Testimonios: A Twenty-First Century Colonial Project and the Closure of Historically Black High Schools in New Orleans

Integral to communities and neighborhoods, historically Black public high schools fostered traditions, heritage, as well as collective identity and awareness. The aim of this inquiry was to explore various perspectives on what happened to historically Black public high schools in New Orleans and to learn about the experiences of those who lived through these changes. Moreover, this dissertation chronicles struggles for Black public education in New Orleans to show how current struggles for Black education are a continuation of the past. Primary data sources include in-depth interviews with 30 students, alumni, parents, teachers and administrators; public testimonies; archival documents; photographs; governmental documents; and court records. Findings illustrate that while the State of Louisiana’s Act No. 35 (2005) enabled the newly created Recovery School District (RSD) to assume the control of a total of 107 of the 128 Orleans Parish schools just after Hurricane Katrina, the dismantling of historically Black public high schools must be understood within a broader historical context that considers previous policies as well as community-led struggles that forced the opening of these schools. Different than most qualitative research on school reform in New Orleans, this study presents narratives on how educational policy was lived and experienced by those whose lives have been affected

"Should I surrender?": performing and interrogating female virginity in Hollywood films 1957-64

The twin topics of interest to this thesis are the figure of the desirous virgin, as she appeared in Hollywood films around the cusp of the 1960s, and Doris Day, during the later evolution of her star persona around the time of Pillow Talk (Michael Gordon, 1959). An introductory section looks at important works from star studies and film history. Several texts from stereotype studies are also examined, both sections working to build up a methodology for the explorations of the virgin and Day which follow. Films which seem to constitute part of a distinct mini-cyle, the 'virginity dilemma' film, are then explored in detail, with their shared themes, narratives, characters, and, often, actors, examined. This cycle of films seems crossgeneric, with both comic and melodramatic entries produced. Furthermore, a generically-inspired rubric, dictating the physical performance of the virgin, emerges from comparison of the films. Here the comic virgin displays a buoyant comic body, her unruly kinesis indicative of energies not yet directed into sex. By contrast, the melodramatic virgin is always marked by a stillness and composure which may wax and wane through the film but will reach both its apogée and rupture at the moment when she capitulates to consummation. The final section looks at Doris Day's star persona as it emerged after Pillow Talk attempted to redefine her as a maturely sexual star. Subsequent films pathologized the qualities of maturity and sexuality, resulting in the creation of a coy aged virgin persona. Although actually performed only once, in Lover Come Back (Delbert Mann, 1961), this persona subsumed previous incarnations of the star, eventually leading to the decline of her active career and calcifying to become the dominant lasting memory of Day even now

Development and Validation of an Empathy Questionnaire measuring Cognitive and Affective Traits

The current study seeks to develop and validate a quantitative measure of empathy. Definitions of empathy vary (Stern, 2021, Brett, 2023), but for the purpose of this study, we defined empathy as the ability to perceive and sympathize with the thoughts, emotions, and feelings of another person. Higher levels of empathy are linked with supportive social behavior, and lower levels of stress in college students (Stern, 2021). Previous empathy scales, such as the Perth Empathy Scale (Brett et al., 2023), have divided empathy into cognitive and affective abilities. Our scale will use this structure, while further specifying the cognitive and affective abilities that pertain to empathy. In this study, we are developing 5 subscales that pertain to empathy, which include acceptance, communication, perspective-taking, compassion, and sensitivity. We hypothesize that each subscale of our scale will demonstrate strong psychometric properties, including internal consistency and inter-item correlation. We also hypothesize that our scale will be significantly associated with high levels of perspective-taking and sensitivity, specifically scored using the Perspective Taking Scale (Cohen, 1988) and the Sensitivity Scale (You, et. al. 2021). Lastly, we hypothesize that our empathy scale will significantly predict stress in emerging adults. Results and implications are forthcoming

"Should I surrender?" : performing and interrogating female virginity in Hollywood films 1957-64

The twin topics of interest to this thesis are the figure of the desirous virgin, as she appeared in Hollywood films around the cusp of the 1960s, and Doris Day, during the later evolution of her star persona around the time of Pillow Talk (Michael Gordon, 1959). An introductory section looks at important works from star studies and film history. Several texts from stereotype studies are also examined, both sections working to build up a methodology for the explorations of the virgin and Day which follow. Films which seem to constitute part of a distinct mini-cyle, the 'virginity dilemma' film, are then explored in detail, with their shared themes, narratives, characters, and, often, actors, examined. This cycle of films seems crossgeneric, with both comic and melodramatic entries produced. Furthermore, a generically-inspired rubric, dictating the physical performance of the virgin, emerges from comparison of the films. Here the comic virgin displays a buoyant comic body, her unruly kinesis indicative of energies not yet directed into sex. By contrast, the melodramatic virgin is always marked by a stillness and composure which may wax and wane through the film but will reach both its apogée and rupture at the moment when she capitulates to consummation. The final section looks at Doris Day's star persona as it emerged after Pillow Talk attempted to redefine her as a maturely sexual star. Subsequent films pathologized the qualities of maturity and sexuality, resulting in the creation of a coy aged virgin persona. Although actually performed only once, in Lover Come Back (Delbert Mann, 1961), this persona subsumed previous incarnations of the star, eventually leading to the decline of her active career and calcifying to become the dominant lasting memory of Day even now.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Safe and just operating spaces for regional social-ecological systems

