Information Complexity, Presentation Rhetoric and Message Impact:The Case of American Healthcare Reform Debate

This study explores how presentation rhetoric affects message impact on a complex issue that is difficult to comprehend for the general public and becomes a debatable issue at large, such as the current American healthcare reform initiatives. The paper reports the results from an experimental study that compared the differential impact on viewers of two rhetorically contrasting videos on the current American healthcare debate. Both the videos shared almost identical narratives by the same presenter. Video-One simulated realistic, face-to-face communication while Video-Two was ‘infotainment’-oriented and presented the discussion using entirely computer-generated multimedia. The data yielded by this study suggests that perceivably objective messages that include a combination of text, imagery and sound tend to arouse and involve its viewers more and, thereby, may garner a greater impact on its viewers and enhance their understanding of a complex issue than presentations that lack these qualities

The political economy of uneven rural development : the case of the nonfarm sector in Kerala, India

The rural nonagricultural/nonfarm sector (RNFS) has been gaining prominence in (rural) development theory and practice in many developing countries of the world since the 1970s. It is widely argued that the RNFS is able to generate employment and reduce poverty in rural economies, which are otherwise plagued by a stagnant agricultural sector. The existing literature on the RNFS has situated the development of the RNFS in terms of its economic linkage with rural-agricultural or urban-industrial sectors. While this literature has contributed to our understanding of the RNFS, it has not adequately explained the processes and outcomes of RNFS in relation to its capitalist class character. In other words, there is a dearth of political-economic analysis of an important sphere of economic activity. This inadequacy along with the fact that much of the research on rural capitalist relations (i.e. on rural political economy) has been on rural-agricultural activity, define the points of departure for this research project. This dissertation examines the historical-geographical development of capitalist/class relations of non-agricultural activity within rural spaces. The study is contextualized in the coir industry -- an important rural nonagricultural industry -- in Kerala, India. The empirical findings of this research show that class differentiation and class relations in the RNFS emerge historically and spatially, driven by the principles of commercialization, capitalist accumulation, profit maximization and competition. Colonialism set the stage for the initial economic subordination of labor under capital in the coir industry, establishment of capitalist market and formation of a huge reserve army of surplus labor. Production in the industry is dominated by its capitalist form. Relations to property and labor power are expressed in a variety of place-specific forms. These include not only relations between private capital and labor but also capital-labor relations in the cooperative and state-managed sectors. A large section of the economically active population in the coir sector, which can be called a reserve army of labor, is 'self-employed' and connected to the capitalist system in the realm of exchange relations. Employers employ workers at low wages and control them through various mechanisms including technological control at the point of production, which workers accept owing to their vulnerable conditions in the struggle for a living wage. Class relations also condition and are reinforced by non-class relations of gender and caste in the coir industry

Feeding the fire: Tracing the mass-loading of 10^7 K galactic outflows with O VI absorption

Galactic outflows regulate the amount of gas galaxies convert into stars. However, it is difficult to measure the mass outflows remove because they span a large range of temperatures and phases. Here, we study the rest-frame ultraviolet spectrum of a lensed galaxy at z~2.9 with prominent interstellar absorption lines from O I, tracing neutral gas, up to O VI, tracing transitional phase gas. The O VI profile mimics weak low-ionization profiles at low velocities, and strong saturated profiles at high velocities. These trends indicate that O VI gas is co-spatial with the low-ionization gas. Further, at velocities blueward of -200 km/s the column density of the low-ionization outflow rapidly drops while the O VI column density rises, suggesting that O VI is created as the low-ionization gas is destroyed. Photoionization models do not reproduce the observed O VI, but adequately match the low-ionization gas, indicating that the phases have different formation mechanisms. Photoionized outflows are more massive than O VI outflows for most of the observed velocities, although the O VI mass outflow rate exceeds the photoionized outflow at velocities above the galaxy's escape velocity. Therefore, most gas capable of escaping the galaxy is in a hot outflow phase. We suggest that the O VI absorption is a temporary by-product of conduction transferring mass from the photoionized phase to an unobserved hot wind, and discuss how this mass-loading impacts the observed circum-galactic medium.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Women Empowerment, A Myth or Reality? A Reflection on Gender Empowerment Measure, especially in Assam

