Everything’s for Sale: The Barmaid as a Figure of Commodity in A Bar at the Folies Bergère

This paper explores the role of the barmaid in relation to commodity in Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergère during the explosion of mass consumption that helped define nineteenth century Paris modernity. Building upon existing scholarship, I explore the figure’s role as a member of the emerging working class female, a possible prostitute and an advertising device, promoting the bar’s goods, along with the experience of the Folies-Bergère to the city’s inhabitants. This paper includes formal and iconographical analysis of the figure in relation to commodity as well as a cultural analysis of how these representations reflect attitudes surrounding the commodification of female roles in newly modernized Paris

Beyond Exposure: Markers of English Proficiency in School-Aged French–English Bilinguals

Bilingual children show more variation in their language development than monolingual children, a fact that has been linked to their experience with their languages. Bilingual language experience also varies more than monolingual children\u27s, both in terms of how much they hear the language spoken around them (exposure) and how much they speak the language themselves (production). This dissertation investigates the following aspects of the relationship between bilinguals’ language experience and development which are not well-understood: how children’s language production relates to their proficiency in that language, how children’s language exposure relates to receptive versus expressive and lexical versus grammatical skill, and how factors such as social context, cognates, working memory and indirect exposure contribute to bilingual proficiency. I investigate language experience and English proficiency in young school-aged bilinguals acquiring French and English in France. I use data from parental and child interviews to estimate English exposure – how much children regularly hear English – and two facets of English production – output, or how regularly children speak in English, and inter-speaker code-switching, which refers to how regularly children respond in French when spoken to in English. Those measures are then related to English proficiency scores from a picture-identification task, a picture-naming task, and a sentence repetition task targeting grammatical structures ranging in difficulty. The first objective of this study is to better understand bilingual children’s language production as it relates to their language proficiency. I find that how much children switch to speaking in French when addressed in English (inter-speaker code-switching) is closely related to all concurrent English proficiency scores and that this relationship is independent of and stronger than proficiency’s relationship with exposure. The more children switch to French when spoken to in English, the lower they score on all proficiency measures, receptive and expressive vocabulary, and sentence repetition, even when holding their level of English exposure constant. The second objective of this study is to investigate possible limits to the general pattern found in a large body of research on bilingual exposure, which is that lesser exposure leads to lesser skill in that language. First, language exposure may affect receptive skills less than expressive skills. Second, grammatical knowledge may also be less closely related to exposure than lexical knowledge. There are conflicting findings in the literature. My findings are consistent with a weak relationship between receptive skills and language exposure in bilingual children. Despite having lesser exposure to English (34% of their total language exposure), children in this study did not show a relation between variation in exposure and their English receptive vocabulary scores. In these children, the relationship between exposure and grammatical proficiency was similar to that with lexical proficiency. The third objective is to investigate additional contributors to bilingual proficiency. Previous research suggests that children’s socioeconomic status (SES), the status of the languages they speak, and the existence of cognates in their languages make contributions to bilingual children’s proficiency, and may in turn modulate the effect of diminished language exposure (e.g. Cobo-Lewis, Pearson, Eilers, & Umbel, 2002a; 2002b; Thordardottir, 2011). My results suggest that SES and high prestige of the languages being acquired may partially mitigate – though not eliminate – the effect of diminished exposure on bilinguals’ home language proficiency. Similar to findings for other bilingual children from mid- to high-SES backgrounds, these children showed age-related growth in English proficiency, and their English receptive skill differed minimally from monolingual norms. However, the effect of lesser exposure to English can be seen more clearly in their expressive skills, which were lower than monolingual norms and were predicted by variation in their English exposure. The effect of cognates in French and English was also investigated in terms of the advantage they conferred on my measures of lexical proficiency. This effect was significant in both receptive and expressive measures; thus, I conclude that the presence of cognates may also mitigate the effect of bilingual exposure. Finally, this investigation also examines additional individual factors that can influence language proficiency, but which have rarely been taken into account in studies of bilingual proficiency and both its relationship to exposure and production. Specifically, variation in children’s working memory and their exposure to language through overhearing adult conversation have both been linked to language learning in monolingual contexts but are not well understood in the context of bilingual development. In this study, verbal and visuospatial working memory were positively related to English proficiency scores. Indirect exposure from overheard English spoken between parents was not related to proficiency scores when holding direct English exposure from parents constant. However, indirect exposure was related to how much children produce English themselves to their parents, even while holding direct exposure constant, indicating that language use between parents may influence children’s language production with parents. This study contributes to our understanding of how bilingual language exposure and production relate to bilingual language proficiency in the following ways: first and most importantly, it adds to the small but growing literature that shows a strong link between bilingual children’s own production of a language and their lexical and grammatical skill in that language. It is also the first to my knowledge to find that a measure of children’s language production, inter-speaker code-switching, is negatively related not only to expressive but also to receptive lexical skill in the language that children switch from. Secondly, the finding that children’s English exposure is unrelated to their English receptive skill (but related to age, indicating continuing growth in these children) affirms exposure’s differential relationship with receptive versus expressive skills. It also documents a limited role for exposure in a new population (French-English bilinguals in France), supporting the role of cognates, socioeconomic status of children, and high social prestige of languages being acquired in mitigating the effect of bilingual exposure. Finally, in finding an independent contribution of working memory to lexical and grammatical skill in bilinguals, it highlights that these measures should be considered when investigating variation in bilingual proficiency

Transition to Kindergarten: Parental Efficacy and Experiences During COVID-19

Previous research has highlighted the effectiveness of supporting parents in fostering children’s academic and/or social-emotional development in preparation for kindergarten. Considering the emergence of COVID-19 as a risk factor to which all children and parents have been exposed, it is essential to understand parental mental health as it relates to early childhood development. This study utilized mixed methods to examine the experiences and perspectives of parents (N = 82) whose children were transitioning into kindergarten during the fall of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that parents’ knowledge/confidence in managing their child’s transition to kindergarten was inversely associated with their worry during this time and may be a meaningful target for future interventions. Implications regarding how to best support and include parents in early intervention programming prior to kindergarten entry are discussed

What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced the United States and its NATO partners to be confronted with the impact of hybrid warfare far beyond the battlefield. Targeting Europe’s energy security, Russia’s malign influence campaigns and malicious cyber intrusions are affecting global gas prices, driving up food costs, disrupting supply chains and grids, and testing US and Allied military mobility. This study examines how hybrid warfare is being used by NATO’s adversaries, what vulnerabilities in energy security exist across the Alliance, and what mitigation strategies are available to the member states. Cyberattacks targeting the renewable energy landscape during Europe’s green transition are increasing, making it urgent that new tools are developed to protect these emerging technologies. No less significant are the cyber and information operations targeting energy security in Eastern Europe as it seeks to become independent from Russia. Economic coercion is being used against Western and Central Europe to stop gas from flowing. China’s malign investments in Southern and Mediterranean Europe are enabling Beijing to control several NATO member states’ critical energy infrastructure at a critical moment in the global balance of power. What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare will be an important reference for NATO officials and US installations operating in the European theater.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1952/thumbnail.jp

Online detection and sorting of extracellularly recorded action potentials in human medial temporal lobe recordings, in vivo

