Communicating Organizational and Transgender Intersectional Identities: an Ethnography of a Transgender Outreach Center

This dissertation examined the communicative construction of identity by members of a transgender outreach organization. It focused on how members&rsquo; communication created and modified organizational identities in relationship to participants&rsquo; individual identities. Through my three-year ethnography of and volunteering with the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (TGRC), I conducted 415 hours of participant observation, 64 hours of semi-structured interviews (n=36), document analysis, and over nine hours of creative focus groups (n=5) of one of the only transgender-centered organizations in the United States. I investigated how TGRC members negotiated the significance of relevant individual and organizational identities, their relationships, and their implications for transgender organizational outreach. I argued that TGRC&rsquo;s transgender-centered organizational outreach and their emic, ambiguous emphasis on their members&rsquo; intersectional identities revealed important complexities for organizational communication inquiry. My data analysis reviewed two salient identity intersections for many TGRC participants: (1) homeless and transgender identities and (2) indigenous and transgender identities, which both tied to other identity intersections. Next, I presented TGRC organizational identity ideals responding to participants&rsquo; transgender intersectional identities: (1) TGRC as family and (2) TGRC as support for all facets of transgender living. I then examined four communication constraints for sustaining those organizational identity ideals: (1) family tensions, (2) non-binary critiques, (3) Harm Reduction Program competition, and (4) Nonprofit Industrial Complex hegemony.My dissertation revealed theoretical and practical recommendations for studying the communicative construction of organizational identity for transgender intersectional outreach organizing. Specifically, we need increased understanding of how organizational members create organizational identities that account for complex, intersectional participant identities as they simultaneously organize around a strategic, focused identity category. This research offered a unique examination of the complexities of constructing organizational identities for an identity-based organization&mdash;collectives advancing outreach and justice for members &ldquo;sharing&rdquo; one or more social identities (e.g., race, disability, sexuality, etc.). I offer three future extensions for organizational identity research grounded in prior scholarship and in my ethnographic findings: (1) contrasting communication, (2) detypification, and (3) crystallized organizational identity using ambiguous intersectionality. I end by calling for future engaged transgender and intersectional organizational communication research.</p

Prioritising integrated care initiatives on a national level. Experiences from Austria

Introduction and background: Based on a policy initiative and the foundation of the Competence Centre for Integrated Care by the Austrian Social Security Institutions in 2006, the aim of the project was to identify and prioritise potential diseases and target groups for which integrated care models should be developed and implemented within the Austrian health system. The project was conducted as a cooperation between the Competence Centre for Integrated Care of the Viennese Health Insurance Fund and the Institute of Social Medicine of the Medical University Vienna to ensure the involvement of both, theory and practice. <br><br> Project report: The focus of the project was to develop an evidence-based process for the identification and prioritisation of diseases and target groups for integrated care measures. As there was no evidence of similar projects elsewhere, the team set out to design the prioritisation process and formulate the selection criteria based on the work in a focus group, literature reviews and a scientific council of national and international experts. The method and criteria were evaluated by an expert workshop. <br><br> Discussion: The active involvement of all stakeholders from the beginning was crucial for the success. The time constraint proved also beneficial since it allowed the project team to demand focus and cooperation from all experts and stakeholders included. <br><br> Conclusion: Our experience demonstrates that, with a clear concept and model, an evidence-based prioritisation including all stakeholders can be achieved. Ultimately however, the prioritisation is a political discussion and decision. Our model can only help base these decisions on sound and reasonable assumptions

Toxic combustion by-products: Generation, separation, cleansing, containment

Focus of this paper is on diagnosis, control, and containment of potentially toxic combustion byproducts when mixed wastes are treated at elevated temperatures. Such byproducts fall into several categories: acid gases, particulates, metals, organics. Radionuclides are treated as a subset of metals, while organics are divided into two subclasses: products of incomplete combustion, and principal organic hazardous constituents. An extended flue gas cleaning system is described which can be used to contain potentially toxic organic emissions and recycle the hazrdous materials for further treatment; it uses oxygen rather than air to reduce total quantities of emissions, improve efficiency of oxidation, and minimize NOx emissions. Flue gas recycling is used for cooling and for containing all potentially toxic emissions. Three thermal treatment unit operations are used in series for more effective process control; three emission separation and containment unit operations are also used in series in the toxic emission containment system. Real time diagnostic hardware/software are used. Provision is made for automatic storage, separation of hazardous materials, commodity regeneration, and recycling of potentially harmful constituents. The greenhouse gas CO2 is recovered and not emitted to the atmosphere

