Indigenous Highlanders and "Oralcy" in the Ban Leung Market : A Micro-Discourse Analysis of Market Power in a Cambodian Province

This study represents a continuation of research conducted in March of 2005 on nonformal bilingual literacy education in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. The purpose of the previous study was to assess the need for Oral Khmer in the bilingual literacy curriculum of the nonformal education project managed by the NGO International Cooperation Cambodia with a focus on the six Tampuan villages in the project. The Tampuan ethnic group was chosen because they live in closest proximity to the provincial capital of Ban Leung and therefore have the most need for the Khmer language. Thus Tampuan communities are currently experiencing the effects of Khmer in-migration which may have greater relevance for other highlander groups in the near future. For the present study, during which data collection was carried out in February and March of 2006, subjects were chosen from both the Tampuan and Krung ethnic groups as those groups were represented with most frequency in the Ban Leung marketplace participating in economic activities with Khmers. In short, the purpose of this study was to observe and record the language produced, communication difficulties experienced, and resulting social action inherent in the market activities of Tampuan and Krung ethnolinguistic minorities in their interaction with Khmers in the Ban Leung provincial market. To that end, analysis of literature related to literacy education and the economic livelihood of the Tampuan and Krung people in Ratanakiri was followed by interviews with policy experts and linguists familiar with the education situation, cultures, and languages of the indigenous highlanders. The primary component of the research was the collection of market conversations between Tampuan and Krung minority peoples and Khmers buying and selling in the Ban Leung provincial market. After thorough conversation analysis of these texts a pattern involving the use of yelled exclamations and communication breakdown was detected. The exclamations were often followed by insults and public ridicule of ethnolinguistic minorities targeting their limited Khmer-speaking ability or numeracy profiency. The challenge for data interpretation came in deciding whether these communication breakdowns exemplified cases of cross-cultural pragmatic failure or cases of discrimination against linguistic minorities resulting from power-status relations in Cambodia society. Based on analyses of Khmer and highlander culture and communication, it was determined that the yelling of complaints was not an acceptable practice in either Khmer or highlander commercial culture and indicated that the communication breakdowns resulted from verbal discrimination perpetrated by Khmers against the highlander minorities. It should be noted that there were cases where highlanders exhibited agency in arguing with Khmers or complaining about Khmer attitudes within some sampled conversations; however, these cases were limited. The results of this data will be used to inform efforts by UNICEF, CARE, and other organizations to develop curricula and train education officials and teachers to expand the provision of bilingual education throughout Cambodia

The Carina Flare: What can fragments in the wall tell us?

$^{13}$CO(J=2--1) and C$^{18}$O(J=2--1) observations of the molecular cloud G285.90+4.53 (Cloud~16) in the Carina Flare supershell (GSH287+04-17) with the APEX telescope are presented. With an algorithm DENDROFIND we identify 51 fragments and compute their sizes and masses. We discuss their mass spectrum and interpret it as being the result of the shell fragmentation process described by the pressure assisted gravitational instability - PAGI. We conclude that the explanation of the clump mass function needs a combination of gravity with pressure external to the shell.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, accepted by A&

Supporting Care Partners of People Living with Dementia

This report addresses the need to better support care partners of people living with dementia, including a proposal for a new Dementia Care Partner Hub (the “Hub”) that will facilitate care partner access to information, supports, services and activities. This work is the culmination of the “Supporting Care Partners of People Living with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD)” project funded by the Portland State University Institute on Aging’s “Gerontology Education & Research Initiative” (GERI) faculty grant, conducted from June 2022 to October 2023. The project focused on addressing concerns and needs of care partners and people living with dementia from communities historically and currently underserved in the United States (Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx) and organizations serving these communities

Investing in late-life Brain Capital

Within many societies and cultures around the world, older adults are too often undervalued and underappreciated. This exacerbates many key challenges that older adults may face. It also undermines the many positive aspects of late life that are of tremendous value at both an individual and societal level. We propose a new approach to elevate health and well-being in late life by optimizing late-life Brain Capital. This form of capital prioritizes brain skills and brain health in a brain economy, which the challenges and opportunities of the 21st-century demands. This approach incorporates investing in late-life Brain Capital, developing initiatives focused on building late-life Brain Capital

1.6 W continuous-wave Raman laser using low-loss synthetic diamond

Low-birefringence (Δn<2x10−6), low-loss (absorption coefficient <0.006cm−1 at 1064nm), single-crystal, synthetic diamond has been exploited in a CW Raman laser. The diamond Raman laser was intracavity pumped within a Nd:YVO4 laser. At the Raman laser wavelength of 1240nm, CW output powers of 1.6W and a slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed diode-laser pump power (at 808nm) of ~18% were measured. In quasi-CW operation, maximum on-time output powers of 2.8W (slope efficiency ~24%) were observed, resulting in an absorbed diode-laser pump power to the Raman laser output power conversion efficiency of 13%

Heat Conduction and Entropy Production in a One-Dimensional Hard-Particle Gas

We present large scale simulations for a one-dimensional chain of hard-point particles with alternating masses. We correct several claims in the recent literature based on much smaller simulations. Both for boundary conditions with two heat baths at different temperatures at both ends and from heat current autocorrelations in equilibrium we find heat conductivities kappa to diverge with the number N of particles. These depended very strongly on the mass ratios, and extrapolation to N -> infty resp. t -> infty is difficult due to very large finite-size and finite-time corrections. Nevertheless, our data seem compatible with a universal power law kappa ~ N^alpha with alpha approx 0.33. This suggests a relation to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang model. We finally show that the hard-point gas with periodic boundary conditions is not chaotic in the usual sense and discuss why the system, when kept out of equilibrium, leads nevertheless to energy dissipation and entropy production.Comment: 4 pages (incl. 5 figures), RevTe

The effects of viscous stressed and mantle velocities on subduction : finite difference modeling

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 107).This thesis presents a two-dimensional finite-difference model of subduction, which is used to explore the characteristics of subduction that are most closely related to deformation in the overriding plate. The model focuses on how the angle, a, at which the slab subducts and the rate, Vr , at which the subduction boundary "retreats" are affected by the negative buoyancy of the subducting lithospheric slab and the viscous forces that arise where the mantle and subducting slab are in motion relative to one another ...by Matthew Walter Dawson.S.M

Tank tests to determine the effect on planing-tail hulls of varying length, width, and plan-form taper of afterbody

Tests were conducted in Langley Tank no. 2 on models of an unconventional flying-boat hull called a planing-tail hull to determine the effects on resistance of varying a number of afterbody parameters. The effects of varying length, width, and plan-form taper of the afterbody are presented. Tests were made with afterbodies of two widths, two lengths, and two tapers. In the tests the depth of step and the angle of afterbody keel were held constant.(author