Genetic Algorithm for Orthogonal Designs

We show how to use Simple Genetic Algorithm to produce Hadamard matrices of large orders, from teh full orthogonal design or oder 16 with 9 variables, OD(16; 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2). The objective functionthat we use in our implementation of Simple Genetic Algorithm, comes from a Computational Algebra formalism of the full orthogonal design equations. In particular, we constructed Hadamard matrices of orders 144, 176, 208, 240, 272, 304 and 336, from the aforementioned orthogonal design. By varying three genetic operator parameters, we computer 62 inequivalent Hadamard matices of order 304 and 4 inequivalent Hadamard matrices of order 336. Therefore we established two new constructive lower bounds for the numbers of Hadamard matrices of order 304 and 336

An X-ray Survey of Galaxies in Pairs

Results are reported from the first survey of X-ray emission from galaxies in pairs. The sample consists of fifty-two pairs of galaxies from the Catalog of Paired Galaxies Karachentsev (1972) whose coordinates overlap ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter pointed observations. The mean observed log l_x for early-type pairs is 41.35 +/-0.21 while the mean log l_x predicted using the l_x-l_b relationship for isolated early-type galaxies is 42.10 +/-0.19. With 95% confidence, the galaxies in pairs are underluminous in the X-ray, compared to isolated galaxies, for the same l_b. A significant fraction of the mixed pair sample also appear similarly underluminous. A spatial analysis shows that the X-ray emission from pairs of both types typically has an extent of ~10 - 50 kpc, much smaller than group intergalactic medium and thus likely originates from the galaxies. CPG 564, the most X-ray luminous early-type pair, 4.7x10^42 ergs/sec, is an exception. The extent of it's X-ray emission, >169 kpc, and HWHM, ~80 kpc, is comparable to that expected from an intergalactic medium. The sample shows only a weak correlation, ~81% confidence, between l_x and l_b, presumably due to variations in gas content within the galaxies. No correlation between l_x and the pair velocity difference, separation, or far-infrared luminosity is found though the detection rate is low, 22%.Comment: 40 pages, 6 jpg figures, ApJ (in press

Masculinity in two reddit men’s communities: Feminism is foul, privilege is precarious, and being beta is bad.

