Shedding Light on the Matter of Abell 781

The galaxy cluster Abell 781 West has been viewed as a challenge to weak gravitational lensing mass calibration, as Cook and dell'Antonio (2012) found that the weak lensing signal-to-noise in three independent sets of observations was consistently lower than expected from mass models based on X-ray and dynamical measurements. We correct some errors in statistical inference in Cook and dell'Antonio (2012) and show that their own results agree well with the dynamical mass and exhibit at most 2.2--2.9$\sigma$ low compared to the X-ray mass, similar to the tension between the dynamical and X-ray masses. Replacing their simple magnitude cut with weights based on source photometric redshifts eliminates the tension between lensing and X-ray masses; in this case the weak lensing mass estimate is actually higher than, but still in agreement with, the dynamical estimate. A comparison of lensing analyses with and without photometric redshifts shows that a 1--2$\sigma$ chance alignment of low-redshift sources lowers the signal-to-noise observed by all previous studies which used magnitude cuts rather than photometric redshifts. The fluctuation is unexceptional, but appeared to be highly significant in Cook and dell'Antonio (2012) due to the errors in statistical interpretation.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to MNRA

Othering the Brother: Toward a Sibling-Oriented Ethics of Care

This project is an examination of issues of childcare, gendered responsibilities, and family identity informed by feminist and queer theory. As the second oldest in a family of eight, I have always understood myself primarily as a big brother. Rooted in this experience, this project is an exploration of feminist care ethics as they pertain to existing family structures. I review and build upon feminist conversations surrounding the family, especially concerning motherhood. Then, working with more recent queer and trans discourse, I explore how different familial care practices have been limited, reconfigured, or erased under dominant cis-heteronormative notions of care. This complicates many of the mother-oriented feminist theories of care, while still accounting for the work that occurs within the family—however \u27family\u27 may be defined. Finally, I look at Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse to recover and rethink representations of sibling care, especially as an alternative to the reproduction of gendered roles which often occurs between parent and child. This project sketches a theory of sibling care practices, articulating what they have meant to me and what they can mean for our current social demands. Ultimately, I seek to understand how sibling relationships can forge networks of care beyond the typical family hierarchies and how the public sibling subject stands as a new ethical position which may attend to specifically queer needs

Developing a Strategy for Using Technology-Enhanced Items in Large-Scale Standardized Tests

As large-scale standardized tests move from paper-based to computer-based delivery, opportunities arise for test developers to make use of items beyond traditional selected and constructed response types. Technology-enhanced items (TEIs) have the potential to provide advantages over conventional items, including broadening construct measurement, increasing measurement opportunities, and improving test-taker engagement. However, TEIs also come with some potential disadvantages, including difficulty in determining with precision what it is they measure beyond conventional items, if anything. This paper examines TEIs in light of the need by test makers to develop an evidence-based argument for their use. It offers some guiding questions and considerations toward the creation of a coherent strategy for incorporating TEIs into large-scale assessments. Accessed 4,227 times on https://pareonline.net from February 02, 2017 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

A Multilevel Examination of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior Decision-making: The Role of Citizenship Pressure, Moral Disengagement, and Moral Intensity

Unethical pro-organizational behaviors (UPB) are unethical behaviors that are intended to benefit the organization or its members. Research on this type of behavior typically involves assessing attitudinal and dispositional predictors of UPB but has largely failed to understand the process through which UPB occurs. One potential elicitation process could be through a perceived obligation that an employee has to help their organization, or citizenship pressure. By adapting Rest’s four stage model of ethical decision-making and social exchange theory, the current study aimed to identify how organizational identification might increase perceptions of citizenship pressure, and how citizenship pressure might influence elements of the UPB decision-making process. Using a sample of employed U.S. adults recruited via MTurk, we employed a scenario-based design. Results of multilevel analyses, controlling for social desirability, revealed a significant relationship between citizenship pressure and some elements of UPB. Moral disengagement did not significantly mediate the citizenship pressure-UPB relationship as we hypothesized, but it had strong simple relationships with UPB. Finally, moral intensity, or the severity of the immoral behavior, moderated the relationship between moral disengagement and UPB. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that UPB may be caused, in part, by citizenship pressure. Further, we empirically demonstrate that individuals have more difficulty disengaging from violations that they judge as being more intense. Finally, ours is one of a few studies to examine moral disengagement from a situational standpoint, and we found significant within-person effects of moral disengagement across situations

Revolutionaries in Space? A Counter-Review of Interstellar

Should the radical Left interpret the Nolans\u27 Interstellar as a tribute to (neo)liberal expansionism or should we view it as a cautionary tale about a future that is just around the corner, which won\u27t be solved by worm holes or time travel? This review takes the latter position against the recent Jacobin review, which argues the former. Here, I show that Interstellar can be productively reinterpreted as a film about a series of things that will NOT save us from our-late-capitalist-selves

Utopia, A Must: A Review Essay on Benjamin Kunkel’s Utopia or Bust

Utopia or Bust, more than many foundational alternatives, forcefully though with non-sectarian wisdom, re-implants the notion of utopia to the front-of-the-line of Left theory (whether economic, geographic, political, social, and/or cultural). Kunkel\u27s introductory survey reminds us through Harvey, among others, that “Utopia exists and that other systems, other spaces, are still possible

Automatons, Robots, and Capitalism in a Very Wrong Twenty-First Century: A Review Essay on Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie

Contrary to prevailing opinions, Neill Blomkamp’s recent feature film Chappie is not a movie about robots or artificial intelligence. It is not Robocop. It is not Short Circuit. It is also not District 9 or Elysium. Chappie is a movie about humanity’s dialectically creative and destructive potential. It is a movie about how it is that humans come to behave how they do through their social and material circumstances, as well as the barbaric results when the two are mixed under the thoroughly undemocratic conditions of neoliberal capitalism

The influence of side vent length on instrument flexural fatigue of three endodontic irrigating needles

The purpose of this in-vitro study was to compare the influence of the side vent length on flexural fatigue and subsequent failure of three endodontic irrigating needles. Twenty ProRinse Endodontic Irrigation Probes, twenty-three Max-i-Probes, and twenty Vista-Probe Irrigating Tips were used in this study. All three irrigating needles are 30-gauge, have a side-vented port, and are safe-ended. After all side vent lengths were measured and recorded, each needle was subjected to flexing cycles of 30° until flexural fatigue occurred and the instrument permanently failed. Data were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD test. Results indicate the Vista-Probe required a significantly greater number of cycles to produce flexural fatigue as compared to the ProRinse and Max-i-Probe irrigating probes (p \u3c .0001). However, the length of the side vent as it relates to flexural fatigue within each individual needle group did not appear to be statistically significant (p \u3e .05)