Humanity faces a major global challenge in achieving wellbeing for all, while simultaneously ensuring that the biophysical processes and ecosystem services that underpin wellbeing are exploited within scientifically informed boundaries of sustainability. We propose a framework for defining the safe and just operating space for humanity that integrates social wellbeing into the original planetary boundaries concept (Rockström et al., 2009a,b) for application at regional scales. We argue that such a framework can: (1) increase the policy impact of the boundaries concept as most governance takes place at the regional rather than planetary scale; (2) contribute to the understanding and dissemination of complexity thinking throughout governance and policy-making; (3) act as a powerful metaphor and communication tool for regional equity and sustainability. We demonstrate the approach in two rural Chinese localities where we define the safe and just operating space that lies between an environmental ceiling and a social foundation from analysis of time series drawn from monitored and palaeoecological data, and from social survey statistics respectively. Agricultural intensification has led to poverty reduction, though not eradicated it, but at the expense of environmental degradation. Currently, the environmental ceiling is exceeded for degraded water quality at both localities even though the least well-met social standards are for available piped water and sanitation. The conjunction of these social needs and environmental constraints around the issue of water access and quality illustrates the broader value of the safe and just operating space approach for sustainable development

Nitrogen cycle impacts on CO2 fertilisation and climate forcing of land carbon stores

Anthropogenic fossil fuel burning increases atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, which is adjusting the climate system. The direct impact of rising CO2 levels and climate feedback alters the terrestrial carbon stores. Land stores are presently increasing, offsetting a substantial fraction of CO2 emissions. Less understood is how this human-induced carbon cycle perturbation interacts with other terrestrial biogeochemical cycles. These connections require quantification, as they may eventually suppress land fertilisation, and so fewer emissions are allowed to follow any prescribed future global warming pathway. Using the new Joint UK Land Environment Simulator-CN large-scale land model, which contributed to Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 as the land component of the UK Earth System Model v1 climate model, we focus on how the introduction of the simulated terrestrial nitrogen (N) cycle modulates the expected evolution of vegetation and soil carbon pools. We find that the N-cycle suppresses, by approximately one-third, any future gains by the global soil pool when compared to calculations without that cycle. There is also a decrease in the vegetation carbon gain, although this is much smaller. Factorial simulations illustrate that N suppression tracks direct CO2 rise rather than climate change. The finding that this CO2-related effect predominantly influences soil carbon rather than vegetation carbon, we explain by different balances between changing carbon uptake levels and residence times. Finally, we discuss how this new generation of land models may gain further from emerging point knowledge held by the detailed ecological modelling community

Machine learning and artificial intelligence to aid climate change research and preparedness

Climate change challenges societal functioning, likely requiring considerable adaptation to cope with future altered weather patterns. Machine learning (ML) algorithms have advanced dramatically, triggering breakthroughs in other research sectors, and recently suggested as aiding climate analysis (Reichstein et al 2019 Nature 566 195–204, Schneider et al 2017 Geophys. Res. Lett. 44 12396–417). Although a considerable number of isolated Earth System features have been analysed with ML techniques, more generic application to understand better the full climate system has not occurred. For instance, ML may aid teleconnection identification, where complex feedbacks make characterisation difficult from direct equation analysis or visualisation of measurements and Earth System model (ESM) diagnostics. Artificial intelligence (AI) can then build on discovered climate connections to provide enhanced warnings of approaching weather features, including extreme events. While ESM development is of paramount importance, we suggest a parallel emphasis on utilising ML and AI to understand and capitalise far more on existing data and simulations

Transcriptomic analysis of field-droughted sorghum from seedling to maturity reveals biotic and metabolic responses.

Drought is the most important environmental stress limiting crop yields. The C4 cereal sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is a critical food, forage, and emerging bioenergy crop that is notably drought-tolerant. We conducted a large-scale field experiment, imposing preflowering and postflowering drought stress on 2 genotypes of sorghum across a tightly resolved time series, from plant emergence to postanthesis, resulting in a dataset of nearly 400 transcriptomes. We observed a fast and global transcriptomic response in leaf and root tissues with clear temporal patterns, including modulation of well-known drought pathways. We also identified genotypic differences in core photosynthesis and reactive oxygen species scavenging pathways, highlighting possible mechanisms of drought tolerance and of the delayed senescence, characteristic of the stay-green phenotype. Finally, we discovered a large-scale depletion in the expression of genes critical to arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis, with a corresponding drop in AM fungal mass in the plants' roots