TL;DR Work, social lives, and leisure practices are increasingly digitally mediated, and as more and more of our interactions move online, we seek out platforms and communities where we can share ideas and interact with others. Social networking sites, forums, and other socially oriented digitally networked spaces have created opportunities for communities of shared interest to come together, permitting even the smallest of interest groups to feel as though they have a home and meeting place. One location where this kind of community formation happens readily is reddit.com, a website designed to aggregate content from users and other websites into interest-based collections. Users can join and follow communities about nearly any topic, and curate their experience to show only content that aligns with their beliefs, ideologies, or desires. Along with social groups like fan fiction writers or bird watchers, the ease of gathering and sharing ideas on social platforms like reddit has allowed other niche groups with anti-equity, far-right, and prejudicial views to find community as well. In the case of men’s advocacy and male supremacist groups, this has led to reddit communities in the online manosphere. The manosphere is a loose collection of anti-feminist groups that share a focus on aspects of men’s rights, Western gender traditionalist, or male supremacist ideology. As a set, manosphere group ideologies are less of a continuum from mundane to militant, but rather like a loose collection of affiliated groups. Each manosphere group carries its own understandings about men and masculinities, and these are reflected in the ways these groups welcome (or do not welcome) men representing different versions of masculinity, and accept them as group members and/or as men. With a complicated history, growing numbers, and in some cases feminist roots, the manosphere and its popular constituent groups require examination. The purpose of this research was to explore the discourses of masculinity in two different sub-groups of the manosphere, to compare them, and gain insight into how those discourses influence community ideology. Using digital ethnographic methods, this research examines the discourses of masculinity in the /r/MensRights and /r/TheRedPill sub-communities of the website reddit.com this research engages the following research questions: What discourses of masculinity are embedded in the reddit manosphere spaces of /r/MensRights and /r/TheRedPill, how do they compare, and how are these discourses disseminated and monitored to maintain collective group ideologies? And What role might reddit play, through /r/MensRights and /r/TheRedPill, in connecting manosphere communities, and pushing users toward more radical viewpoints about gender and power? The ongoing act of conducting this research in a digital setting also generated a third question: What indicators or guideposts would have been useful as a novice digital qualitative researcher to help me better plan, develop, conduct, and theorise my digital ethnographic research? The introductory chapters introduce the area of study, reddit, and the men’s rights movement, as well as share the theoretical perspectives and methodological approach that frame the project. These chapters are followed by three manuscripts that present empirical refractions based on my research, as well as the development of a digital ethnographic theory-method. The first manuscript chapter, “Entitled to everything responsible for nothing:” Gendered Discourses of Antifeminism, Biological Determinism, and Violence in Reddit’s Manosphere, explores how the three mainstays of antifeminism, biological determinism, and violence provide covert and overt support for men’s rights and supremacist rhetorics on reddit. In this chapter I examine how these discourses are gendered to contrast ‘natural’ male superiority with the perception of male subordination in a feminist society. The second manuscript, “A Positive Identity for Men”? Pathways to far-right participation through /r/MensRights and /r/TheRedPill, positions reddit’s affordances as important contributors to community proliferation. Using the shared ideological commitment to gendered traditionalism of these two reddit communities, and Francisco Bobbio’s (1996) explication of the left-right political spectrum, this manuscript positions /r/MensRights and /r/TheRedPill as far-right communities. Touching on the hard and soft misogyny of these communities as entry points into ideological pipelines, it locates reddit as a perpetuating force for far-right conversion and progression. The third manuscript is a refraction of my methodological struggles in collection of empirical materials, and the theoretical development of a way to think through the complexity of doing research in digitally mediated contexts. Application of a Digital Ethnographic Assemblage Theory-Method – the Research Technoassemblage explores the challenges of using ethnographic methods in online-only communities and the messy intersections of technological systems, people behind the users, the person behind the researcher, and our (presumed) willful ignorance of that complexity. It concludes with a call for research that recognizes and better addresses the need to see and understand these complexities in all research with digitally mediated components. I conclude with a reflection on where to go from here, stepping forward with this research into continued exploration of digital complexity and how it affects gender, masculinities, and men’s rights groups. The final chapter brings together the introductory chapters and manuscripts, and reviews their contributions to the study of men’s rights, far-right, and manosphere communities, as well as leisure and leisure research. It re-situates the importance of studying contentious groups like those studied here, and re-positions me as a researcher relative to the groups that I study. It concludes with reflections for leisure researchers to consider, as well as avenues for future inquiry that were illuminated by the findings from this study, including: the need for more Canadian-focused study of manosphere and far-right groups; the need to better study and map masculinities within the manosphere; the need to interrogate and work with empathy as a researcher of contentious worldviews; and a call to be more thorough and considered when conducting research in and on online communities

Volunteering as Meaning-Making in the Transition to Retirement

Understanding the volunteer experience of older adults is of critical importance to the nonprofit and voluntary sector, and society. Research suggests that volunteering is a way individuals derive meaning through the complex interactions that make up measures of self-worth, community concept, and identity. This study explores the meaning of volunteering in the lives of adults over the age of 60 as they transition into retirement. Analysis revealed four primary themes: role identity; confronting ageing, health, and dying; fear/anxiety about transitioning to retirement; and making a difference. Further analysis based on whether retirement was planned or not revealed important differences in the ways that meaning was made. The findings reveal suggestions for improvements in the recruitment and retention of the older volunteer segment in nonprofit organizations.Comprendre l’expérience de bénévolat des personnes âgées est d’une importance cruciale pour le secteur bénévole et communautaire. Le bénévolat est un moyen pour les individus de trouver un sentiment d’identité grâce aux interactions complexes de l’estime de soi, communauté, et de l’identité. Cette étude explore la signification du bénévolat dans la vie des adultes de plus de 60 ans, lors de leur transition vers la retraite. L’analyse a révélé quatre thèmes principaux: l’identité; faire face au vieillissement; l’anxiété face à la transition à la retraite; et faire une différence. Si la retraite était prévue ou non a révélé des différences significatives. Les résultats offrent un aperçu unique de l’expérience des volontaires âgés et révèlent des suggestions d’amélioration du recrutement et de la rétention du segment des volontaires âgés

