Conceptualizing from the Inside: Advantages, Complications, and Demands on Insider Positionality

The debate on insider/outsider positionality has raised issues about the methodological advantages and liabilities between the two, yet no clear account exists for what insider scholars can expect when they enter the field. First, I conceptualize how insider positionality can dually benefit and disadvantage the insider. Using a partial review of insider studies, including my study of my multigenerational Mexican American family, I also present a practical discussion on specific insider advantages and complications. In conclusion, I present a new approach to training novice insider scholars that will help them mediate between insider perspective and researcher position, an approach that promises greater rigor to insider research that will serve the goals of qualitative research for social justice in minority and indigenous communitie

Product line architecture recovery with outlier filtering in software families: the Apo-Games case study

Software product line (SPL) approach has been widely adopted to achieve systematic reuse in families of software products. Despite its benefits, developing an SPL from scratch requires high up-front investment. Because of that, organizations commonly create product variants with opportunistic reuse approaches (e.g., copy-and-paste or clone-and-own). However, maintenance and evolution of a large number of product variants is a challenging task. In this context, a family of products developed opportunistically is a good starting point to adopt SPLs, known as extractive approach for SPL adoption. One of the initial phases of the extractive approach is the recovery and definition of a product line architecture (PLA) based on existing software variants, to support variant derivation and also to allow the customization according to customers’ needs. The problem of defining a PLA from existing system variants is that some variants can become highly unrelated to their predecessors, known as outlier variants. The inclusion of outlier variants in the PLA recovery leads to additional effort and noise in the common structure and complicates architectural decisions. In this work, we present an automatic approach to identify and filter outlier variants during the recovery and definition of PLAs. Our approach identifies the minimum subset of cross-product architectural information for an effective PLA recovery. To evaluate our approach, we focus on real-world variants of the Apo-Games family. We recover a PLA taking as input 34 Apo-Game variants developed by using opportunistic reuse. The results provided evidence that our automatic approach is able to identify and filter outlier variants, allowing to eliminate exclusive packages and classes without removing the whole variant. We consider that the recovered PLA can help domain experts to take informed decisions to support SPL adoption.This research was partially funded by INES 2.0; CNPq grants 465614/2014-0 and 408356/2018-9; and FAPESB grants JCB0060/2016 and BOL2443/201

A Cultural Resource Survey for the Proposed Dawson’s West Kermit 3D Seismic Project, Kermit, Loving and Winkler Counties, Texas

CRC, LLC was contracted by Dawson Geophysical of Midland, Texas to conduct a 100-percent intensive pedestrian survey of within a 43-square mile area located within the southern portion of Loving County and western Winkler County, Texas. The proposed project entails 3D seismic survey within this 43-square mile area with both source and receiver lines. The project area is on University of Texas lands. CRC conducted the cultural resource survey from July 5, to August 9, 2017. Marron was brought onto the project to record cultural resources that were identified by CRC and complete the report. Marron’s fieldwork began on August 10 and finished August 20, 2017. Dr. John Griggs of CRC was the Principal Investigator for the project. Toni R. Goar served as Project Manager for Marron’s phases of the project. All work was completed under THC Permit 8084. The total length of seismic lines surveyed was 758.42 kilometers (471.36 miles) with a 30-meter survey width. Total area surveyed within the 43-square mile area was 2,207.53 hectares (5,454.72 acres). Twenty-three (23) sites and 142 isolated occurrences were recorded. Twenty-two (22) sites are recommended as not eligible to the National Register of Historic Places, due to the lack of radiocarbon material and deflated state of the areas. One site, (41LV87) has an undetermined eligibility based on the unknown potential for buried cultural deposits. Further testing is recommended to best determine the sites integrity. All of the sites will be avoided by a reroute around each site. At each site, a 50-foot buffer was flagged and an additional 50-foot area outside the buffer was inspected for cultural resources. This “work zone” will be used during the seismic survey to avoid the sites. The isolated occurrences do not meet the criteria for eligibility to the NRHP and no further treatment is recommended

The Non-Lethal Effects of Climate Change on the Territoriality of Lottia gigantea

