Ah in Spanish conversation to mark the receipt of new information

The sequential organization of speakership and receivership has been mostly investigated in English. This paper presents some preliminary findings of the work which is accomplished by the particle "ah" in naturally-occurring conversation in Spanish. While in some places this particle compares with other, more established research findings on acknowledgment tokens conducted in English, most notably those of Heritage and the conversational particle "oh" (Heritage 1984,1998), the Spanish "ah" is roughly comparable not only in terms of how it is distributed sequentially within conversation but also in terms of its function as a change-of-state particle. Ultimately, this study aims at exploring the potential universality of conversation analytic claims across different languages and to test whether observations gleamed from English conversation hold in languages other than English. The primary focus of the present work, then, is to establish a comparison between the English particle "oh" and the Spanish "ah" not only in terms of distribution in talk but also in terms of its interactional function within specific naturally-occurring environments which it occursForeign Language Educatio

Symmetry breaking and friction in few layer phosphorene

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowshi

Scabies: Application of the Novel Identify-Isolate-Inform Tool for Detection and Management

Scabies is a highly contagious, globally prevalent, parasitic skin infestation caused by Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis, also known as the itch mite. There have been outbreaks not only in the developing world, but also in the developed world among refugees and asylum seekers. Once infested with scabies mites, symptomatic patients, as well as asymptomatic carriers, quickly spread the disease through direct skin-to-skin contact. Typically, symptoms of scabies are characterized by an erythematous, papular, pruritic rash associated with burrows. Treatment of scabies involves using topical or systemic scabicides and treating secondary bacterial infections, if present. Given the prevalence and contagiousness of scabies, measures to prevent its spread are essential. Through application of the novel Identify-Isolate-Inform (3I) Tool, emergency medical providers can readily identify risk factors for exposure and important symptoms of the disease, thus limiting its spread through prompt scabicide therapy; isolate the patient until after treatment; and inform local public health authorities and hospital infection prevention, when appropriate. Ultimately, these three actions can aid public health in controlling the transmission of scabies cases, thus ensuring the protection of the general public from this highly contagious skin infestation

Biophysical mechanisms of lymphocyte adhesion to activated vascular endothelium

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Harvard--Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-232).by Gerald C. Koenig.Ph.D

Quasinormal Modes of Optical Solitons

Quasinormal modes (QNMs) are essential for understanding the stability and resonances of open systems, with increasing prominence in black hole physics. We present here the first study of QNMs of optical potentials. We show that solitons can support QNMs, deriving a soliton perturbation equation and giving exact analytical expressions for the QNMs of fiber solitons. We discuss the boundary conditions in this intrinsically dispersive system and identify novel signatures of dispersion. From here, we discover a new analogy with astrophysical black holes and describe a regime in which the soliton is a robust black hole simulator for light-ring phenomena. Our results invite a range of applications, from the description of optical pulse propagation with QNMs to the use of state-of-the-art technology from fiber optics to address questions in black hole physics, such as QNM spectral instabilities and the role of nonlinearities in ringdown.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Reflections on Developing a Campus-Wide Workshop Series on Contemplative Practice and Social Justice

Contemplative practices have been increasingly used in higher education to enhance student well-being and academic success. More recently, educators, activists, and researchers are exploring how contemplative practices and perspectives may support promotion of social justice on and outside college campuses. In this reflection, we share the development, execution, and evaluation of a campus-wide workshop series held at San Francisco State University (SFSU). The series promoted reflection and discussion on the relationship between contemplative practice and social justice to improve campus climate, enhance well-being of campus members, and promote student success

Safe Risk-averse Bayesian Optimization for Controller Tuning

Controller tuning and parameter optimization are crucial in system design to improve both the controller and underlying system performance. Bayesian optimization has been established as an efficient model-free method for controller tuning and adaptation. Standard methods, however, are not enough for high-precision systems to be robust with respect to unknown input-dependent noise and stable under safety constraints. In this work, we present a novel data-driven approach, RaGoOSE, for safe controller tuning in the presence of heteroscedastic noise, combining safe learning with risk-averse Bayesian optimization. We demonstrate the method for synthetic benchmark and compare its performance to established BO-based tuning methods. We further evaluate RaGoOSE performance on a real precision-motion system utilized in semiconductor industry applications and compare it to the built-in auto-tuning routine

Ghost Images in Helioseismic Holography? Toy Models in a Uniform Medium

Helioseismic holography is a powerful technique used to probe the solar interior based on estimations of the 3D wavefield. Porter--Bojarski holography, which is a well-established method used in acoustics to recover sources and scatterers in 3D, is also an estimation of the wavefield, and hence it has the potential to be applied to helioseismology. Here we present a proof of concept study, where we compare helioseismic holography and Porter--Bojarski holography under the assumption that the waves propagate in a homogeneous medium. We consider the problem of locating a point source of wave excitation inside a sphere. Under these assumptions, we find that the two imaging methods have the same capability of locating the source, with the exception that helioseismic holography suffers from "ghost images" (i.e., artificial peaks away from the source location). We conclude that Porter--Bojarski holography may improve the current method used in helioseismology.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

Evidence for unusual spatial location coding in Williams syndrome: An explanation for the local bias in visuo-spatial construction tasks?

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) display poor visuo-spatial cognition relative to verbal abilities. Furthermore, whilst perceptual abilities are delayed, visuo-spatial construction abilities are comparatively even weaker, and are characterised by a local bias. We investigated whether this differentiation in visuo-spatial abilities can be explained by a deficit in coding spatial location in WS. This can be measured by assessing participants? understanding of the spatial relations between objects within a visual scene. Coordinate and categorical spatial relations were investigated independently in four participant groups: 21 individuals with WS; 21 typically developing (TD) children matched for non-verbal ability; 20 typically developing controls of a lower non-verbal ability; and 21 adults. A third task measured understanding of visual colour relations. Results indicated first, that the comprehension of categorical and co-ordinate spatial relations is equally poor in WS. Second, that the comprehension of visual relations is also at an equivalent level to spatial relational understanding in this population. These results can explain the difference in performance on visuo-spatial perception and construction tasks in WS. In addition, both the WS and control groups displayed response biases in the spatial tasks. However, the direction of bias differed across the groups. This finding is explored in relation to current theories of spatial location coding

Art in Rich-Prospect: Evaluating Next-Generation User Interfaces for Cultural Heritage

The present study reports on the user experience (UX) of rich-prospect browsing, an emerging interface design trend for digital cultural heritage. Building on research that suggests online museum collections are used only infrequently by the general public, this study investigates the role of next-generation user interfaces in the design of optimal browsing experiences. Moreover, it describes the results of user testing for three different arts and culture collections that make use of rich-prospect. The study recruited 30 participants of varying ages, nationalities, and museum visiting habits to discuss their museum experiences and test three different applications: Coins, Curator Table, and Museum of the World. The results of the study provide insights into the user experience of a new browsing medium and reveal the information-seeking habits and patterns that occurred within these information environments. Moreover, the study isolated the core features of rich-prospect in order to define opportunities and pain points during the browsing experience and indicated which features in particular are most important to people during the browsing experience. Finally, we suggest some best practices going forward in the design of rich-prospect