Modelling the impacts of ammonia emissions reductions on North American air quality

A unified regional air-quality modelling system (AURAMS) was used to investigate the effects of reductions in ammonia emissions on regional air quality, with a focus on particulate-matter formation. Three simulations of one-year duration were performed for a North American domain: (1) a base-case simulation using 2002 Canadian and US national emissions inventories augmented by a more detailed Canadian emissions inventory for agricultural ammonia; (2) a 30% North-American-wide reduction in agricultural ammonia emissions; and (3) a 50% reduction in Canadian beef-cattle ammonia emissions. The simulations show that a 30% continent-wide reduction in agricultural ammonia emissions lead to reductions in median hourly PM<sub>2.5</sub> mass of <1 μg m<sup>−3</sup> on an annual basis. The atmospheric response to these emission reductions displays marked seasonal variations, and on even shorter time scales, the impacts of the emissions reductions are highly episodic: 95th-percentile hourly PM<sub>2.5</sub> mass decreases can be up to a factor of six larger than the median values. <br><br> A key finding of the modelling work is the linkage between gas and aqueous chemistry and transport; reductions in ammonia emissions affect gaseous ammonia concentrations close to the emissions site, but substantial impacts on particulate matter and atmospheric deposition often occur at considerable distances downwind, with particle nitrate being the main vector of ammonia/um transport. Ammonia emissions reductions therefore have trans-boundary consequences downwind. Calculations of critical-load exceedances for sensitive ecosystems in Canada suggest that ammonia emission reductions will have a minimal impact on current ecosystem acidification within Canada, but may have a substantial impact on future ecosystem acidification. The 50% Canadian beef-cattle ammonia emissions reduction scenario was used to examine model sensitivity to uncertainties in the new Canadian agricultural ammonia emissions inventory, and the simulation results suggest that further work is needed to improve the emissions inventory for this particular sector. It should be noted that the model in its current form neglects coarse mode base cation chemistry, so the predicted effects of ammonia emissions reductions shown here should be considered upper limits

Temporal perception deficits in schizophrenia: integration is the problem, not deployment of attentions

Patients with schizophrenia are known to have impairments in sensory processing. In order to understand the specific temporal perception deficits of schizophrenia, we investigated and determined to what extent impairments in temporal integration can be dissociated from attention deployment using Attentional Blink (AB). Our findings showed that there was no evident deficit in the deployment of attention in patients with schizophrenia. However, patients showed an increased temporal integration deficit within a hundred-millisecond timescale. The degree of such integration dysfunction was correlated with the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia. There was no difference between individuals with/without schizotypal personality disorder in temporal integration. Differently from previous studies using the AB, we did not find a significant impairment in deployment of attention in schizophrenia. Instead, we used both theoretical and empirical approaches to show that previous findings (using the suppression ratio to correct for the baseline difference) produced a systematic exaggeration of the attention deficits. Instead, we modulated the perceptual difficulty of the task to bring the baseline levels of target detection between the groups into closer alignment. We found that the integration dysfunction rather than deployment of attention is clinically relevant, and thus should be an additional focus of research in schizophrenia

Mantra: an open method for object and movement tracking

Mantra is a free and open-source software package for object tracking. It is specifically designed to be used as a tool for response collection in psychological experiments and requires only a computer and a camera (a webcam is sufficient). Mantra is compatible with widely used software for creating psychological experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, we validated the spatial and temporal precision of Mantra in realistic experimental settings. In Experiments 3 and 4, we validated the spatial precision and accuracy of Mantra more rigorously by tracking a computer controlled physical stimulus and stimuli presented on a computer screen

Alpha-band rhythms in visual task performance: phase-locking by rhythmic sensory stimulation

