Anger Among Prospective Adoptive Parents: Structural Determinants and Management Strategies

This paper focuses on anger experienced by prospective adoptive parents as they go through infertility and the formal adoption process. Qualitative interviews were done with seventy-four infertile couples who were at various stages in their consideration of adoption. Using a sociology of emotions perspective, I examine the source of their anger by focusing on the structural power imbalance between infertile couples and the physicians and adoption agency personnel to whom they turn for help in becoming parents. I analyze the way that this power unbalance constrains their anger and examine the way it is managed according to the feeling rules that then come into play. The implications of this anger for practice are discussed

Technology in Museums: New Tools for Traditional Goals

This thesis has examined the ways that museums might theoretically incorporate technology in addition to current technologies employed in museums. Analysis has been done on the ways that technology can be useful in engaging visitors who might come to museums alone, in a group, or as part school fieldtrips. The various uses of social-media are discussed, including social-media strategy recommendations for museums. Museum mobile applications are investigated and features for such applications have been analyzed for how they might benefit both museums and visitorsMaster of ArtsArts AdministrationUniversity of Michigan-Flinthttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145732/1/Bellinger2018.pdfDescription of Bellinger2018.pdf : Thesi

Highly Variable Recurrence of Tsunamis In the 7,400 Years Before the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

The devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caught millions of coastal residents and the scientific community off-guard. Subsequent research in the Indian Ocean basin has identified prehistoric tsunamis, but the timing and recurrence intervals of such events are uncertain. Here we present an extraordinary 7,400 year stratigraphic sequence of prehistoric tsunami deposits from a coastal cave in Aceh, Indonesia. This record demonstrates that at least 11 prehistoric tsunamis struck the Aceh coast between 7,400 and 2,900 years ago. The average time period between tsunamis is about 450 years with intervals ranging from a long, dormant period of over 2,000 years, to multiple tsunamis within the span of a century. Although there is evidence that the likelihood of another tsunamigenic earthquake in Aceh province is high, these variable recurrence intervals suggest that long dormant periods may follow Sunda megathrust ruptures as large as that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

MammoSapiens: eResearch of the lactation program.

Delivering bioinformatics power to life science researchers inevitably runs into problems of limited computing resources in the context of exponentially increasing data sources, access time, costs, lack of skills and, rapidly evolving technology and software tools with poorly defined standards. In this context the development of e-facilities to best enable collaborative research often needs to be customized to specific project applications in close cooperation with the experimentalist users and, to be concerned with the storage and management of results to allow more consistency and traceability of e-results on a broad access data mining platform. Here we showcase an internet based eResearch platform using the PHP/MySQL paradigm for the collaborative, integrative and comparative analysis of lactation related gene sequences and gene expression experiments to support lactation research. We also illustrate how these resources are used, how they enable research by allowing meta-analysis of data and results and, how the bottom-up development of customized eResearch components can lead to the production of more generic functional software tools and eResearch environments for deployment to a larger number of biological research users working on other bio-systems.<br /

MammoSapiens: eResearch of the lactation program. Building online facilities for collaborative molecular and evolutionary analysis of lactation and other biological systems from gene sequences and gene expression data.

Delivering bioinformatics power to life science researchers inevitably runs into problems of limited computing resources in the context of exponentially increasing data sources, access time, costs, lack of skills and, rapidly evolving technology and software tools with poorly defined standards. In this context the development of online facilities to best enable collaborative research often needs to be customized to specific project applications in close cooperation with the experimentalist users and, to be concerned with the storage and management of results to allow more consistency and traceability of results on a broad access data mining platform. Here we showcase an Internet based research platform using the PHP/MySQL paradigm for the collaborative, integrative and comparative analysis of lactation related gene sequences and gene expression experiments to support lactation research. We also illustrate how these resources are used, how they enable research by allowing meta-analysis of data and results and, how the bottom-up development of customized eResearch components can lead to the production of more generic functional software tools and eResearch environments for deployment to a larger number of biological researchers working on other bio-systems

Penultimate predecessors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra: stratigraphic, archeological, and historical evidence

We present stratigraphic, archeological and historical evidence for two closely timed predecessors of the giant 2004 tsunami on the northern coast of Aceh, northern Sumatra. This is the first direct evidence that a tsunami played a role in a fifteenth century cultural hiatus along the northern Sumatran portion of the maritime silk route. One seacliff exposure on the eastern side of the Lambaro headlands reveals two beds of tsunamigenic coral rubble within a small alluvial fan. Radiocarbon and Uranium-Thorium disequilibrium dates indicate emplacement of the coral rubble after 1344 ± 3 C.E. Another seacliff exposure, on the western side of the peninsula, contains evidence of nearly continuous settlement from ~1240 C.E. to soon after 1366 ± 3 C.E., terminated by tsunami destruction. At both sites, the tsunamis are likely coincident with sudden uplift of coral reefs above the Sunda megathrust 1394 ± 2 C.E., evidence for which has been published previously. The tsunami (or tsunami pair) appears to have destroyed a vibrant port community and led to the temporary recentering of marine trade dominance to more protected locations farther east. The reestablishment of vibrant communities along the devastated coast by about 1500 CE set the stage for the 2004 disaster

An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&C v1.0)

