Activism, Advertising, and Far-Right Media: The Case of Sleeping Giants

This study examines the international activist movement known as Sleeping Giants, a social-media “campaign to make bigotry and sexism less profitable” (Sleeping Giants, n.d.). The campaign originated in the US with an anonymous Twitter account that enlisted followers in encouraging brands to pull their online advertising from Breitbart News. The campaign achieved dramatic success and rapidly spread to regions outside the US, with other anonymously run and loosely allied chapters emerging in 15 different nations (as well as a regional chapter for the EU). Many of these were initially created to take on Breitbart advertisers in their home countries, but in a number of cases they subsequently turned their attention to disrupting financial support for other far-right news media in—or impacting—their home countries. Based on interviews with leaders of eight Sleeping Giants chapters, as well as the related UK-based Stop Funding Hate campaign, this study examines the Sleeping Giants campaign with respect to its continuity with media activism of previous eras, while also seeking to understand its potential as one of the first high-profile activist campaigns to grapple with the impacts of programmatic advertising on the news ecosystem. In particular, we consider how the campaign’s interventions speak to the larger debate around the normative relationship between advertising and the performance of the news ecosystem

Tropical Forests Of Oceania. Anthropological Perspectives

The tropical forests of Oceania are an enduring source of concern for indigenous communities, for the migrants who move to them, for the states that encompass them within their borders, for the multilateral institutions and aid agencies, and for the non-governmental organisations that focus on their conservation. Grounded in the perspective of political ecology, contributors to this volume approach forests as socially alive spaces produced by a confluence of local histories and global circulations. In doing so, they collectively explore the multiple ways in which these forests come into view and therefore into being. Exploring the local dynamics within and around these forests provides an insight into regional issues that have global resonance. Intertwined as they are with cosmological beliefs and livelihoods, as sites of biodiversity and Western desire, these forests have been and are still being transformed by the interaction of foreign and local entities. Focusing on case studies from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Gambier Islands, this volume brings new perspectives on how Pacific Islanders continue to creatively engage with the various processes at play in and around their forests

Leaf wax biomarkers in transit record river catchment composition

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 41 (2014): 6420–6427, doi:10.1002/2014GL061328.Rivers carry organic molecules derived from terrestrial vegetation to sedimentary deposits in lakes and oceans, storing information about past climate and erosion, as well as representing a component of the carbon cycle. It is anticipated that sourcing of organic matter may not be uniform across catchments with substantial environmental variability in topography, vegetation zones, and climate. Here we analyze plant leaf wax biomarkers in transit in the Madre de Dios River (Peru), which drains a forested catchment across 4.5 km of elevation from the tropical montane forests of the Andes down into the rainforests of Amazonia. We find that the hydrogen isotopic composition of leaf wax molecules (specifically the C28 n-alkanoic acid) carried by this tropical mountain river largely records the elevation gradient defined by the isotopic composition of precipitation, and this supports the general interpretation of these biomarkers as proxy recorders of catchment conditions. However, we also find that leaf wax isotopic composition varies with river flow regime over storm and seasonal timescales, which could in some cases be quantitatively significant relative to changes in the isotopic composition of precipitation in the past. Our results inform on the sourcing and transport of material by a major tributary of the Amazon River and contribute to the spatial interpretation of sedimentary records of past climate using the leaf wax proxy.This work was supported by funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation award 1227192 to A.J.W. and S.J.F. V.G. was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation award OCE-0928582.2015-03-2

Gospel Choir Fall Concert

Led by Professor Emeritus Dr. Oral Moses, the KSU Gospel Choir features members from across the university and community who come together to perform sacred music ranging from traditional spirituals to gospel favorites in various styles.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2129/thumbnail.jp

mHealth in China and the United States: How Mobile Technology is Transforming Healthcare in the World's Two Largest Economies