The intertidal zone has been described as ground zero for global warming. Here, the owl limpet, Lottia gigantea, adapted to the cool ocean temperatures, must withstand a few hours of baking sun during day-time low tides. This hardship is predicted to increase in frequency and severity in the future as the globe warms. Our research hypothesized that heat events compromise territorial behavior of L. gigantea. All observations and experiments were performed at Inspiration Point near Newport Beach, California. We measured the natural radiant temperature of tagged limpets during day-time low tides using a field-calibrated infrared “thermogun”. We also experimentally amplified radiant temperatures of limpets by 7-12°C using mirrors to reflect the sun’s heat. Control limpets were not heated. We then observed the behavior (Territorial, Retreat, or No Response) of the same limpets during high-low tide (0.5-0.6m ) when limpets were washed by the sea. Territorial encounters were staged by using “bait limpets” placed in the path of tested limpets to induce a response. We found that high radiant temperature is correlated with decreased movement, responsiveness, and aggressiveness of limpets. By contrast, experimental evidence of high temperatures reducing territoriality was weak, likely because of the short time span of heat amplification. Lottia gigantea is a bona fide “ecosystem engineer” whose territorial behavior shapes the rocky intertidal community of invertebrates. Our data show that local heat events compromise the territorial behavior of L. gigantea, which may consequently alter the rocky intertidal community

Ethnic and Immigration Status Differences on Child Indicators of Health for European Americans and Latinos

This study examined the effects of ethnicity and immigration status on subjective and objective health (Body Mass Index; BMI) for Latino and European American children. Social identity and comparison theories were used to frame the investigation. Southern California parents were randomly selected to complete a telephone interview about their children’s health yielding a sample of 165 European American and 152 Latino participants. Compared to European Americans, Latinos evidenced poorer subjective and objective health. Latino children who had a caregiver who was a citizen had better subjective health than Latino children whose caregiver was not a citizen. BMI was correlated with subjective health for European American children but not for Latinos. Our findings add to the literature on the Latino Paradox and the healthy immigrant effect, specifically as it relates to children

Master\u27s Recital

List of performers and performances

Field Experiments Demonstrate that Heat Spells Can Reduce Territory Defense in the Owl Limpet, Lottia gigantea

The intertidal zone may provide insights into how global climate change will impact natural ecosystems because its inhabitants are so vulnerable to heat stress during daytime low tides. The territorial limpet, Lottia gigantea, significantly changes the mid to high intertidal landscape by removing sessile organisms (barnacles, mussels, coralline algae), removing or redistributing gastropod grazers (snails and limpets), and encouraging the growth of micro-algae. We measured temperature and behavior to ask whether heat spells impede territorial behavior. During daytime low tides we artificially heated tagged limpets (25-35°C, vs. 15-24°C in unheated control limpets) in a shaded habitat and returned during the evening high-low tide to test for movement and territorialism. Only 25% of experimentally heated limpets moved during subsequent evenings, while 70% of nearby unheated control limpets moved during the same observation period (Fisher’s exact test, P = 0.015). Correlations of territorial behavior and the temperature of those territories showed limpets in warm microhabitats moved less and were less aggressive than those in cool habitats. Together, these observations support the ideas that the territorial impact of L. gigantea is compromised after intense heat spells, and non-lethal effects of heat spells may reduce their impact on the intertidal community

Exploring the Latino Paradox: How Economic and Citizenship Status Impact Health

We examined the contributions of economic status (ES) and citizenship status to health differences between European Americans, Latino Americans, and non-citizen Latinos. The investigation was framed using social identity and comparison theories. Southern California residents (N = 2164) were randomly selected to complete a telephone interview. Increases in ES predicted health improvements for European Americans across ES levels. For Latino citizens and non-citizens, ES improvements had no effect on objective health. For subjective health, the Latino paradox existed at the lowest ES level for Latino Americans, and did not exist for non-citizens. For objective health, the paradox existed in both Latino groups at low ES, and additionally for Latino Americans at mid ES. Our findings suggest that compared to Latinos, improvements in ES have a stronger positive impact on the health of European Americans, which is likely due to the social comparisons being made by each cultural group