Today society demands to formulate inclusive growth for our socio-economic development. In order to achieve this target, there should be a rationalization of the trend of growth of human resource development indices. Human resource development indicates two things: human development and human resource development. Human Resource development is measured by Human Development Index. Human development means the development of life expectancy at birth, literacy and decent standard of living. Human resource development means enlargement of the people's choices, their skills, capacities, attitudes etc. (UNDP Report, 1996) Besides these indicators of development as a whole, for measuring women empowerment there are separate indices for women itself. The Human Development Report in 1998 contains two gender aware measurements i.e. Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The GDI indicates three variables of Human Development Index for measuring women status regarding their life expectancy, educational attainment and their standard of living. The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) looks at women representation in parliament, women's share of managerial and professional job and women's share of national income. However, in the present society there is a demand to formulate human capital. It means that it is the quality of human beings which helps in the development of the country in accelerating the pace of development. For enhancing the pace of growth and development, there should be access to equal rights for everyone. But in reality we get a negative picture in the context of Gender Empowerment Measures. Whenever we talk about the status of women then it has been found that more than 90% women are engaged in unorganized sector, their works are not officially counted, they get lower wage than the men for the same work, they have comparatively poor health status, low educational status, and lower skill than the men. They are generalized as a group of vulnerable and marginalized section in all spheres viz. in educational field, in social situation, in economic activities and political field and so on. Key words: Women, development and its reality

Religious Ambience on Social Media: A Case Study in A Pandemic Situation

Social media has been crucially important today in the pandemic situation. This work is rooted in key questions: whether social media consumption increases during a pandemic and does the communicative action of social media target religious ambience? The findings show that the flow of messages has increased on social media platforms during pandemic. However, the communicative action of social media is not targeted toward religious ambience. This work is based on data collected through a qualitative survey in the context of Assam, a state of India. The study concludes the communicative action of social media depends on its users' profiles. Users’ profile is perhaps the determining factor regarding religious ambience on social media

Spin Projection and Correlation Experiments in Nanoelectronic Devices

A key element in quantum computing applications is the ability to measure non-local correlations, known as entanglement, as well as reliably generate them. A naturally occurring source of entangled spin pairs is the superconducting condensate, from which spin singlet Cooper pairs can be split into two QDs on each side of a s-wave superconductor. Such Cooper pair splitter (CPS) devices have already been demonstrated in various systems, such as InAs nanowires (NWs), carbon nanotubes (CNTS) and graphene. A strong charge current correlation between the two output terminals has been demonstrated already, but a spin correlation, as expected for split singlet states, is missing and is even conceptually problematic so far. Such spin correlation measurements, i.e. the expectation value of the product of spin projection operators \left of the two QDs in a CPS device, requires efficient spin readout of the split electrons without destroying the superconducting state of the emitter. The idea is to use the two QDs for spin filtering, achievable by applying locally different magnetic fields. A lower CPS current is then expected for the parallel spin projection axes with respect to the antiparallel ones. In general, the most essential requirements for such an complex experiment can be summarized as: (1) highly polarized QDs with large electrical tunability of the QD spin polarization for efficient spin detection in close proximity to a superconductor; (2) coexistence of superconductivity and locally varying magnetic fields in close proximity to each other, such that the critical field of the superconductor is much higher than the local magnetic field strength; and (3) the CPS current in both QDs should exhibit non-local spin correlations in a specific pattern, i.e. higher for antiparallel spin projection axes.\ In this thesis, we investigate all the above criteria using electron spin transport through engineered QDs in InAs NWs, chosen predominantly due to their large g-factors in QDs. We first show a new approach to control electron spin currents in QDs using stray magnetic fields locally generated from individual nanomagnets. Using this approach, we demonstrate electrically tunable highly efficient spin injection and detection in a double quantum dot spin valve (DQD-SV). We then use this efficient spin detection technique in a Cooper pair splitter device to perform spin readout and filtering of the CPS conductance signal. In addition, electron spin state engineering at very large magnetic fields through the Pauli spin blockade (PSB) effect is also presented