Remote communities, material entanglements and information and communications technologies as double agents

Digital devices and Information and Communications Technology or ICT play a prominent role in most people’s everyday lives, as the often unconscious, mostly unacknowledged entanglements between people, devices and infrastructure shape contemporary lives and co-determine activities and their outcomes. Communications technologies are particularly agentic for people who live in rural and remote parts of the world because they often lack easy access to goods and services that are ubiquitous in more urbanized areas. At the same time, access to ICTs in these areas is often tenuous because the maintenance of ICT infrastructure is not always economically viable. This paper examines emerging techno-lifeworlds in remote villages in Malaysia and their social, economic and political context through a new materialist lens.  I argue that the entanglements with digital technologies and the resulting diffractions can result in increased agency for those involved. At the same time as this new materialist focus emphasizes the agentic role of devices and infrastructure, it allows for thinking through the power relationships that are implicated in the regional techno-politics and the economic and political interests that determine the material access to communications infrastructure

Making sense: Experiential engagements with ethnographic photographs

This article examines the role of embodied and performative knowledge in the museum environment, with a particular focus on ethnographic photographs. The study is based on the return of several hundred ethnographic photographs from the Sarawak Museum to Indigenous communities in rural Malaysia, where they had been taken by museum photographers from the early 1950s onwards. Aside from the oral narratives that emerged during the discussions and interviews, contextual knowledge was provided in embodied form. The return of the photographs to people in the source communities prompted the re-enactment of activities, re-telling of stories and production of cultural heritage to which the photographs referred. Such embodied knowledge, defined as knowledge preserved through performance and embodied activities, relates to the multi-vocal narratives about objects that museums are increasingly trying to include in their exhibitions. In this article I argue for a greater and more experimental use of sensory means to convey information about artifacts to museum audiences.   Keywords:Ethnographic photographs, Photography, Embodied knowledge, museum archives, Sarawak, Southeast Asi

Contraceptive Education and Resource Provision in Male-dominated Rural Family Medicine Clinic

Many women, particularly adolescent women, are uncomfortable discussing sexual health and contraception options with male providers and prefer to see female providers; however, in rural areas, there are barriers to seeing female providers including low physician density, long travel distances to clinics, and long waitlists. The project\u27s primary goal was to bridge the knowledge gap surrounding contraception among adolescents in a rural area of Vermont, the Mad River Valley, while ensuring that healthcare providers at the local male-dominated family medicine office, CVMC Mad River, are equipped with up-to-date information regarding contraception prescribing recommendations. The project entailed 1) creation of a handout for patients with easily comprehendible information regarding contraceptive options as well as additional educational resources, 2) presentation of the current recommendations regarding contraceptive prescribing practices to the physicians at CVMC Mad River to increase their comfort as well as the quality of their recommendations for patients. Special attention was given to ensuring that the content was age-appropriate, inclusive, and culturally sensitive, catering to the diverse needs of the target demographic.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/2035/thumbnail.jp

Identifikation geschlechterspezifischer Mobilitätsbarrieren anhand drittvariablengestützter Mobilitätsverhaltensanalyse

