Kittens and Nutella: Why Women Join ISIS

On February 18, 2015 CNN published a reported stating that Western women were leaving their homes to join ISIS because of a social media campaign featuring pictures of kittens and Nutella. This reported propagated the notion that women who join jihadist organizations are brainwashed or feeble minded. The reality is not so simple. This paper explores the motives women may have for joining ISIS through comparison to the motivations that drove women to partake in other violent jihadist organizations\u27 activities

Results of the 2007-2008 Illinois Hunter Harvest Survey

Grant/Contract No: W-112-R-17A random sample of 3,000 potential hunters was selected from among 2007 Illinois Habitat Stamp and hunting license purchasers. An 8-page questionnaire was successfully mailed to 2,906 of the 3,000 individuals. We received 1,625 returned questionnaires, 1,620 of which were usable, for a 56% response rate. Comparisons of harvest estimates from the 2006-2007 season to the 2007-2008 season suggest harvest decreased for 10 game animal categories (rabbit, quail, pheasant, dove, gray partridge, fox squirrel, gray squirrel, red fox, gray fox, and opossum), and increased for 3 categories (woodcock, raccoon, and coyote). License sales increased 0.4% from 282,000 sold for the 2006 season to 283,000 sold in the 2007 season. This represents a recovery in license sales of less than 1% since the lowest level on record (since 1938) in 2005. Low license sales may be related to increasing difficulty in finding land to hunt. Resident hunters pursuing deer (61%) and small game species (51%) reported little difficulty in gaining access to hunting lands. However, all other seasons were associated with more difficulty in accessing land. Efforts should be undertaken to ensure that hunters are aware of the locations of public hunting lands associated with these seasons. Few residents reported leasing land (4%) or hiring outfitters (1%) to access land.INHS Technical Report Prepared for Illinois Department of Natural Resources; Illinois Natural History Surve

ALMA Thermal Observations of Europa

We present four daytime thermal images of Europa taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. Together, these images comprise the first spatially resolved thermal dataset with complete coverage of Europa's surface. The resulting brightness temperatures correspond to a frequency of 233 GHz (1.3 mm) and a typical linear resolution of roughly 200 km. At this resolution, the images capture spatially localized thermal variations on the scale of geologic and compositional units. We use a global thermal model of Europa to simulate the ALMA observations in order to investigate the thermal structure visible in the data. Comparisons between the data and model images suggest that the large-scale daytime thermal structure on Europa largely results from bolometric albedo variations across the surface. Using bolometric albedos extrapolated from Voyager measurements, a homogenous model reproduces these patterns well, but localized discrepancies exist. These discrepancies can be largely explained by spatial inhomogeneity of the surface thermal properties. Thus, we use the four ALMA images to create maps of the surface thermal inertia and emissivity at our ALMA wavelength. From these maps, we identify a region of either particularly high thermal inertia or low emissivity near 90 degrees West and 23 degrees North, which appears anomalously cold in two of our images.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

Employer Reports of Skills Gaps in the Workforce

Skills gaps in the workforce are a common conversation in the current value proposition of higher education. Colleges are expected to help students prepare for a world-class workforce while maintaining the integrity of the academic mission. Employers have similar but different opinions on the preparation of college graduates. This exploratory study took an in-depth look at the perceptions of sixteen employers in a region of the Midwest on questions about the perception of hiring managers about the skills gap in the workforce. Questions focused on work readiness, common challenges, and opportunities that exist to combat these hiring challenges. The themes that emerged from the study provide a foundation for future research with employers and conversations on skills gap in addition to providing guidance to colleges. Five themes emerged from the study: corporate strategy, role of the university, experience, applicant skills, and career management. Recommendations include developing formal relationships between the employer and the university, supporting lifelong learning for new hires, hiring based on the potential for learning and offering more internships. The participants presented ideas and suggestions for best practices and noted how to best connect students to opportunities. Advisor: Marilyn Grad

A higher moment formula for the Siegel--Veech transform over quotients by Hecke triangle groups

We compute higher moments of the Siegel--Veech transform over quotients of $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ by the Hecke triangle groups. After fixing a normalization of the Haar measure on $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ we use geometric results and linear algebra to create explicit integration formulas which give information about densities of $k$-tuples of vectors in discrete subsets of $\mathbb{R}^2$ which arise as orbits of Hecke triangle groups. This generalizes work of W.~Schmidt on the variance of the Siegel transform over $SL(2,\mathbb{R})/SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Fails to Protect Hopi Katsinam from the Auction Block in France

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) compels member states to take action in order to protect the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples, including the right to their cultural property. Notwithstanding the UNDRIP’s robust set of protections, its status as a nonbinding piece of international law remains its ultimate and most fatal flaw. France was an enthusiastic supporter of the UNDRIP at ratification, but has effectively abandoned their position. French auction houses and courts have allowed for sales of Native American sacred property to proceed despite the objections of the Hopi Tribe. In spite of international protest, a French court ruled that Native Americans and all other indigenous peoples lacked the requisite standing to bring cultural claims in France. Subsequently, numerous sales of sacred masks known as “Katsinam” have continued without any legal restitution for the Hopi Tribe. This Note argues that while the UNDRIP sets out basic parameters affording indigenous peoples a means of protection, without the ability to enforce its provisions, the Hopi and indigenous peoples throughout the world will remain incapable of using the UNDRIP as a means of empowerment. France has set a dangerous precedent for countries to continue disobeying the principles of the UNDRIP without consequence for noncompliance. Indigenous peoples will remain powerless to protect their sacramentals unless the UNDRIP is transformed into a multilateral treaty and adopted into the domestic law of member states

Social Anxiety and Subtypes of Empathy: The Moderating Influence of Biological Sex

Only a few studies have examined relationships between social anxiety and subtypes of empathy. Findings are mixed. The present study examined social anxiety severity on a continuum and how it related to affective and cognitive empathy in 684 nonpsychiatric adults (77% female). Participants completed an online battery of measures that included: a self-report measure of social anxiety severity (Fear of Negative Evaluation), a self-report measure with subscales for affective and cognitive empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index), and a behavioral measure of cognitive empathy (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task; MIE). After statistically covarying for general anxiety severity, biological sex moderated the relationship between social anxiety severity and performance on the MIE task. In women, a higher severity of social anxiety related to better performance on the MIE. This relationship was not statistically significant in men. IRI subscale scores did not show significant main effects or interactions with sex in relation to social anxiety. The findings suggest a possible difference in how each sex experiences and/or develops social anxiety. This has implications for assessment and treatment. Future research should examine these relationships in more diverse psychiatric samples