International Transitional Administration: The United Nations in East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Slavonia, and Kosovo – A Bibliography

Between 1995 and 1999, the United Nations established transitional administrations over four war-torn territories -- East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Slavonia, and Kosovo. These transitional civil administrations began as part of a peace agreement and have or will end with either independence of the territory, as with East Timor, or the reuniting of a war-torn state, as with Eastern Slavonia’s return to Croatia. As of this writing, the United Nations’ mission in Kosovo has not ended. Much has been written about these U.N. missions. This bibliography lists English-language articles, books, and reports that discuss the United Nations’ transitional administrations of these four territories. I have attempted to include everything that discusses this particular aspect of the United Nations’ peacekeeping missions in depth

International Transitional Administration: The United Nations in East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Slavonia, and Kosovo – A Bibliography

Between 1995 and 1999, the United Nations established transitional administrations over four war-torn territories -- East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Slavonia, and Kosovo. These transitional civil administrations began as part of a peace agreement and have or will end with either independence of the territory, as with East Timor, or the reuniting of a war-torn state, as with Eastern Slavonia’s return to Croatia. As of this writing, the United Nations’ mission in Kosovo has not ended. Much has been written about these U.N. missions. This bibliography lists English-language articles, books, and reports that discuss the United Nations’ transitional administrations of these four territories. I have attempted to include everything that discusses this particular aspect of the United Nations’ peacekeeping missions in depth

Modification and characterization of poly[styrene-co-maleic anhydride] with fluorescent probes

In this study, various poly[styrene-co-(maleic anhydride)] copolymers (50/50, 75/25, 86/14, and 92/8) were modified with the 4-nitroaniline and 4-phenylazoaniline dyes. A synthesis, collection, and purification procedure was developed, and the resulting modified polymers were characterized primarily using elemental analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared analysis (FT-IR), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Elemental analysis allowed percent incorporation results to be determined for each copolymer-dye synthesis. Percent incorporation was approximately 70% for the 50/50 copolymers, and 55% for the 75/25 copolymers, with no significant difference between the 4-nitroaniline and the 4-phenylazoaniline modified copolymers. For the 86/14 and 92/8 modified copolymers, however, there was a very noticeable difference in the percent incorporation corresponding to the different dyes: the 86/14 4- phenylazoaniline modified copolymer yielded an 8.3% incorporation, while the 86/14 4-nitroaniline modified copolymer showed a 4.9% incorporation. Similarly, the 92/8 4-phenylazoaniline modified copolymer had a percent incorporation of 11%, while the 92/8 4-nitroaniline modified copolymer showed a percent incorporation of 7.4%. FT-IR results confirmed these numbers qualitatively. TGA was utilized to compare the thermal stability of the copolymers before and after modification. These results demonstrate that the 50/50 and 75/25 modified copolymers degrade differently than the original unmodified species. Each of these modified copolymers exhibits two distinct decomposition steps, while the original copolymers exhibit single decomposition temperatures (Td) of approximately 350 C. Also, the thermal stability of each modified copolymer (total of eight) was noticeably lowered in each sample. The lowering of Td ranged from approximately a 100 C change for the 50/50 copolymers, to only a 15 C change for the 86/14 copolymers. DSC was employed to compare changes in the glass transition temperature (Tg) between the modified and unmodified copolymers. Drastic changes in Tg were observed for the 50/50 and 75/25 modified copolymers, while negligible changes in Tg were seen for the 86/14 and 92/8 samples. The pure 50/50 copolymer exhibited a Tg at 165 C, the 50/50 4-phenylazoaniline modified copolymer\u27s Tg was at 100 C, while the 50/50 4-nitroaniline modified copolymer demonstrated dual Tg\u27s at 120 C and 170 C. The pure 75/25 showed a Tg at 135 C , the 75/25 4-phenylazoaniline modified copolymer exhibited its Tg at 100 C, while the 75/25 4-nitroaniline modified copolymer demonstrated dual Tg\u27s at 1 15 C and 170 C. The Tg\u27s for all of the 86/14 copolymers hovered around 138 C. Likewise, all of the 92/8 copolymers showed their Tg\u27s at approximately 122 C. Dual Tg\u27s indicate that two distinct regions are present in the copolymer. These copolymers were developed to be used in phase separation studies using fluorescence spectroscopy. Fluorescence studies were performed on the 50/50 and 92/8 modified copolymers to determine each modified copolymer\u27s quenching ability. This was done using a 10 2 M polystyrene solution as the standard emission signal. Initial fluorescence results indicate that both the 50/50 and 92/8 modified copolymers behave as excellent quenching species, with the 4-phenylazoaniline modified copolymers quenching to a greater degree than the 4-nitroaniline modified species. In conclusion, the 86/14 and 92/8 modified copolymers are the most promising for future phase separation studies, offering good fluorescence sensitivity with a minimal change of polymer properties after modification

