Faculty Voice Recital

Kemp Recital Hall August 31, 1999 Tuesday Evening 7:30 p.m

Child Brides

The goal of this presentation is to take a look into the human rights violation of child marriage happening in countries all over the world. For the purpose of this presentation, we will focus on four countries where child marriages are extremely prevalent: India, Niger, Bangladesh, and Yemen. First, we will begin with a brief history and background of child brides and statistics related to this population. Second, we will discuss the four countries (as stated above) where this is a major problem, and why the rates of child brides are especially high within each country. Third, we will consider the consequences of child marriages and the ethical implications. Lastly, we will suggest implementation of an intervention for change that is possible on a global level. We hope to educate, provide awareness, and propose ideas for the implementation of interventions to eradicate this human rights issue

Brahms\u27 German Requiem

Center for the Performing Arts Sunday Afternoon October 23, 2005 3:00p.m

Gold Series: Giuseppe Verdi Requium, November 1, 2009

Center for the Performing ArtsNovember 1, 2009Sunday Afternoon3:00 p.m

Empowering Faculty to Support Academic Persistence through a Blended, Scholarship-Based Faculty Professional Development Program: The Persistence Scholars Program

While it is well-known that faculty-student interaction is key to student success, few institutions have directly leveraged faculty in supporting academic persistence. Many myths about persistence proliferate, and faculty can unwittingly hinder persistence by implementing the wrong kinds of practices. Faculty are most empowered to support student persistence when they understand and care about this issue. They are also better equipped to help when they have a good, current command of the body of knowledge relating to persistence. To address this, we created a blended faculty development program to engage faculty in the scholarship of academic persistence, addressing myths and misconceptions about persistence, and expanding understanding of what it is like to be a first-year student at our university. The Persistence Scholars Program engaged a total of 32 faculty over two semesters, beginning with pre-readings and an in-person daylong workshop followed by an eight or ten-week course. The curriculum was built around a central text, Completing College by Vincent Tinto, and selected empirical and germane articles. Participants engaged in online discussions and two experiential projects, including one that asked them to complete an activity that would enhance their understanding of first-year students’ experiences. Assessments of this program focused on participant ratings of target competencies (e.g., the ability to identify and dispel myths about why students persist), perception of usefulness of different specific assignments and materials, and suggestions for how the program can be refined for future cohorts

A Parallel Randomized Clinical Trial Examining the Return of Urinary Continence After Robot- Assisted Radical Prostatectomy with or without a Small Intestinal Submucosa Bladder Neck Sling

Purpose Urinary continence is a driver of quality of life after radical prostatectomy. In this study we evaluated the impact of a biological bladder neck sling on the return of urinary continence after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy. Materials and Methods This study compared early continence in patients undergoing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy with a sling and without a sling in a 2-group, 1:1, parallel, randomized controlled trial. Patients were blinded to group assignment. The primary outcome was defined as urinary continence (0 to 1 pad per day) at 1 month postoperatively. Inclusion criteria were organ confined prostate cancer and a prostate specific antigen less than 15 ng/ml. Exclusion criteria were any prior surgery on the prostate, a history of neurogenic bladder and history of pelvic radiation. A chi-squared test was used for the primary outcome. Results A total of 147 patients were randomized (control 74, sling 73) and 92% were available for primary end point analysis at 1 month. There were no significant differences in baseline or perioperative data except that operating room time was 20.1 minutes longer for the sling group (p=0.04). The continence rate was similar between the control and sling groups at 1 month (47.1% vs 55.2%, p=0.34) and 12 months (86.7% vs 94.5%, p=0.15), respectively. Adverse events were similar between the control and sling groups (10.8% vs 13.7%, p=0.59). Conclusions The application of an absorbable urethral sling at robot-assisted radical prostatectomy was well tolerated with no increase in obstructive symptoms in this randomized trial. However, the sling failed to show a significant improvement in continence

The masses of Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxies: The death of the universal mass profile

We investigate the claim that all dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) reside within halos that share a common, universal mass profile as has been derived for dSphs of the Galaxy. By folding in kinematic information for 25 Andromeda dSphs, more than doubling the previous sample size, we find that a singular mass profile can not be found to fit all the observations well. Further, the best-fit dark matter density profile measured for solely the Milky Way dSphs is marginally discrepant (at just beyond the 1 sigma level) with that of the Andromeda dSphs, where a profile with lower maximum circular velocity, and hence mass, is preferred. The agreement is significantly better when three extreme Andromeda outliers, And XIX, XXI and XXV, all of which have large half-light radii (>600pc) and low velocity dispersions (sigma_v < 5km/s) are omitted from the sample. We argue that the unusual properties of these outliers are likely caused by tidal interactions with the host galaxy.Comment: ApJ in press, 16 pages, 7 figures. Updated to address referee comment

A kinematic study of the Andromeda dwarf spheroidal system

We present a homogeneous kinematic analysis of red giant branch stars within 18 of the 28 Andromeda dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies, obtained using the Keck I LRIS and Keck II DEIMOS spectrographs. Based on their g-i colors (taken with the CFHT MegaCam imager), physical positions on the sky, and radial velocities, we assign probabilities of dSph membership to each observed star. Using this information, the velocity dispersions, central masses and central densities of the dark matter halos are calculated for these objects, and compared with the properties of the Milky Way dSph population. We also measure the average metallicity ([Fe/H]) from the co-added spectra of member stars for each M31 dSph and find that they are consistent with the trend of decreasing [Fe/H] with luminosity observed in the Milky Way population. We find that three of our studied M31 dSphs appear as significant outliers in terms of their central velocity dispersion, And XIX, XXI and XXV, all of which have large half-light radii (>700 pc) and low velocity dispersions (sigma_v<5 km/s). In addition, And XXV has a mass-to-light ratio within its half-light radius of just [M/L]_{half}=10.3^{+7.0}_{-6.7}, making it consistent with a simple stellar system with no appreciable dark matter component within its 1 sigma uncertainties. We suggest that the structure of the dark matter halos of these outliers have been significantly altered by tides.Comment: 41 pages, 23 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

A novel approach to task abstraction to make better sense of provenance data

Working Group Report in 'Provenance and Logging for Sense Making' report from Dagstuhl Seminar 18462: Provenance and Logging for Sense Making, Dagstuhl Reports, Volume 8, Issue 1