Narrative and Notice in Livy's Fourth Decade: The Case of Scipio Africanus

This paper argues for the importance of Livy's annalistic notices in structuring the author's aims and the reader's reception of the history, as against the standard conception of the notices as archaic memoranda. Taking the later career of Scipio Africanus the Elder as a test case, the paper demonstrates the tension between the formal features of the narrative and the actual content of the notices. As summarized in the eulogy for Africanus (38.53.9-11), Livy constructs a narrative of Scipio's decline emphasizing his peripeteia after the Hannibalic war. This narrative finds corroboration in the confinement of Africanus' subsequent actions chiefly to the annalistic notices. The notices themselves, however, provide a counter-narrative to the main text, albeit in fragmentary and marginal form. Through the interaction of narrative center and periphery the notices thus offer a space for Livy, and the reader, to explore alternative visions of Roman history.Classic

Life Transitions and Social Technologies:Research and Design for Times of Life Change

When people experience major changes in their lives (e.g., relationship changes, transition from high school to college, realizing an LGBTQ identity, etc.), they often turn to social technologies to help navigate shifting identities and networks and find support and resources. People's experiences using social technologies during times of life transition, and how to better design such technologies, has been a major focus of social computing research. This workshop will gather researchers working in this space to discuss eight themes: life events vs. processes; changing identities; multiple overlapping life events; physical and digital transitions; technology non-use during life transitions; liminality framework; theoretical frames; and methodological considerations. Collaboratively, we will 1) synergize insights from workshop organizers' and participants' research to determine how social technologies can be designed to better support people during life transitions and 2) outline an agenda for the future of social computing work on life transitions.<br/

Topographic stress and rock fracture: a two-dimensional numerical model for arbitrary topography and preliminary comparison with borehole observations

Theoretical calculations indicate that elastic stresses induced by surface topography may be large enough in some landscapes to fracture rocks, which in turn could influence slope stability, erosion rates, and bedrock hydrologic properties. These calculations typically have involved idealized topographic profiles, with few direct comparisons of predicted topographic stresses and observed fractures at specific field sites. We use a numerical model to calculate the stresses induced by measured topographic profiles and compare the calculated stress field with fractures observed in shallow boreholes. The model uses a boundary element method to calculate the stress distribution beneath an arbitrary topographic profile in the presence of ambient tectonic stress. When applied to a topographic profile across the Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory in central Pennsylvania, the model predicts where shear fractures would occur based on a Mohr–Coulomb criterion, with considerable differences in profiles of stresses with depth beneath ridgetops and valley floors. We calculate the minimum cohesion required to prevent shear failure, C[subscript min], as a proxy for the potential for fracturing or reactivation of existing fractures. We compare depth profiles of C[subscript min] with structural analyses of image logs from four boreholes located on the valley floor, and find that fracture abundance declines sharply with depth in the uppermost 15 m of the bedrock, consistent with the modeled profile of C[subscript min]. In contrast, C[subscript min] increases with depth at comparable depths below ridgetops, suggesting that ridgetop fracture abundance patterns may differ if topographic stresses are indeed important. Thus, the present results are consistent with the hypothesis that topography can influence subsurface rock fracture patterns and provide a basis for further observational tests.United States. Army Research Office (Award W911NF-14-1-0037)United States. Dept. of Energy (Award DE-FG01-97ER14760

Charter-School Management Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts

Examines the growth of charter school management organizations, characteristics of students served, and use of resources; CMO practices; impact on students, including middle school test scores; and structures and practices linked to positive outcomes

True triaxial failure characteristics in rocks from granite to sandstone: experimental results and theoretical predictions – a review

Mogi’s (1971) seminal article on a new testing machine for conducting true triaxial experiments in rock included the first set of test results showing that failure (in the form of s1, peak) is a function of not only s3, but also of s2. However, Mogi’s pioneering work went seemingly unnoticed by the rock mechanics community. Some 30 years later, Haimson and colleagues (2000–2014) fabricated a similar loading system and employed it to determine true triaxial deformability and failure criteria in several crystalline and clastic rocks. The most important discovery enabled by true triaxial measurements was the effect of the intermediate principal stress s2, for given s3, on failure level s1, peak (it is at its lowest when s2 = s3), on fault-normal direction (always aligned with that of s3), on fault angle ? (? rises, as s2 increases, by up to 20° in crystalline rocks and up to 10° in clastics), and on deformability (the onset of dilatancy rises with s2). Haimson and Rudnicki (2010) complemented true triaxial experimental data on TCDP siltstone with results of shear band localization theory applied to fault angles observed for axisymmetric compression (Lode angle T = +30°) and deviatoric pure shear (T = 0°), to infer properties of the inelastic constitutive behavior. They employed these properties to predict ? for other Lode angles used during the experiments, yielding acceptable agreement with actual observations. The results were used to predict the angle variation for constant mean normal stress with increase in Lode angle, and for constant Lode angle with increasing mean normal stress. More recently, Ma et al. (2014) reported true triaxial experimental results in porous sandstones in which failure stress conditions and failure-plane angles were recorded and analyzed. The observed effect of s2 on both s1, peak and failure-plane angles was compared with Rudnicki (2013) theory. It was found that the theoretical predictions of failure-related s1, peak for given s3 replicated reasonably well actual test data, except for the two extreme magnitudes of s2, where predictions underestimated experimental data. With respect to failure-plane angles, Rudnicki’s theoretical prediction replicated the general rise of the experimentally observed ? with s2 for a given s3, as well as the diminished rise at high s3 magnitudes. The reasonable qualitative agreement between the predicted and the observed failure-plane angles demonstrated not only the applicability, but also the limitations of Rudnicki’s (2013) theory

