Refugee Resettlement in Hartford

Resettlement agencies in Hartford play a key role in refugee resettlement. These agencies assist with housing, employment and other services. After six months, these agencies no longer receive federal funding to continue services. This project examines the successes and challenges of connecting refugees to services for employment, housing and the pressures that refugees face during the period of resettlement and post-resettlement. Interviews are the methodological focus of this project. The goal of the project is to outline the best practices, challenges and lessons learned from the resettlement process for refugees in Hartford with my community partner, Asylum Hill Neighborhood Association

A Spot Under the Baobab Tree: The Gender Parity Law and the Fight for Women\u27s Political Representation in Modern Senegal

The discourse on women and development stems from a long history of the international community’s commitment to advancing women’s rights. Since the early 1970s, the UN has taken different approaches to address gender inequality. This thesis explores this discourse and the Millennium Development Goals to address the situation of women in Senegal. I first argue that in spite of Senegal’s accomplishments in meeting different targets, women are still marginalized. In 2010, Senegal passed a gender parity law to increase the number of women within the government. Through fieldwork in Dakar, this study seeks to understand the mobilization efforts leading to the adoption of the law and the anticipated results as related to women and development. This analysis shows that the parity law has increased the representation of women in parliament; started changing stereotypes about women; and created a space for them to enter politics. Through the discussions with the local groups, I argue that efforts at the local, national and international levels, including improving education, decreasing illiteracy, creating economic opportunities, working with local organizations that advocate for women and holding countries that ratify international conventions to higher standards will achieve gender equality within Senegal where the parity law hasn’t

Distances of Stars by mean of the Phase-lag Method

Variable OH/IR stars are Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars with an optically thick circumstellar envelope that emit strong OH 1612 MHz emission. They are commonly observed throughout the Galaxy but also in the LMC and SMC. Hence, the precise inference of the distances of these stars will ultimately result in better constraints on their mass range in different metallicity environments. Through a multi-year long-term monitoring program at the Nancay Radio telescope (NRT) and a complementary high-sensitivity mapping campaign at the eMERLIN and JVLA to measure precisely the angular diameter of the envelopes, we have been re-exploring distance determination through the phase-lag method for a sample of stars, in order to refine the poorly-constrained distances of some and infer the currently unknown distances of others. We present here an update of this project.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, to appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 336: Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Univers

A City in the Making: An Analysis of the Built Environment, Lived Experiences and Perceptions of Pikine, Senegal

The Dakar Metropolitan area is a vast area containing the capital city of Senegal, Dakar and the four departments or administrative zones of Dakar, Pikine, Guédiawaye and Rufisque. Dakar is the economic, cultural and political center of the country. Its location and opportunities draws migrants every year from the rural areas. Finding a high cost of living, migrants settle into the suburbs while adding pressure to a system already facing rapid urbanization and failing infrastructure. Through a mixed method analysis of primary data composed of questionnaires, interviews and observations, this case study of Pikine seeks to understand the built environment and lived experiences of residents in the “banlieue” or “suburb” of Dakar and the process by which people differentiate between Pikine and Dakar. This analysis responds to this question: Is Pikine a city that’s increasingly independent and shaping its own destiny or is it still heavily defined by its identity as “une banlieue” of Dakar? The conclusion of the study is that Pikine is a suburb by urban form and functionality, which is defined by the failing built environment, an area lacking employment opportunities and one where the residents are victims of misconceptions about crime and danger. In contrast, the communities within Pikine envision themselves as a city; offering opportunities for everyone and serving as a model for other cities in Senegal

The Masers Towards IRAS 20126+4104

We present MERLIN observations of OH, water and methanol masers towards the young high mass stellar object IRAS 20126+4104. Emission from the 1665-MHz OH, 22-GHz H_2O and 6.7-GHz CH_3OH masers is detected and all originates very close to the central source. The OH and methanol masers appear to trace part of the circumstellar disk around the central source. The positions and velocities of the OH and methanol masers are consistent with Keplerian rotation around a central mass of ~ 5 Msun. The water masers are offset from the OH and methanol masers and have significantly changed since they were last observed, but still appear to be associated to the outflow from the source. All the OH masers components are circularly polarised, in some cases reaching 100 percent while some OH components also have linear polarisation. We identify one Zeeman pair of OH masers and the splitting of this pair indicates a magnetic field of strength ~ 11 mG within ~ 0.5" (850 AU) of the central source. The OH and methanol maser emission suggest that the disk material is dense, n > 10^6 cm^-3, and warm, T > 125 K and the high abundance of methanol required by the maser emission is consistent with the evaporation of the mantles on dust grains in the disk as a result of heating or shocking of the disk materialComment: 9 pages, 7 figures and 6 table

Insight into the OH polarimetric structure of OH 26.5+0.6

We present the first view of the magnetic field structure in the OH shell of the extreme OH/IR star OH 26.5+0.6. MERLIN interferometric observations of this object were obtained in December 1993 in full polarisation, at 1612, 1665 and 1667 MHz. The maser spots show a spheroidal distribution both at 1612 and 1667 MHz, while at 1665 MHz emission from the blue-shifted maser peak is concentrated on the stellar position, and the red-shifted peak emission exhibits a filamentary structure oriented on a SE-NW axis. The linear polarisation in both main lines is rather faint, ranging from 9 to 20% at 1665 MHz and from 0 to 30% at 1667 MHz. At 1612 MHz most maser spots exhibit a similar range of linear polarisation although those in the outermost parts of the envelope reach values as high as 66%. This is particularly apparent in the southern part of the shell. The detailed distribution of the polarisation vectors could only be obtained at 1612 MHz. The polarisation vectors show a highly structured distribution indicative of a poloidal magnetic field inclined by 40-60$^\circ$ to the line of sight. The velocity distribution of the maser spots with respect to the radial distance is well explained by an isotropic outflow at constant velocity in the case of a prolate shaped spheroid envelope, also tilted about 45-65$^\circ$ to the line of sight.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Maser Flare Simulations from Oblate and Prolate Clouds

We investigated, through numerical models, the flaring variability that may arise from the rotation of maser clouds of approximately spheroidal geometry, ranging from strongly oblate to strongly prolate examples. Inversion solutions were obtained for each of these examples over a range of saturation levels from unsaturated to highly saturated. Formal solutions were computed for rotating clouds with many randomly chosen rotation axes, and corresponding averaged maser light curves plotted with statistical information. The dependence of results on the level of saturation and on the degree of deformation from the spherical case were investigated in terms of a variability index and duty cycle. It may be possible to distinguish observationally between flares from oblate and prolate objects. Maser flares from rotation are limited to long timescales (at least a few years) and modest values of the variability index ($\lesssim 100$), and can be aperiodic or quasi-periodic. Rotation is therefore not a good model for H$_2$O variability on timescales of weeks to months, or of truly periodic flares.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA