ensure that the most environmentally sustainable technologies are adopted

Roads as nitrogen deposition hot spots

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Biogeochemistry 114 (2013): 149-163, doi:10.1007/s10533-013-9847-z.Mobile sources are the single largest source of nitrogen emissions to the atmosphere in the US. It is likely that a portion of mobile-source emissions are deposited adjacent to roads and thus not measured by traditional monitoring networks, which were designed to measure longterm and regional trends in deposition well away from emission sources. To estimate the magnitude of near-source nitrogen deposition, we measured concentrations of both dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and total (inorganic + organic) dissolved nitrogen (TDN) in throughfall (i.e., the nitrogen that comes through the forest canopy) along transects perpendicular to two moderately trafficked roads on Cape Cod in Falmouth MA, coupled with measurements of both DIN and TDN in bulk precipitation made in adjacent open fields at the same transect distances. We used the TDN throughfall data to estimate total nitrogen deposition, including dry gaseous nitrogen deposition in addition to wet deposition and dry particle deposition. There was no difference in TDN in the bulk collectors along the transects at either site; however TDN in the throughfall collectors was always higher closest to the road and decreased with distance. These patterns were driven primarily by differences in the inorganic N and not the organic N. Annual throughfall deposition was 8.7 (+0.4) and 6.8 (+0.5) TDN - kg N ha-1 yr-1 at sites 10 m and 150 m away from the road respectively. We also characterized throughfall away from a non-road edge (power line right-of-way) to test whether the increased deposition observed near road edges was due to deposition near emission sources or due to a physical, edge effect causing higher deposition. The increased deposition we observed near roads was due to increases in inorganic N especially NH4 +. This increased deposition was not the result of an edge effect; rather it is due to near source deposition of mobile source emissions. We scaled these results to the entire watershed and estimate that by not taking into account the effects of increased gaseous N deposition from mobile sources we are underestimating the amount of N deposition to the watershed by 13% - 25%.This research was supported by Woods Hole SeaGrant (grant NA06OAR4170021), NSF IGERT (grant DGE 0221658), an Edna Bailey Sussman Environmental Internship Award from Cornell University, and a Mellon Foundation award though Cornell University.2014-04-1

La réification : généalogie d'un concept critique

Ce mémoire explore l’utilisation du concept de «réification» comme concept critique permettant d’appréhender les pathologies propres à la modernité. Georg Lukács, élabore la première définition du concept de «réification» dans son essai «La réification et la conscience du prolétariat». Lukács y définit la réification comme ce moment où «un rapport, une relation entre personne prend le caractère d’une chose» masquant ainsi le fondement même de toute relation: les hommes eux-mêmes. Reprenant ainsi en grande partie le bagage théorique marxiste, Lukács donne un sens plus large au concept «d’aliénation» et de «fétichisme de la marchandise». Lukács développe cette définition du concept de réification à partir d’une relecture de Marx, mais une relecture fortement influencée par les travaux de Georg Simmel sur la «dépersonnalisation» inhérente au développement de l’économie marchande et ceux de Max Weber portant sur la tendance naturelle des sociétés modernes à la «rationalisation formelle». Ces auteurs décrivent de quelle manière la structure de l’échange marchand pénètre toutes les sphères de la vie humaine et a des conséquences autant objectives que subjectives, notamment dans les relations interpersonnelles. Dans un deuxième temps, ce mémoire montre comment cet héritage propre au concept de «réification» est mobilisé par Theodor W. Adorno, dans une tentative pour penser l’émancipation et de critiquer la tendance du «monde administré» à la réification. Il observe cette tendance dans le concept même de «raison» hérité des Lumières. La raison devient purement instrumentale et devient un outil de domination. La réification entraîne une déshumanisation et une plus grande froideur dans les rapports humains. Ainsi, la raison elle-même doit être mise en cause dans l’avènement de la catastrophe que représente «Auschwitz». C’est sur ces fondements théoriques qu’Adorno construit une philosophie morale soucieuse du problème de la réification en énonçant un nouvel impératif catégorique: «la non-répétition d’Auschwitz»

Développement et expérimentation d'algorithmes de réorientation pour un robot sériel en chute libre

Ce mémoire présente 2 types de méthodes pour effectuer la réorientation d’un robot sériel en chute libre en utilisant les mouvements internes de celui-ci. Ces mouvements sont prescrits à partir d’algorithmes de planification de trajectoire basés sur le modèle dynamique du robot. La première méthode tente de réorienter le robot en appliquant une technique d’optimisation locale fonctionnant avec une fonction potentielle décrivant l’orientation du système, et la deuxième méthode applique des fonctions sinusoïdales aux articulations pour réorienter le robot. Pour tester les performances des méthodes en simulation, on tente de réorienter le robot pour une configuration initiale et finale identiques où toutes les membrures sont alignées mais avec le robot ayant complété une rotation de 180 degrés sur lui-même. Afin de comparer les résultats obtenus avec la réalité, un prototype de robot sériel plan flottant possédant trois membrures et deux liaisons rotoïdes est construit. Les expérimentations effectuées montrent que le prototype est capable d’atteindre les réorientations prescrites si peu de perturbations extérieures sont présentes et ce, même si le contrôle de l’orientation est effectué en boucle ouverte.This master’s thesis presents two different types of methods to reorient a free-floating serial manipulator with internal motion using path planning algorithms based on a dynamic model of the manipulator. The first method attempts to reorient the robot with a local optimisation technique using a potential function describing the global orientation of the robot, while the second method applies sinusoidal functions to the joints of the robot in order to reorient it. The proposed methods are tested with a robot that starts from a pose in which all the links are aligned and ends with the same configuration but with the robot having completed a 180 degrees rotation. To verify the simulation results against a real robot, a prototype of a planar robot with three bodies and two revolute joints is built. The experiments conducted show that the prototype is able to achieve the prescribed reorientation if almost no external torque is applied to the system, even though the control of the orientation is implemented in an open-loop mode

