Making Bicycling Comfortable: Identifying Minimum Infrastructure Needs by Population Segments Using a Video Survey

In this study, researchers use survey data to analyze bicycling comfort and its relationship with socio-demographics, bicycling attitudes, and bicycling behavior. An existing survey of students, faculty, and staff at UC Davis (n=3089) who rated video clips of bicycling environments based on their perceived comfort as a part of the UC Davis annual Campus Travel Survey (CTS) is used. The video clips come from a variety of urban and semi-rural roads (designated California state highways) around the San Francisco Bay Area where bicycling rates vary. Results indicate considerable effects of socio-demographics and attitudes on absolute video ratings, but relative agreement about which videos are most comfortable and uncomfortable across population segments. In addition, presence of bike infrastructure and low speed roads are the strongest video factors generating more comfortable ratings. However, the results suggest that even the best designed on-road bike facilities are unlikely to provide a comfortable bicycling environment for those without a predisposition to bicycle. This suggests that protected and separated bike facilities may be required for many people to consider bicycling. Nonetheless, the results provide guidance for improving roads with on-street bike facilities where protected or separated facilities may not be suitable.View the NCST Project Webpag

Anguilla and the art of resistance

This study begins with two premises. The first is that American Studies needs to move beyond the borders of the United States to examine the ideological, cultural and economic effects our country has had on others. The United States has historically been deeply involved in Anguilla\u27s economy, revolution and ideology. The second is that history is a commodity that is selectively deployed in the creation of personal and national cultural values in Anguilla. I use Sherry Ortner\u27s concept of serious games and James Scott\u27s theory of the arts of resistance to analyze how Anguilla\u27s contemporary culture is a product of its history, environment, and a particular industry. Colonial institutional failure created a vacuum in which Anguillians were permitted, even encouraged, to conceptualize themselves as independent. The harsh environment prevented the formation of a plantocracy based on sugar production. The means and modes of the production of salt, Anguilla\u27s only staple, resulted in a social structure that contrasts with those of the sugar islands in the Antilles. Today, independence remains Anguilla\u27s serious game and sole art of resistance on a personal, cultural and national level.;The definition of self and nation as independent is based upon a radical excision of history that is articulated in an invention of tradition. Plato\u27s idea of mythos and logos serve as methodological tools for unpacking how history has been strategically utilized and suppressed to support cultural concepts. The hypothesis of this dissertation is that, if history repeats, Anguilla is trapped in the box of dominant discourse. Anguillians\u27 history does repeat; their version of history fails to benefit them because it elides their basic dependency.;The conclusion is that, in positioning independence as the contrariety of colonialism, Anguilla has created a false dichotomy that is symptomatic of an underlying social malaise. On a personal level, independence is the antithesis of community and nationalism. On a political level, independence works against regionalism. Dependence, the hidden narrative of the Anguillian public discourse of independence, undermines the mythos. Only by deconstructing the contrarieties of independence and colonialism into subcontrarieties, can Anguilla address its cultural dissonances and position itself in a global world

A comparison between word analysis and prompting in oral reading.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Guess Who’s Coming (and Who’s Going): Bringing Perspective to the Rational Speech Acts Framework

We present a Rational Speech Acts approach to modeling how conversation participants reason about perspectival expressions. The interpretation of perspectival expressions, such as the motion verbs \u27come\u27 and \u27go\u27, depends on the point-of-view from which they are evaluated. In order to interpret a perspectival expression, the listener must jointly reason about the speaker’s intended message and their choice of perspective. We propose a Bayesian approach to this inference problem and describe an extension of the Rational Speech Acts model that incorporates perspective. We lay out three sets of predictions that this model makes relating to the lexical semantics of go, the cost of non-speaker perspectives, and marginal inference over worlds

Relationship of hyperglycaemia, hypoglycaemia, and glucose variability to atherosclerotic disease in type 2 diabetes

Objective: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is known to be associated with increased cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the independent effects of hyperglycaemia, hypoglycaemia, and glucose variability on microvascular and macrovascular disease in T2DM. Methods. Subjects with T2DM of 7.8mmol/L (β=15.83, p=0005) was the sole independent predictor of albuminuria in generalised linear regression. Conclusions. This study demonstrates that hypoglycaemia is associated with the occurrence of atherosclerotic disease while hyperglycaemia is associated with microvascular disease in a Caucasian population with T2DM of recent duration.peer-reviewe

Ceramics

For the past two years, I have been expanding my ideas of ceramic function. Initially, I was interested in clay's function as vessel: form, surface decoration, and usage. These concerns have broadened into considerations of the nature of function itself. I have taken the situation of "a table set with ceramics for dinner" and considered the subject on a broader level: a situation to be investigated in an art context.&nbsp; I am combining recognizable ceramic images and symbols into large constructions. Ideas are related to my place as a potter/artist. The boundary of the construction is a set of five solid color vases strung on bright satin ribbon from a height of 16 feet. The traditional function of these vases is destroyed by their diagonal hanging configuration, and pattern (often used and abused in ceramic art) is created not within each piece, but in the repetition of the vase shape. Next to the vases, a nine foot tall three dimensional figure in clay is attached to the wall five feet off the ground. He kicks back his leg, and with an arm outstretched, hurls colored clay spirals as if throwing horseshoes. He hurls, yet covers his eyes. The spirals swirl around the main gallery wall, surrounding ten yellow crowns. This describes my feelings about the risks and aspirations of the ceramic artist and potter. The spiral, constantly spun off the potter's wheel, is an attempt to achieve formal beauty through repetition. The crown/prize is always within reach, yet difficult to obtain. Below the crowns are five shelves which hold one hundred cups. These represent the potter's understanding of form through repetition. &nbsp;</p

Ladyhouse Blues Playbill

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film Blackfriars Theatre Ladyhouse Blues by Kevin O\u27Morrison December 2-5, 1982 Director, Judith Reagan Scenery and Lighting, Jim Eddy Stage Manager, David Joseph Clements I Costumes, Mary-Jo Flanagan Theatre Program Director, John Garrity Cast: Helen - Heidi Ann Vician, Eylie - Carol Caulfield, Dot - Mary Ellen Baxter, Liz - Marilyn Murphy Meardon, Terry - Jane Dillonhttps://digitalcommons.providence.edu/ladyhouse_pubs/1006/thumbnail.jp

Caldalkalibacillus thermarum PhoH2: Solving the solubility puzzle

Previous attempts to determine the structure of the protein PhoH2 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium smegmatis and Thermobispora bispora have been unsuccessful producing diffraction data to low resolution. The thermophilic organism Caldalkibacillus thermarum was thought to be an advantageous option from which to clone, express and purify PhoH2 from for the purpose of structure determination. PhoH2 consists of two domains, an N terminal PIN domain, known for its toxic properties as part of many toxin-antitoxin systems present in M. tuberculosis, and a C-terminal PhoH domain, an RNA helicase suspected to be involved in phosphate starvation responses. The cloning and expression of three variations of recombinant C. thermarum PhoH2 was successful in Escherichia coli. However the purification of PhoH2 continues to yield insoluble protein, despite the range of purification buffer conditions screened, thus preventing downstream biochemical characterisation and structural investigations. Multiple options exist to overcome this insolubility problem; including alternate plasmids for protein expression and purification that alter the tag location and type such as C-terminal His-tags and alternative fusion tags