Domination: The Consequence of a Modern Day Monopoly

The objective of this study is to find out what constitutes a company as a monopoly. There are various indicators which establish a monopoly from other dominating businesses; however, it is difficult to pin-point how one company controls the market over its competitors. With financial and quantitative data, there are ways `to determine how a company may be heading towards that direction. In this study, there were two organizations selected and compared; one which has displayed monopolistic features, while the other is slowly being dominated by its competitor. After carefully analyzing and comparing the two well-known corporations, various inferences were made in the developing monarch. It is evident that Walmart has been evolving into a modern day monopoly, yet due to certain governing regulations the company cannot be labeled as exclusively controlling the market. As a dominating force in the retail industry, it can be concluded that Walmart’s efforts will continue to progress and could potentially lead them into something worth worrying about in the future

Challenging “Getting Better” Social Media Narratives With Intersectional Transgender Lived Experiences

A dominant media narrative of “getting better” over time is often projected onto LGBTQ people’s personal life experiences. In this research study, I examine this narrative’s role in transgender people’s emotional well-being throughout transition. A “getting better” narrative was pervasive in my qualitative analysis of 240 Tumblr transition blogs and 20 interviews with bloggers, signaling that it impacted people’s self-concept both as presented on social media and when talking about their experiences. This narrative causes undue emotional harm given contrast between one’s post-transition reality, which may involve distress (despite greater congruence between one’s body and identity), and a dominant cultural expectation of happiness. I argue that an intersectional approach to understanding trans people’s emotional well-being—by considering multiple salient identity facets and life transitions—makes trans lives more livable by complicating the cultural imperative to feel better, and to present a unilaterally positive self-image online, post-transition. Even though trans people on average feel better after gender transition, everyday realities are often in contrast to the dominant narrative’s positioning of gender transition as a process with a single, simple goal of feeling better. Challenging the “getting better” narrative gives trans people the freedom to live and exist in their post-transition identities, whether or not they feel “better.”National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program Grant No. DGE-1321846University of California, Irvine, James Harvey Scholar AwardPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154683/1/HaimsonChallengingGettingBetter.pdfDescription of HaimsonChallengingGettingBetter.pdf : Main articl

Evaluating 'Prefer not to say' Around Sensitive Disclosures

As people's offline and online lives become increasingly entwined, the sensitivity of personal information disclosed online is increasing. Disclosures often occur through structured disclosure fields (e.g., drop-down lists). Prior research suggests these fields may limit privacy, with non-disclosing users being presumed to be hiding undesirable information. We investigated this around HIV status disclosure in online dating apps used by men who have sex with men. Our online study asked participants (N=183) to rate profiles where HIV status was either disclosed or undisclosed. We tested three designs for displaying undisclosed fields. Visibility of undisclosed fields had a significant effect on the way profiles were rated, and other profile information (e.g., ethnicity) could affect inferences that develop around undisclosed information. Our research highlights complexities around designing for non-disclosure and questions the voluntary nature of these fields. Further work is outlined to ensure disclosure control is appropriately implemented around online sensitive information disclosures

Quantitative criticism of literary relationships

Authors often convey meaning by referring to or imitating prior works of literature, a process that creates complex networks of literary relationships ("intertextuality") and contributes to cultural evolution. In this paper, we use techniques from stylometry and machine learning to address subjective literary critical questions about Latin literature, a corpus marked by an extraordinary concentration of intertextuality. Our work, which we term "quantitative criticism," focuses on case studies involving two influential Roman authors, the playwright Seneca and the historian Livy. We find that four plays related to but distinct from Seneca's main writings are differentiated from the rest of the corpus by subtle but important stylistic features. We offer literary interpretations of the significance of these anomalies, providing quantitative data in support of hypotheses about the use of unusual formal features and the interplay between sound and meaning. The second part of the paper describes a machine-learning approach to the identification and analysis of citational material that Livy loosely appropriated from earlier sources. We extend our approach to map the stylistic topography of Latin prose, identifying the writings of Caesar and his near-contemporary Livy as an inflection point in the development of Latin prose style. In total, our results reflect the integration of computational and humanistic methods to investigate a diverse range of literary questions