Applying Conversation Analysis to Real-world Concerns

A few weeks ago, I sat in the audience of an atypical professional panel at an uplifting conference. The panel and audience members, all enthusiastic alumni and students of my alma mater’s English Department, were discussing the career paths they had (or had not) chosen since college graduation. There were contributions from two lawyers, two English teachers, a global corporate chairman, and a few graduate students, as well as a smattering of undergraduates who were eager and anxious to learn more about possible job opportunities. Despite our diverse backgrounds and at times contentious conversation, we left that conference room having agreed on at least one thing: successful professionals are exceptional analysts. Someone who builds a principled argument in the courtroom, the boardroom, the classroom, or any other room, will go a long way. I had remarked that knowing how to analyze hinges on not only being able to build arguments, but also on being able to break them down. In order to critically engage with or respond to a piece of text, one must understand it in a deep sense, and mull over the connections within or between the lines. From intricate exploration comes enlightening analysis, no matter the context. As a student who entrenches herself in Conversation Analysis (CA), I find this conclusion heartening, for often in social encounters with fellow scholars, teachers, friends, or family members, I must publically wrestle with the following questions: Why do you analyze talk? What, exactly, do you do, anyway? And of course, the dreaded: Seriously, Catherine, who really cares about this stuff

Conversation Analysis and Second Language Pedagogy: A Guide for ESL/EFL Teachers

Conversation Analysis and Second Language Pedagogy locates itself at the nexus of research and practice, connecting the findings of conversation analysis (CA) to language teaching. In one sense, the text contributes to an existing, growing body of research that links CA to second language (L2) classroom interaction (e.g. Markee, 2000; Mori, 2002; Seedhouse, 2004; Waring, 2008). However, unlike most work in this vein, the authors are not attempting to describe verbal exchanges that occur in the L2 classroom. That is, rather than use CA to better understand how teachers and students talk, Wong and Waring aim to proffer CA as a way to teach talk. Indeed, his book specifically reaches out to ESL/EFL teachers tackling the task of improving their students’ oral proficiency. In addition to explicating basic tenets of CA findings, each chapter teems with classroom activities designed to get students speaking and analyzing talk. Thus, as the organization of the book demonstrates, the thrust of the text is twofold: (1) to introduce CA to ESL/EFL teachers, and (2) to provide them with CA-informed speaking activities for use in their classrooms

Theirs, Mine, and Ours: On Being a Doctoral Student and a Mother

This is a perfect moment to reflect on my life as a doctoral student and a mother, for never have these two roles dominated the many others I assume as they do now. In the two weeks since I was approached about writing on my experience as a parent and student, I have accomplished many tasks, for lack of a better term: laid out my plan for future doctoral classes and research, finished a book review, began the daunting search for kindergarten programs for my 4-year-old daughter, Océane, and gave birth to my second child, Samuel.At first glance, it seems that one could demarcate my professional work from my personal life— doctoral coursework, professors, research papers, and exams on one side, husband, children and preschool conferences on the other. If that were true, it would have been impossible for me to have survived the past two weeks. Instead, my doctoral work and my personal life intertwine so closely that one informs the other; indeed, one inspires the other. Balancing the two roles, in fact, makes me a better student and mother