Oscillations are an important aspect of neuronal activity. Interestingly, oscillatory patterns are also observed in behaviour, such as in visual performance measures after the presentation of a brief sensory event in the visual or another modality. These oscillations in visual performance cycle at the typical frequencies of brain rhythms, suggesting that perception may be closely linked to brain oscillations. We here investigated this link for a prominent rhythm of the visual system (the alpha-rhythm, 8-12 Hz) by applying rhythmic visual stimulation at alpha-frequency (10.6 Hz), known to lead to a resonance response in visual areas, and testing its effects on subsequent visual target discrimination. Our data show that rhythmic visual stimulation at 10.6 Hz: 1) has specific behavioral consequences, relative to stimulation at control frequencies (3.9 Hz, 7.1 Hz, 14.2 Hz), and 2) leads to alpha-band oscillations in visual performance measures, that 3) correlate in precise frequency across individuals with resting alpha-rhythms recorded over parieto-occipital areas. The most parsimonious explanation for these three findings is entrainment (phase-locking) of ongoing perceptually relevant alpha-band brain oscillations by rhythmic sensory events. These findings are in line with occipital alpha-oscillations underlying periodicity in visual performance, and suggest that rhythmic stimulation at frequencies of intrinsic brain-rhythms can be used to reveal influences of these rhythms on task performance to study their functional roles

Analytic fluid theory of beam spiraling in high-intensity cyclotrons

Using a two-dimensional fluid description, we investigate the nonlinear radial-longitudinal dynamics of intense beams in isochronous cyclotrons in the nonrelativistic limit. With a multiscale analysis separating the time scale associated with the betatron motion and the slower time scale associated with space-charge effects, we show that the longitudinal-radial vortex motion can be understood in the frame moving with the charged beam as the nonlinear advection of the beam by the E×B velocity field, where E is the electric field due to the space charge and B is the external magnetic field. This interpretation provides simple explanations for the stability of round beams and for the development of spiral halos in elongated beams. By numerically solving the nonlinear advection equation for the beam density, we find that it is also in quantitative agreement with results obtained in particle-in-cell simulations

Investigating Reproductive Coercion and Violence Towards Women with Disabilities

4 Executive summary Background: the issue For centuries, women with disabilities (WWD) have been subject to multiple and intersecting forms of violence (Abbas, 2022). Much of the literature has focused on intimate partner violence towards WWD (i.e. Campbell et al., 2022; Meyer et al., 2022). Reproductive violence towards WWD has received less attention, despite the long history of reproductive injustice within Canadian and international contexts. This particular form of violence towards WWD is a violation of human rights and has multiple and pervasive impacts on social, emotional, and physical health (Björnsdóttir et al., 2017; Grace & Anderson, 2018; McConnell & Phelan, 2022; Powell, 2021). The Senate of Canada Committee on Human Rights (2022), recently published a report indicating the prevalence of reproductive coercion on intersecting and marginalized communities, calling to action the government and health and social service sectors. Despite the recognition of the issues and rights of WWD within their reproductive journey, there is scant literature in the field. Objectives The objective of this project was to conduct a scoping review investigating and synthesizing the research literature related to reproductive violence against WWD within Canadian and international contexts. Results Following a rigorous research strategy, 48 publications were included in this scoping review. Although heterogeneous, this review provides an overview of the meaning and types of reproductive violence towards WWD. The results of this scoping review are centered on legal analysis and most of the publications are related to women with intellectual disabilities. Within the legal disciplines, questions related to the ‘best interests’ of WWD and informed consent were widely examined in the selected international publications. Key messages • Stereotypes within society, such as WWD being identified as asexual, dependent, and unfit for motherhood prevail. Within the legal studies, it was evidenced that these ideologies underpinned many decisions that were taken in court applications for sterilization. • WWD lack access to information and services related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. 5 • WWD are often coerced into long-term and/or irreversible contraception methods. • Managing menstrual issues is one of the main arguments in the application of sterilization towards WWD. The other important issues are related to protecting against sexual abuse and preventing unexpected pregnancies. • There is a gap in research-knowledge related to sterilization that occurs outside institutions. • There is a need for more empirical studies related to reproductive violence including the exploration of the experiences of WWD. Methods (search methods, selection criteria, data collection and analysis) In this project, we conducted a scoping review, following the six steps recommended by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) in their framework for conducting scoping reviews (updated by Levac et al., 2010). The inclusion and exclusion criteria were related to gender (had to be oriented towards women), disabilities (had to be disability focused) and reproductive violence (had to refer specifically to reproductive violence). We excluded all publications related to HIV/AIDS and mental health issues. Another important exclusion criterion was related to the accessibility of the publication