The Victorians had the same concerns about technology as we do

​We live, we are so often told, in an information age. It is an era obsessed with space, time and speed, in which social media inculcates virtual lives that run parallel to our ‘real’ lives and in which communications technologies collapse distances around the globe. Many of us struggle with the bombardment of information we receive and experience anxiety as a result of new media, which we feel threaten our relationships and ‘usual’ modes of human interaction.Though the technologies may change, these fears actually have a very long history: more than a century ago our forebears had the same concerns. Literary, medical and cultural responses in the Victorian age to the perceived problems of stress and overwork anticipate many of the preoccupations of our own era to an extent that is perhaps surprising

A linear systems analysis of the yaw dynamics of a dynamically scaled insect model

Recent studies suggest that fruit flies use subtle changes to their wing motion to actively generate forces during aerial maneuvers. In addition, it has been estimated that the passive rotational damping caused by the flapping wings of an insect is around two orders of magnitude greater than that for the body alone. At present, however, the relationships between the active regulation of wing kinematics, passive damping produced by the flapping wings and the overall trajectory of the animal are still poorly understood. In this study, we use a dynamically scaled robotic model equipped with a torque feedback mechanism to study the dynamics of yaw turns in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Four plausible mechanisms for the active generation of yaw torque are examined. The mechanisms deform the wing kinematics of hovering in order to introduce asymmetry that results in the active production of yaw torque by the flapping wings. The results demonstrate that the stroke-averaged yaw torque is well approximated by a model that is linear with respect to both the yaw velocity and the magnitude of the kinematic deformations. Dynamic measurements, in which the yaw torque produced by the flapping wings was used in real-time to determine the rotation of the robot, suggest that a first-order linear model with stroke-average coefficients accurately captures the yaw dynamics of the system. Finally, an analysis of the stroke-average dynamics suggests that both damping and inertia will be important factors during rapid body saccades of a fruit fly

The Political Pen: Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Presented on Friday, February 21 as part of Messiah College’s 2020 Humanities Symposium. This exhibit, “Vulnerabilities & Securities in Historic Harrisburg: From Abolition to Suffrage,” was produced by the Center for Public Humanities Student Fellows and Dr. Sarah Myers’s Public History Class. In 1895, Alice Dunbar-Nelson published her first collection of short stories and poems, Violets and Other Tales. She also published a few plays, such as Mine Eyes Have Seen (1918) in The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. Dunbar-Nelson often used her creative works to address racism and limitations placed on women. Her poem I Sit and Sew expresses anguish about the way that society prevented African-American military nurses from serving in World War I. In her poem Memoriam, Dunbar-Nelson critiques the ways that society belittles women. This poster was edited by Dr. Jean Corey, Katie Wingert, and Dr. Sarah Myers.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/women/1001/thumbnail.jp

Poverty in Buffalo: Causes, Impacts, Solutions

This policy report examines the scope of poverty and inequality in Buffalo-Niagara, the causes of poverty, and its impacts across health, homelessness, education, and more. It features the insights of testifiers and commissioners from the Buffalo Truth Commission on Poverty, convened on January 25, 2018 by the Coalition for Economic Justice, the WNY Poor People\u27s Campaign, and the New York State Truth Commission on Poverty. The report concludes with solutions from the local to the federal level

Long-Term and Seasonal Trends in Estuarine and Coastal Carbonate Systems

Coastal pH and total alkalinity are regulated by a diverse range of local processes superimposed on global trends of warming and ocean acidification, yet few studies have investigated the relative importance of different processes for coastal acidification. We describe long-term (1972-2016) and seasonal trends in the carbonate system of three Danish coastal systems demonstrating that hydrological modification, changes in nutrient inputs from land, and presence/absence of calcifiers can drastically alter carbonate chemistry. Total alkalinity was mainly governed by conservative mixing of freshwater (0.73-5.17mmolkg(-1)) with outer boundary concentrations (similar to 2-2.4mmolkg(-1)), modulated seasonally and spatially (similar to 0.1-0.2mmolkg(-1)) by calcifiers. Nitrate assimilation by primary production, denitrification, and sulfate reduction increased total alkalinity by almost 0.6mmolkg(-1) in the most eutrophic system during a period without calcifiers. Trends in pH ranged from -0.0088year(-1) to 0.021year(-1), the more extreme of these mainly driven by salinity changes in a sluice-controlled lagoon. Temperature increased 0.05 degrees Cyr(-1) across all three systems, which directly accounted for a pH decrease of 0.0008year(-1). Accounting for mixing, salinity, and temperature effects on dissociation and solubility constants, the resulting pH decline (0.0040year(-1)) was about twice the ocean trend, emphasizing the effect of nutrient management on primary production and coastal acidification. Coastal pCO(2) increased similar to 4 times more rapidly than ocean rates, enhancing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Indeed, coastal systems undergo more drastic changes than the ocean and coastal acidification trends are substantially enhanced from nutrient reductions to address coastal eutrophication.Peer reviewe