In this paper, we explore ways mobile technology can help with these difficulties. Specifically, we look at avenues through which mobile devices boost productivity, aid communications, and help providers improve affordability, access, and treatment. Using data drawn from China and the United States as well as global trends, we look at recent developments andemerging opportunities in mobile health, or mHealth. We argue that mobile technology assists patients, health providers, and policymakers in several different respects. It helps patients by giving them tools to monitor their health conditions and communicate those results to physicians. It enables health providers to connect with colleagues and offers alternative sources of information for patients. It is also an important tool to inform policymakers on health delivery and medical outcomes

Diabetes, Periodontitis and The Oral Microbiome

The association between diabetes mellitus and periodontitis has been studied thoroughly. However, the role of the oral microbiome in linking these two diseases still is not clear. The objective of this literature review is to search the current studies on oral dysbiosis in the two diseases and find out whether the oral microbiome could be a possible biomarker indicating diabetes in periodontal patients

Maternal Knowledge of Stunting in Rural Indonesia

Child undernutrition and stunting remain serious public health problems in Indonesia. According to the Health Belief Model, increasing mothers’ knowledge of stunting is fundamental to establishing accurate threat perceptions predictive of behavior change. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of factors related to maternal knowledge of stunting in Indonesia by addressing three questions: 1) How familiar with stunting are Indonesian mothers? 2) What antecedent factors do Indonesian mothers associate with stunting? and 3) What health effects do Indonesian mothers associate with stunting? A total of 3,150 mothers participated in structured face-to-face interviews. Study measures targeted four main variables. Mothers were asked: 1) Have you heard of stunting?; 2) Have you heard of shortness?; 3) What causes stunting/shortness?; and 4) What are the effects of stunting? Only 66 (2.1%) mothers reported having heard of, read about, or knew something about stunting. Approximately two-thirds of participants attributed stunting to hereditary factors. Interrupted growth (33.7%), idiocy (13.8%), and easy to get sick (11.8%) were identified as health effects of stunting. Results highlight the need for health promotion and education efforts focused on increasing basic knowledge of stunting, its causes, and its health effects among Indonesian mothers

Dual isotope evidence for sedimentary integration of plant wax biomarkers across an Andes-Amazon elevation transect

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 242 (2018): 64-81, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2018.09.007.Tropical montane regions tend to have high rates of precipitation, biological production, erosion, and sediment export, which together move material off the landscape and toward sedimentary deposits downstream. Plant wax biomarkers can be used to investigate sourcing of organic matter and are often used as proxies to reconstruct past climate and environment in sedimentary deposits. To understand how plant waxes are sourced within a wet, tropical montane catchment, we measure the stable C and H isotope composition (δ13C and δD) of n-alkanes and n-alkanoic acids in soils along an elevation transect and from sediments within the Madre de Dios River network along the eastern flank of the Peruvian Andes, draining an area of 75,400 km2 and 6 km of elevation. Soils yield systematic trends in plant wax δ13C (+1.75 and +1.31‰ km−1, for the C29n-alkanes and C30n-alkanoic acids respectively in the mineral horizon) and δD values (−10 and −12‰ km−1, respectively) across a 3.5 km elevation transect, which approximates trends previously reported from canopy leaves, though we find offsets between δ13C values in plants and soils. River suspended sediments generally follow soil isotopic gradients defined by catchment elevations (δ13C: +1.03 and +0.99‰ km−1 and δD: −10 to −7‰ km−1, for the C29n-alkanes and C30n-alkanoic acids respectively) in the wet season, with a lowering in the dry season that is less well-constrained. In a few river suspended sediments, petrogenic contributions and depth-sorting influence the n-alkane δ13C signal. Our dual isotope, dual compound class and seasonal sampling approach reveals no Andean-dominance in plant wax export, and instead that the sourcing of plant waxes in this very wet, forested catchment approximates that expected for spatial integration of the upstream catchment, thus with a lowland dominance on areal basis, guiding paleoenvironmental reconstructions in tropical montane regions. The dual isotope approach provides a cross-check on the altitudinal signals and can resolve ambiguity such as might be associated with vegetation change or aridity in paleoclimate records. Further, the altitude effect encoded within plant waxes presents a novel dual-isotope biomarker approach to paleoaltimetry.This material is based upon work supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. EAR-1227192 to A.J.W and S.J.F for the river work