Veritas & Ces histoires qui nous détruisent

Veritas: À la recherche d'une cabale de démons mangeurs d'enfants qui contrôlerait l'État, les suivants de Veritas, une théorie du complot créée dans les coins sombres de l'Internet par l'énigmatique prophète Vox, renversent la civilisation comme on la connaît. Mais ils ne s'arrêtent pas là : lorsqu'il ne leur reste plus d'ennemi extérieur, ils forment des factions et s'entredéchirent au nom de la vérité absolue, chaque faction étant convaincue que toutes les autres ont abandonné la voie. Dans les ruines âprement disputées d'une cité sans nom, cinq survivants tentent d'échapper aux fanatiques et à leurs envies meurtrières. L'influence pernicieuse et tordue de Veritas s'étend cependant sur eux, les retourne l'un contre l'autre et les transforme... ou révèle plutôt leurs parts d'ombre. Ces histoires qui nous détruisent: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion et QAnon, deux théories du complot du XXe et du XXIe siècle respectivement, emploient dans leur narration des procédés directement tirés de la fiction littéraire. Ce mémoire tente de les identifier et d'expliquer leur utilité dans la diffusion des théories du complot concernées. Ce mémoire étudie la structure, la voix narrative, la forme du discours et la présence de clichés littéraires dans The Protocols. En ce qui concerne QAnon, l'analyse prouve que l'histoire racontée par l'énigmatique « Q » et ses légions anonymes est en fait une reprise modernisée de l'histoire des Protocols. Le mémoire se penche également sur les influences littéraires de QAnon et sur les techniques uniques de narration participative de la théorie

Substitution modeling can coherently be used in attributional life cycle assessments

ABSTRACT: Most life cycle assessment (LCA) studies use the attributional methodology. This approach attributes a share of global environmental impacts to one or multiple functions provided by a normatively circumscribed system. Multifunctional systems that are not technologically subdivisible between co-functions are frequently encountered in LCA studies. It then becomes necessary to resort to co-production modeling techniques, like the substitution approach. The use of substitution modeling in attributional LCA (ALCA) is, however, discouraged amongst practitioners, due to the alleged violation of central requirements of the attributional methodology. The objective of this research is to shed light on common misconceptions about the compatibility of substitution with ALCA. The first misconception is that the use of substitution in ALCA violates the conservation of total environmental impacts. We find that this idea arises from a confusion regarding the attribution of impacts to the secondary product(s). The second misconception stipulates that substitution is not coherent with the state-descriptive characteristic of ALCA. We conclude that we can describe a given system as resulting from an inferred (substitution) change, rather than as disrupted by this change. Finally, we discuss the choice of the substituted technology, and argue there is a logic to marginal substitution in ALCA. We therefore recommend accepting substitution modeling in ALCA

Les agressions sexuelles avant et après la réforme de 1983 : une évaluation des pratiques dans le district judiciaire de Montréal

La loi C-127, entrée en vigueur le 4 janvier 1983, introduisit des changements importants au Code criminel relativement aux agressions sexuelles. Le rapport tente d'évaluer l'impact de ces changements, tant négatifs que positifs, aussi bien sur les victimes que sur les agresseurs ou sur les intervenants. La recherche décrit l'agression sexuelle et ses protagonistes; présente les pratiques du système de justice et des services sociaux avant et après la Loi; évalue l'impact de cette Loi sur ces pratiques; recueille le point de vue des victimes; et analyse les opinions des principaux intervenants auprès des victimes.Ministère de la Justice du Canad

On the financial balance of input–output constructs: revisiting an axiomatic evaluation

Financial balance is fundamental to input–output (IO) analysis, and consequently the respect of this balance is one of the dominant criteria in evaluating IO constructs. Kop Jansen, and ten Raa [(1990) The Choice of Model in the Construction of Input–Output Coefficients Matrices. International Economic Review 31, 213] proved that the byproduct-technology construct (BTC) and the industry-technology construct (ITC) do not generally conserve financial balance. In contrast, Majeau-Bettez et al. [(2016) When do Allocations and Constructs Respect Material, Energy, Financial, and Production Balances in LCA and EEIO? Journal of Industrial Ecology 20, 67–84] demonstrated that the BTC necessarily respects financial balance and that the ITC is always financially balanced when applied to data recorded in monetary units. The present article resolves this paradox