Digitalisation anxiety: development and validation of a new scale

&lt;jats:title&gt;Abstract&lt;/jats:title&gt;&lt;jats:p&gt;The increasing spread of digital technologies and respective consequences for the way we live, work, and communicate can evoke feelings of tension and discomfort. This so-called digitalisation anxiety is related to existing and future technologies, includes the process of digitalisation in everyday life, and refers to multiple levels (the individual, organisations, and society). Existing scales measuring technology-related fears due not adequately reflect these features. Therefore, we developed the German version of the Digitalisation Anxiety Scale (DAS). Having generated items based on a qualitative interview study (Study 1, n = 26), we demonstrated the DAS’s factor structure, internal consistency and construct validity in Study 2a (n = 109) and test-retest reliability in Study 2b (n = 30). In Study 3 (n = 223), the scale’s structure was confirmed and correlates of digitalisation anxiety were examined. The final version of the DAS consists of 35 items with a four-factor structure (societal triggers for digitalisation anxiety, triggers related to interaction and leadership, triggers within oneself and triggers resulting from the digitalisation implementation process). Digitalisation Anxiety had negative relationships with well-being and performance. The scale allows practitioners and researchers to measure and benchmark individuals’ levels of digitalisation anxiety, and to track changes over time. The scale can inform interventions aiming at reducing digitalisation anxiety and stress resulting from digitalisation. &lt;/jats:p&gt

Spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy and modeling of the nonthermal emission of the PWN in G0.9+0.1

We performed a spatially resolved spectral X-ray study of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) in the supernova remnant G0.9+0.1. Furthermore we modeled its nonthermal emission in the X-ray and very high energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray regime. Using Chandra ACIS-S3 data, we investigated the east-west dependence of the spectral properties of G0.9+0.1 by calculating hardness ratios. We analyzed the EPIC-MOS and EPIC-pn data of two on-axis observations of the XMM-Newton telescope and extracted spectra of four annulus-shaped regions, centered on the region of brightest emission of the source. A radially symmetric leptonic model was applied in order to reproduce the observed X-ray emission of the inner part of the PWN. Using the optimized model parameter values obtained from the X-ray analysis, we then compared the modeled inverse Compton (IC) radiation with the published H.E.S.S. gamma-ray data. The spectral index within the four annuli increases with growing distance to the pulsar, whereas the surface brightness drops. With the adopted model we are able to reproduce the characteristics of the X-ray spectra. The model results for the VHE gamma radiation, however, strongly deviate from the H.E.S.S. data.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Even obligate symbioses show signs of ecological contingency: Impacts of symbiosis for an invasive stinkbug are mediated by host plant context

Many species interactions are dependent on environmental context, yet the benefits of obligate, mutualistic microbial symbioses to their hosts are typically assumed to be universal across environments. We directly tested this assumption, focusing on the symbiosis between the sap‐feeding insect Megacopta cribraria and its primary bacterial symbiont Candidatus Ishikawaella capsulata. We assessed host development time, survival, and body size in the presence and absence of the symbiont on two alternative host plants and in the insects\u27 new invasive range. We found that association with the symbiont was critical for host survival to adulthood when reared on either host plant, with few individuals surviving in the absence of symbiosis. Developmental differences between hosts with and without microbial symbionts, however, were mediated by the host plants on which the insects were reared. Our results support the hypothesis that benefits associated with this host–microbe interaction are environmentally contingent, though given that few individuals survive to adulthood without their symbionts, this may have minimal impact on ecological dynamics and current evolutionary trajectories of these partners

Measuring surface-area-to-volume ratios in soft porous materials using laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR

We demonstrate a minimally invasive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique that enables determination of the surface-area-to-volume ratio (S/V) of soft porous materials from measurements of the diffusive exchange of laser-polarized 129Xe between gas in the pore space and 129Xe dissolved in the solid phase. We apply this NMR technique to porous polymer samples and find approximate agreement with destructive stereological measurements of S/V obtained with optical confocal microscopy. Potential applications of laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR include measurements of in vivo lung function in humans and characterization of gas chromatography columns.Comment: 14 pages of text, 4 figure

A Preference for Contralateral Stimuli in Human Object- and Face-Selective Cortex

Visual input from the left and right visual fields is processed predominantly in the contralateral hemisphere. Here we investigated whether this preference for contralateral over ipsilateral stimuli is also found in high-level visual areas that are important for the recognition of objects and faces. Human subjects were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed and attended faces, objects, scenes, and scrambled images in the left or right visual field. With our stimulation protocol, primary visual cortex responded only to contralateral stimuli. The contralateral preference was smaller in object- and face-selective regions, and it was smallest in the fusiform gyrus. Nevertheless, each region showed a significant preference for contralateral stimuli. These results indicate that sensitivity to stimulus position is present even in high-level ventral visual cortex