University Student-parents’ Experiences in the UAE during COVID-19: Future Implications for Higher Education

The COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 and threw higher education institutions worldwide into a rapid transition from face-to-face to online learning modes. While students everywhere were grappling with the changes to their learning experiences, those with parenting responsibilities had additional pressures. This study investigated how university student-parents across the United Arab Emirates experienced the change, and their perceptions of the impact of COVID- 19 on their studies. One hundred seventy-five students responded to a questionnaire exploring domains such as their domestic set-up for study, levels of support from family and their institutions, and the situation’s impact on their learning, well-being, and peer and instructor interactions. It was found that while many students relished being more involved with their children’s online schoolwork, this caused tremendous strain for some. Many students had responsibility for at least one child beside them as they studied, leading to multiple distractions that affected their learning and ability to meet deadlines. While most students reported keeping up social support networks with peers, a majority also stated feeling less supported academically by peers and faculty. Many students also felt that their mental health and wellbeing had been diminished due to the situation. The implications of the findings to higher education are discussed

University Student-parents’ Experiences in the UAE during COVID-19: Future Implications for Higher Education

The COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 and threw higher education institutions worldwide into a rapid transition from face-to-face to online learning modes. While students everywhere were grappling with the changes to their learning experiences, those with parenting responsibilities had additional pressures. This study investigated how university student-parents across the United Arab Emirates experienced the change, and their perceptions of the impact of COVID- 19 on their studies. One hundred seventy-five students responded to a questionnaire exploring domains such as their domestic set-up for study, levels of support from family and their institutions, and the situation’s impact on their learning, well-being, and peer and instructor interactions. It was found that while many students relished being more involved with their children’s online schoolwork, this caused tremendous strain for some. Many students had responsibility for at least one child beside them as they studied, leading to multiple distractions that affected their learning and ability to meet deadlines. While most students reported keeping up social support networks with peers, a majority also stated feeling less supported academically by peers and faculty. Many students also felt that their mental health and wellbeing had been diminished due to the situation. The implications of the findings to higher education are discussed

Structures of Confinement: Power and Problems of Male Identity

Both the ‘hidden history’ of men’s mental health and the perceived pressures of ‘modern’ life in the nineteenth century have been the subject of recent historiographic exploration. Of emerging importance is the extent to which forms of power – institutional, political, social – underwrite and structure male identity. This introduction maps out the landscape of a New Agenda that views male experience through the dual lenses of power and confinement, highlighting the far-reaching implications of the restraints placed upon middle-class men – socially, ideologically, and physically – by a changing social and medical landscape, from the early Victorian period to the final decades of the century more commonly associated with the onset of modernity. The essays that follow will explore the confining apparatuses of male-dominated professional spheres and identify points of resistance in the form of textual reflection and self-fashioning. From the walls of the asylum, to the constraints of professional life, to the ideals of literary production, these essays expose the biopolitics of these structures of confinement while demonstrating that such frameworks provided space, in some cases, for revisionist assertions of masculine selfhood

Academic parenthood in the United Arab Emirates in the time of COVID-19

Since the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, early research already indicates that the personal and professional impact on academics juggling parenting responsibilities with their academic work has been immense. This study, set in the United Arab Emirates, explores the experiences of academic parents and looks at ways in which various aspects of their professional lives have been affected by the pandemic. Survey data from 93 participant parents indicated that certain elements of research productivity have been reduced during the pandemic, and having to support children with online schoolwork while teaching online themselves has been particularly stressful. Working from home with no dedicated space was a frequent challenge for the academic parents, and this impacted their ability to perform research tasks that demanded quiet spaces, e.g., reading and writing. However, the data also indicated that parents appreciated greater working flexibility, a reduction in commuting time, and being able to be more involved in their family lives. Some indications were perhaps unexpected, such as no statistically significant impact being observed on academic parents’ ability to interact with students or peers at their institutions while working from home. The implications of these findings to faculty and institutions are discussed