Eine wesentliche Qualitätsanforderung an Smart Cities stellt die sozial nachhaltige Entwicklung der städtischen Infrastruktur dar. Insbesondere die Bereitstellung von Verkehrsinfrastrukturen und Mobilitätsangeboten ist auf bestehende Nutzerbedürfnisse auszurichten und unterliegt dadurch Anforderungen hoher Diversität. Schlüssel zu einer sozial nachhaltigen Mobilität ist die Sicherstellung einer hinreichenden Erreichbarkeit relevanter Ziele, wie Arbeitsplätzen, Bildungs- und Versorgungseinrichtungen oder Freizeitangeboten für alle Personengruppen. Personengruppen können in der Ausübung ihrer Mobilität jedoch durch gruppenspezifische Barrieren eingeschränkt werden. Für Menschen im Rollstuhl können beispielsweise Hochborde, Treppen oder nicht-barrierefreie ÖPNV-Zugangspunkte Barrieren bilden. Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund und begrenzten Deutschkenntnissen können hingegen durch deutschsprachige Fahrgastinformationen in Ihrer Mobilität beschränkt sein. Analog ist davon auszugehen, dass spezifische Barrieren bei der Realisierung geschlechterspezifischer Mobilitätsbedürfnisse vorliegen. Um Männer und Frauen gleichwertige Mobilitätschancen zu ermöglichen, müssen ihre jeweiligen Zugangsvoraussetzungen und Mobilitätsbedürfnisse erkannt und ihre spezifischen Barrieren identifiziert werden. Daher wurde am Institut für Stadtbauwesen und Stadtverkehr anhand der Mobilitätserhebung „Mobilität in Deutschland 2008“ eine umfassende Analyse des geschlechtsspezifischen Mobilitätsverhaltens durchgeführt. Die Analyse erfolgte in zwei aufeinander aufbauenden Stufen. In einer ersten Stufe wurde eine statistisch-deskriptive Analyse der Daten vorgenommen, in der unterschiedliche Mobilitätskennwerte untersucht wurden. Anschließend wurden die gewonnenen Ergebnisse in einer zweiten Stufe durch eine Drittvariablenkontrolle validiert. Anhand der Ergebnisse wurden Personengruppen identifiziert, für die geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede im Mobilitätsverhalten deutlich stärker auftreten, als in der Gesamtstichprobe. Dabei handelte es sich um Personen, die in einem Haushalt mit Kindern bis 14 Jahren leben, Personen ohne Hochschulabschluss, Rentner und Pensionäre, sowie Personen mit moblitätseinschränkender Behinderung

Simple powerful robust tests based on sign depth

Up to now, powerful outlier robust tests for linear models are based on M-estimators and are quite complicated. On the other hand, the simple robust classical sign test usually provides very bad power for certain alternatives. We present a generalization of the sign test which is similarly easy to comprehend but much more powerful. It is based on K-sign depth, shortly denoted by K-depth. These so-called K-depth tests are motivated by simplicial regression depth, but are not restricted to regression problems. They can be applied as soon as the true model leads to independent residuals with median equal to zero. Moreover, general hypotheses on the unknown parameter vector can be tested. While the 2-depth test, i.e. the K-depth test for K=2, is equivalent to the classical sign test, K-depth test with K≥3 turn out to be much more powerful in many applications. A drawback of the K-depth test is its fairly high computational effort when implemented naively. However, we show how this inherent computational complexity can be reduced. In order to see why K-depth tests with K≥3 are more powerful than the classical sign test, we discuss the asymptotic behavior of its test statistic for residual vectors with only few sign changes, which is in particular the case for some alternatives the classical sign test cannot reject. In contrast, we also consider residual vectors with alternating signs, representing models that fit the data very well. Finally, we demonstrate the good power of the K-depth tests for some examples including high-dimensional multiple regression

Family stories as resources for a decolonial culturally responsive pedagogy

Engagement with family stories, religious and community practices can change a teacher’s conception of thought. We propose teaching as thinking-with the world and teaching as thinking-with others. These terms draw on the philosophy of new materialist thinkers in expressing the ontological impacts of context and materiality. We explore the relationship between teaching and thinking as a distributed and engaged practice by investigating family stories as an avenue for teachers to pedagogically engage with student’s lived experiences. We work with students as valued contributors to the learning environment, irrespective of academic achievements. We argue that engaging with family and faith stories as constitutional of thinking about, and doing, pedagogy can challenge the persistent racism. We are interested in experiential ways of knowing and modes of paying attention to the social and emotional learning that takes place as part of a pedagogic culture of care

Cis- and trans-stilbene

Near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure spectra of the cis- and trans- isomers of stilbene in the gas phase reveal clear differences, which are analyzed by results from density-functional theory calculations using the transition potential approach. The differences between the two species also occur in stilbene adsorbed on Si(100), opening the way towards studying structural changes in molecules in different surface environments, and configurational switching in organic molecules on surfaces in particular

Faculty Recital: Brass Quintet

Center for the Performing ArtsNovember 8, 2011Tuesday Evening8:00 p.m