Increasing urbanization is likely to intensify the urban heat island effect, decrease outdoor thermal comfort and enhance runoff generation in cities. Urban green spaces are often proposed as a mitigation strategy to counteract these adverse effects and many recent developments of urban climate models focus on the inclusion of green and blue infrastructure to inform urban planning. However, many models still lack the ability to account for different plant types and oversimplify the interactions between the built environment, vegetation, and hydrology. In this study, we present an urban ecohydrological model, Urban Tethys-Chloris (UT&C), that combines principles of ecosystem modelling with an urban canopy scheme accounting for the biophysical and ecophysiological characteristics of roof vegetation, ground vegetation and urban trees. UT&C is a fully coupled energy and water balance model that calculates 2 m air temperature, 2 m humidity, and surface temperatures based on the infinite urban canyon approach. It further calculates all urban hydrological fluxes, including transpiration as a function of plant photosynthesis. Hence, UT&C accounts for the effects of different plant types on the urban climate and hydrology, as well as the effects of the urban environment on plant well-being and performance. UT&C performs well when compared against energy flux measurements of eddy covariance towers located in three cities in different climates (Singapore, Melbourne, Phoenix). A sensitivity analysis, performed as a proof of concept for the city of Singapore, shows a mean decrease in 2 m air temperature of 1.1 °C for fully grass covered ground, 0.2 °C for high values of leaf area index (LAI), and 0.3 °C for high values of Vc,max (an expression of photosynthetic activity). These reductions in temperature were combined with a simultaneous increase in relative humidity by 6.5 %, 2.1 %, and 1.6 %, for fully grass covered ground, high values of LAI, and high values of Vc,max, respectively. Furthermore, the increase of pervious vegetated ground is able to significantly reduce surface runoff. These results show that urban greening can lead to a decrease in urban air temperature and surface runoff, but this effect is limited in cities characterized by a hot, humid climate.ISSN:1991-962XISSN:1991-961

The impact of Ming and Qing dynasty maritime bans on trade ceramics recovered from coastal settlements in northern Sumatra, Indonesia

We review published literature and historical texts to propose that three periods of official Chinese maritime bans impacted the composition and circulation of trade ceramics along Asian trade routes: Ming Ban 1 (1371 – 1509), Ming Ban 2 (1521 – 1529), and Qing Ban (1654 – 1684). We use ceramics collected during a landscape archaeology survey along 40km of coast in Aceh, Indonesia to show how the three ban periods manifest in the ceramic record of settlements along an important stretch of the maritime silk road. All three ban periods overlap with reductions in the quantity of Chinese ceramics. Within several decades of the start of Ming Ban 1, people in Aceh began importing ceramics from production centres in Burma and Thailand as a substitute for Chinese ceramics. Following Ming Ban 2, there is an increase in imports from Chinese production centres, albeit from new kilns sites. While brief, the Qing ban resulted in an almost immediate influx of ceramics from Japan and Vietnam, which maintained some market share until the mid-17th century, after which Chinese ceramics dominate the record until the end of the Qing dynasty. Our data show both the importance of Chinese ceramics within regional trade networks and how those networks and local patterns of consumption adapted to disruptions of supply

SAGUARO: Time-domain Infrastructure for the Fourth Gravitational-wave Observing Run and Beyond

We present upgraded infrastructure for Searches after Gravitational Waves Using ARizona Observatories (SAGUARO) during LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA's fourth gravitational-wave (GW) observing run (O4). These upgrades implement many of the lessons we learned after a comprehensive analysis of potential electromagnetic counterparts to the GWs discovered during the previous observing run. We have developed a new web-based target and observation manager (TOM) that allows us to coordinate sky surveys, vet potential counterparts, and trigger follow-up observations from one centralized portal. The TOM includes software that aggregates all publicly available information on the light curves and possible host galaxies of targets, allowing us to rule out potential contaminants like active galactic nuclei, variable stars, solar-system objects, and preexisting supernovae, as well as to assess the viability of any plausible counterparts. We have also upgraded our image-subtraction pipeline by assembling deeper reference images and training a new neural network-based real-bogus classifier. These infrastructure upgrades will aid coordination by enabling the prompt reporting of observations, discoveries, and analysis to the GW follow-up community, and put SAGUARO in an advantageous position to discover kilonovae in the remainder of O4 and beyond. Many elements of our open-source software stack have broad utility beyond multimessenger astronomy, and will be particularly relevant in the "big data" era of transient discoveries by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.Comment: submitted to AAS Journal

Racism, gun ownership and gun control: Biased attitudes in US whites may influence policy decisions

Objective: Racism is related to policies preferences and behaviors that adversely affect blacks and appear related to a fear of blacks (e.g., increased policing, death penalty). This study examined whether racism is also related to gun ownership and opposition to gun controls in US whites. Method: The most recent data from the American National Election Study, a large representative US sample, was used to test relationships between racism, gun ownership, and opposition to gun control in US whites. Explanatory variables known to be related to gun ownership and gun control opposition (i.e., age, gender, education, income, conservatism, anti-government sentiment, southern vs. other states, political identification) were entered in logistic regression models, along with measures of racism, and the stereotype of blacks as violent. Outcome variables included; having a gun in the home, opposition to bans on handguns in the home, support for permits to carry concealed handguns. Results: After accounting for all explanatory variables, logistic regressions found that for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism there was a 50% increase in the odds of having a gun at home. After also accounting for having a gun in the home, there was still a 28% increase in support for permits to carry concealed handguns, for each one point increase in symbolic racism. The relationship between symbolic racism and opposition to banning handguns in the home (OR1.27 CI 1.03,1.58) was reduced to non-significant after accounting for having a gun in the home (OR1.17 CI.94,1.46), which likely represents self-interest in retaining property (guns). Conclusions: Symbolic racism was related to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in US whites. The findings help explain US whites' paradoxical attitudes towards gun ownership and gun control. Such attitudes may adversely influence US gun control policy debates and decisions