The accessibility of spatial information: Two competing views

The experiments reported in this thesis were designed to investigate factors involved in the reactivation of spatial information. Participants read passages that described a protagonist and a target object in a spatial location. In Experiment 1, naming times demonstrated that the target object was active immediately after reading the introduction whereas the target object was no longer active in memory after reading filler information that did not remention the target object. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to read a cuing sentence immediately following the filler information. The results showed that this cue served to reactivate the target object. In Experiment 3, the protagonist spatially moved away from the previous location. The results indicated that even after the situation model shifted, the cuing sentence still reactivated the target object. The overall pattern of results suggest that contextual cuing rather than spatial information determined accessibility of objects during reading

Comprehension of protagonists\u27 goals and intentions: The dynamic relation between reading skill, text characteristics, and reading strategies

Studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2009) indicate that the inability to comprehend text is one of the primary reasons students perform poorly in school Reading difficulties often persist into adulthood with 23% of U.S. adults only meeting basic reading proficiency levels (NCES, 2004). To address this problem, it is critical to identify the underlying cognitive processes that pose the greatest challenges to struggling readers. Recent research has explored basic skills (e.g., working memory capacity, suppression mechanisms, domain knowledge, and reading strategies) that have been shown to be essential for reading. To date it is unclear which of these factors has the greatest impact on comprehension. The goals of this dissertation were to determine conditions under which reading skill influences individuals\u27 abilities to fully comprehend text and what steps can be taken to raise comprehension levels. Across four experiments, participants were indexed as skilled or less-skilled based to the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test. They were asked to read texts in which a protagonist was highly or moderately motivated to accomplish goals. Subsequently, participants read target sentences that either satisfied or did not satisfy the protagonists\u27 goals. The first two experiments showed that skilled but not less-skilled readers were capable of monitoring protagonists\u27 intentions to accomplish goals. This was true regardless of whether the distance between information about protagonists\u27 intentions and their actions were presented close or far in the text. Two subsequent experiments demonstrated that subtle text changes and a reading strategy enabled less-skilled readers to be more sensitive to the protagonists\u27 motivation to accomplish goals. In Experiment 3 and 4, reinstatement sentences and reading the passages from the perspective of the protagonists, respectively, enabled less-skilled readers to monitor protagonists\u27 intentions. The results showed that subtle text cues and a reading strategy provided less-skilled readers with the necessary tools to circumvent working memory deficiencies by focusing their attention on the important aspects of the text. The findings are discussed in terms of underlying cognitive differences between skilled- and less-skilled readers and how subtle changes to text and employing a reading strategy can alleviate reading deficits

Space filling by nucleation and growth in chemical vapor deposition of diamond

Phase transformations, including chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of diamond, taking place by nucleation and growth are commonly described by Avrami or Johnson-Mehl type models. In order to avoid the restrictions of such models with respect to assumptions concerning nucleation rates and growth velocities, the variation with time of nucleation and growth of diamond particles during the deposition of microwave plasma-assisted CVD was studied. The size distributions obtained from image analysis enabled us to trace back details of the nucleation and growth history. Three sources of particle formation were operating during deposition. A general growth law suitable for all particles did not exist. These observations limited the applicability of Avrami-type models to describe space filling. Computer simulation of surface coverage and particle growth was successful because one particular mode of particle formation and growth dominated surface coverage. Based on image analysis and the determination of the film growth rate, the evolution of the diamond volume fraction with time, starting from three-dimensional particle growth followed by a continuous transition to one-dimensional film growth, was describe

Posthumanist Education

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Lepton flavor conserving Z -> l^+ l^-$ decays in the general two Higgs doublet model

We calculate the new physics effects to the branching ratios of the lepton flavor conserving decays Z -> l^+ l^- in the framework of the general two Higgs Doublet model. We predict the upper limits for the couplings |\bar{\xi}^{D}_{N,\mu\tau}| and |\bar{\xi}^{D}_{N,\tau\tau}| as 3\times 10^2 GeV and 1\times 10^2 GeV, respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Social media, protest cultures and political subjectivities of the Arab spring

This article draws on phenomenological perspectives to present a case against resisting the objectification of cultures of protest and dissent. The generative, self-organizing properties of protest cultures, especially as mobilized through social media, are frequently argued to elude both authoritarian political structures and academic discourse, leading to new political subjectivities or ‘imaginaries’. Stemming from a normative commitment not to over-determine such nascent subjectivities, this view has taken on a heightened resonance in relation to the recent popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. The article argues that this view is based on an invalid assumption that authentic political subjectivities and cultures naturally emerge from an absence of constraint, whether political, journalistic or academic. The valorisation of amorphousness in protest cultures and social media enables affective and political projection, but overlooks politics in its institutional, professional and procedural forms

Weak magnetic dipole moments in two-Higgs-doublet models

We investigate the effects of the new scalars in a two-Higgs-doublet model on the weak magnetic dipole moments of the fermions at the $Z$ peak. Proportionality of the Yukawa couplings to the fermion masses, and to $\tan{\beta}$, makes such effects more important for the third family, and potentially relevant. For the $\tau$ lepton, the new diagrams are suppressed by $v_\tau = 2 \sin^2 \theta_W - 1/2$, or by powers of $m_\tau/M_Z$, but may still be comparable to the SM electroweak contributions. In contrast, we find that the new contributions for the bottom quark may be much larger than the SM electroweak contributions. These new effects may even compete with the gluonic contribution, if the extra scalars are light and $\tan \beta$ is large. We also comment on the problem of the gauge dependence of the vertex, arising when the $Z$ is off mass shell. We compute the contributions from the new scalars to the magnetic dipole moments for top-quark production at the NLC, and for bottom and $\tau$ production at LEP2. In the case of the top, we find that the SM electroweak and gluonic contributions to the $Z t {\bar t}$ vertex are comparable. The new contributions may be of the same order of magnitude as the standard-model ones, but not much larger.Comment: 17 pages, LaTex, 8 figures available upon reques

Architects of time: Labouring on digital futures

Drawing on critical analyses of the internet inspired by Gilles Deleuze and the Marxist autonomia movement, this paper suggests a way of understanding the impact of the internet and digital culture on identity and social forms through a consideration of the relationship between controls exercised through the internet, new subjectivities constituted through its use and new labour practices enabled by it. Following Castells, we can see that the distinction between user, consumer and producer is becoming blurred and free labour is being provided by users to corporations. The relationship between digital technologies and sense of community, through their relationship to the future, is considered for its dangers and potentials. It is proposed that the internet may be a useful tool for highlighting and enabling social connections if certain dangers can be traversed. Notably, current remedies for the lack of trust on the internet are questioned with an alternative, drawing on Zygmunt Bauman and Georg Simmel, proposed which is built on community through a vision of a ‘shared network’