Understanding the function of complex cortical circuits requires the simultaneous recording of action potentials from many neurons in awake and behaving animals. Practically, this can be achieved by extracellularly recording from multiple brain sites using single wire electrodes. However, in densely packed neural structures such as the human hippocampus, a single electrode can record the activity of multiple neurons. Thus, analytic techniques that differentiate action potentials of different neurons are required. Offline spike sorting approaches are currently used to detect and sort action potentials after finishing the experiment. Because the opportunities to record from the human brain are relatively rare, it is desirable to analyze large numbers of simultaneous recordings quickly using online sorting and detection algorithms. In this way, the experiment can be optimized for the particular response properties of the recorded neurons. Here we present and evaluate a method that is capable of detecting and sorting extracellular single-wire recordings in realtime. We demonstrate the utility of the method by applying it to an extensive data set we acquired from chronically-implanted depth electrodes in the hippocampus of human epilepsy patients. This dataset is particularly challenging because it was recorded in a noisy clinical environment. This method will allow the development of closed-loop experiments, which immediately adapt the experimental stimuli and/or tasks to the neural response observed.Comment: 9 figures, 2 tables. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 2006 (in press). Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 2006 (in press

The effect of book format and parent language dominance on shared book reading in bilingual families

Shared book reading - an adult reading to a child - supports children’s language development (e.g. Sénéchal, Pagan, & Leve, 2008). Most of what we know about shared book reading comes from studies of monolingual families, but shared book reading in bilingual families is different than in monolingual families. First, bilingual families must divide their book-reading time and resources between two languages. Second, bilingual parents may not be equally comfortable reading in both of their languages, which may influence how much and how well they read in each language. One recent study found that in bilingual families, parents own more books and read to their children more often in their stronger language (Gonzalez-Barrero et al., 2021). This could further disadvantage children’s oral language development in their weaker language. Bilingual books - books that tell a story in two languages - could be a useful tool to address this problem as they may provide additional support for reading in a weaker language. Yet little is known about how bilingual families engage with this format. This project addresses this gap by directly observing French-English bilingual parents and their preschool-aged children during shared reading with traditional single-language books and bilingual books. Shared reading interactions will be transcribed, coded and analyzed to assess the quantity and quality of parent-child interactions when reading 1) a bilingual or traditional single-language book and 2) in a stronger or weaker language

Caring for Cancer: Understanding the Access and Perceptions of Psychosocial Cancer Services in North Texas

It is estimated that nearly 14.5 million Americans are living with cancer today. A commonly overlooked component to quality cancer care, as defined by the Institute of Medicine, is the role of psychological and social support. Better known as psychosocial support, these needs reflect a broad spectrum of obstacles or assets in an individual’s personal life that may help or hinder their healing experience. Some psychosocial examples include coping skills, transportation to medical appointments, or appropriate knowledge to mitigate the physical impacts of the cancer process. Research has shown that by addressing these potential needs, a better health outcome may be achieved for cancer patients. Through participant observation at local psychosocial service establishments and through semi-structured interviews with service providers and adults diagnosed with cancer living in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, this thesis research seeks to explore how local cancer patients are learning of psychosocial services available to them, what barriers may exist in accessing these services, and what individuals may be doing to address their psychosocial needs, both formally or informally. Results yielded recommendations for local psychosocial providers to adjust their marketing of services and kinds of services offered as well as yielded recommendations for future academic research

The development of the cognate advantage from elementary to middle school years in French-English bilinguals attending a dual language program in France

International audienceThe cognate advantage in bilingual children varies in strength across groups and individuals, in particular on receptive measures (e.g. picture-identification). This variation may be due to children's developing ability to benefit from cognates in such tasks, yet longitudinal studies of this phenomenon, especially with older children, are rare. Using longitudinal and crosssectional analyses of picture-identification performance in French and English from 37 bilingual children attending a dual language program in France, this study investigates the cognate advantage across a wide range of ages (6 to 13 years old). The influence of children's relative exposure on the cognate advantage is also investigated. We find that significant differences in cognate versus non-cognate performance emerge only after the first years of elementary school. Children show marked growth in late elementary and middle school years, but only on the English task. The strength of the cognate advantage in picture-ID is inversely related to exposure to that language. These findings are discussed in relation to the nature of these children's exposure and properties of cognates in the two languages. Implications for dual language pedagogy are also discussed