Classroom as Context: Procedural Consequentiality in a Secondary English Classroom

Discussions abound concerning the role of context when examining data from a conversation analytic (CA) framework. Lively debates concerning the place of gender, class, and other cultural constructs in CA (e.g. Schegloff, 1997; Wetherall, 1998) have led some to conclude that nothing other than the talk itself can be used when practicing CA. However, Schegloff (1991, 1992) has noted at least two instances when the relevance of contextual features can be shown. One of those notions, termed procedural consequentiality (Schegloff, 1992), denotes that a certain aspect of context affects how the interaction unfolds. This brief discussion will analyze such a spate of talk, where the very direction of the conversation is contingent on the fact that a teacher is interacting with students

Guarded Play: Multi-Tasking in Parent-Child Interactions

This brief analysis utilizes a CA perspective to deepen our understanding of the ways in which participants in interactions are able to handle more than one activity simultaneously. Many of the studies on multi-tasking, as Good (2009) noted, address this from a cognitive science perspective (e.g. Salvucci, 2005; Salvucci, Taatgen, & Kushleyeva, 2006), focusing on the brain’s ability to attend to several tasks at once. According to this work, we humans do a less than stellar job at balancing more than one thing at a time. In fact, with each task we add to the mix, our performance suffers that much more. As a social scientist, I find these conclusions enlightening and worthy of further study. As a mother, I chuckle, because even as I write this, my ear is bent to my daughter doing homework and the dinner that is on the stove, and I have gotten up from my workstation twice to wipe the bedroom wall clean of all traces of marker from my son’s dirty hands. Since at the end of the day, every member of my family is fed, cleaned, and accounted for, I proclaim that I do my job successfully. Thus, I agree wholeheartedly with the argument (Good, 2009) that by looking at the social action of multi-tasking as it happens in real time, as it happens so many nights in the lives of families, we might complicate the notion that it is something that humans simply cannot do well

Case Study Research in Applied Linguistics

Case Study Research in Applied Linguistics offers a detailed foray into all aspects of the role of the case study: the text defines terms related to this type of research, provides historical background on the method, and explains the process of performing and reporting case studies. Such a comprehensive introduction addresses a gap in the literature. Many research methods texts provide overviews of different kinds of quantitative and qualitative research often utilized in the field of applied linguistics, including correlational research, introspective research, and in-class observations (e.g., Brown & Rogers, 2002; Dörnyei, 2007). Few, however, focus exclusively on case study research, lacking examination of the often painstaking process case studies entail. While the book’s scope is broad, Duff’s purposes are clear and concise from the outset: 1) to delineate the methodological foundations of case study research, 2) to present and examine seminal case studies in the area of second language (L2) development and teaching, and 3) to demystify the process of case study research from conception to publication. As these goals suggest, the book intends to offer the necessary information and sound advice to budding researchers in applied linguistics on both the graduate and undergraduate level

Theirs, Mine, and Ours: On Being a Doctoral Student and a Mother

This is a perfect moment to reflect on my life as a doctoral student and a mother, for never have these two roles dominated the many others I assume as they do now. In the two weeks since I was approached about writing on my experience as a parent and student, I have accomplished many tasks, for lack of a better term: laid out my plan for future doctoral classes and research, finished a book review, began the daunting search for kindergarten programs for my 4-year-old daughter, Océane, and gave birth to my second child, Samuel.At first glance, it seems that one could demarcate my professional work from my personal life— doctoral coursework, professors, research papers, and exams on one side, husband, children and preschool conferences on the other. If that were true, it would have been impossible for me to have survived the past two weeks. Instead, my doctoral work and my personal life intertwine so closely that one informs the other; indeed, one inspires the other. Balancing the two roles, in fact, makes me a better student and mother