To Be Out and In: Influencing factors in the recognition of SOGI-based asylum claims in South Africa and Kenya

This thesis examines the relationship and influence of domestic law and culture on the recognition, respect, and adherence of international refugee law as it pertains to sexual orientation and gender based asylum claims in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using South Africa and Kenya as comparative case studies, the paper explores different factors that have contributed to a discovered lack of influence of policy and culture in the practice of refugee status determination, as domestic interests, bureaucratic structure and decision making, and international affairs and involvement. The purpose of the study is to better understand the fulfillment of sexual orientation and gender based claims within the context of differing legal contexts but similar cultural ones given the unacceptance of sexual and gender non-conforming individuals throughout African culture. By examining these contexts, the goal of the study was to ascertain what factors contribute to these differences so as best practices and strategies can be used and advocated for moving forward

Fabrication and Application of Self-masked Silicon Nanostructures in Deep Reactive Ion Etching Processes

Silicon Grass is a nano-scale surface modification formed by self-organizing processes in plasma etching. It can be used to enable new functionalities or enhance the performance of MEMS, Biological MEMS or MOEMS. Its low-cost generation with standard fabrication equipment makes it a promising research subject. The thesis investigates the formation, modification and application of Silicon Grass resulting from the cyclic Deep Reactive Ion Etching process (c-DRIE). The main goal is the controlled generation as well as the modification of the Silicon Grass. Therefore, the work focuses on three main subjects: nanomasking - the self-organized mechanism initiating Silicon Grass generation, Silicon Grass processing - for controlled structure etching and modification, and the integration and application in MEMS. In order to investigate the nanomasking process and derive a formation theory for the c-DRIE process, different morphological and chemical studies by SEM, AFM, XPS and AES as well as process analysis methods are used. It is shown that the nanomask consists of carbon-rich, filament-like clusters, whose morphology can be changed by various process parameters. The reproducible generation of a nanomask in the c-DRIE is based on the controlled abrasion of the inhibiting film. This is achieved by process control via OES allowing for the initiation of nanomasking even for varying process conditions. Various influences on nanomask formation and morphology are investigated and it is found that carbon dust formation in C4F8 polymerizing plasmas has a profound effect. It is shown that the characteristic geometrical features of the structures undergo significant changes during the Silicon Grass process. Depending on the applied process parameters, the resulting profiles and the sidewall morphology of the Silicon Grass is changed. The metallization of Silicon Grass by physical vapor deposition and electroless plating as well as the suitability of different Silicon Grass types for mechanical bonding and infrared optical applications are investigated. Finally, the integration of Silicon Grass in MEMS is discussed. Here, fundamental information about possible integration methods, requirements and limitations are given. The possible integration and practical application of Silicon Grass in MEMS is demonstrated by the fabrication of a thermo-mechanically actuated cantilever

Dynamical Constraints of Galaxy Clusters via Spectroscopic Observations

Galaxy Clusters are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the Universe, residing at the boundary between the expansive push of dark energy in the vacuum and the attractive pull of dark matter the fills the halo in which a cluster resides. By leveraging the power of spectroscopy, I used the three-dimensional information it provides about galaxies within these clusters to infer dynamical properties about the galaxy cluster and the underlying dark matter halo. The dynamical state and dynamic mass inferences are valuable to future cosmological studies that aim to use the unique nature of galaxy clusters and the role they play in constraining the properties of dark energy and dark matter. In this work I focus on transforming galaxy spectra into line-of-sight velocities which, when paired with projected sky locations, allow me to probe the gravitational potential of the total cluster system. I designed, targeted, acquired, reduced, and analyzed 4427 galaxy spectra from 22 galaxy clusters, of which 3054 passed my strict quality cuts. Of those that passed the cuts, 1679 were identified as cluster members based on radial-velocity phase-space cuts. The data was acquired using the Michigan-Magellan Fiber System (M2FS) multi-fiber spectrograph on the 6.5m Magellan Clay telescope. The reductions were performed using a fully-featured pipeline that I created and that I describe in this work. I also summarize the resulting dataset using spatial, redshift, magnitude, and signal-to-noise information for individual galaxies, and show that there is good agreement when comparing my re-observed redshifts with those in the literature. To convey the amount of information contained in this dataset, I perform an analysis on one specifically selected massive cluster, Abell S1063, which was observed twice. I use two approaches for estimating cluster masses, the first is a velocity dispersion technique that takes the distribution of velocities, reduces it to a statistical measure of the width of the distribution, and maps that spread to a mass based on a model motivated in part by theory and calibrated with simulations. The second uses the velocity-radial distance information from the cluster center to identify the escape velocity edge of the cluster, which is observed as the velocity extrema in a given radial bin. This edge is directly related to the gravitational potential and can be used to infer the total mass of the system. I compare these techniques to one another and against other mass proxies and find that the velocity dispersion measurement differs from other estimates for the system, favoring a higher mass, while the escape velocity edge technique is in good agreement with other estimates. This is expected for a galaxy cluster with substructure, which previous studies have hypothesized for this system but could not verify. I am able to visually confirm the existence of clumps using galaxies as tracers, and quantify the substructure using the Dressler-Shectman statistic, where I found a significant result with p< 0.0001.PHDPhysicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155027/1/kremin_1.pd

A cross-linguistic data bank for oral picture naming in Dutch, English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish (PEDOI)

The well established effect of word frequency on adult's picture naming performance is now called into question. This is particularly true for variables which are correlated with frequency, as is the case of age of word acquisition. Since the work of there is growing agreement among researchers to confer an important role in lexical access to this variable. Indeed, it has been shown () that for normal English-speaking adults only the variables 'age-of-acquisition' and 'name agreement' are independent predictors of naming success among the various variables considered. However, when brain-damaged subjects with and without degenerative pathologies are studied, word frequency and word length as well as concept familiarity all give significant effects (; ; ). Finally, it has been suggested that the production of specific error types may be related to such variables. According to the production of semantic errors is specifically affected by 'imageability' and in the recent study by 'age of acquisition' predicts (frank) word finding difficulties

MULTI-PURPOSE OPTIMIZATION OF THE PRODUCT RELEASE PROGRAM

A model of the optimal production plan of an industrial enterprise, formalizing its production program has been presented. An example of its solution by minimizing the maximum permissible cumulative deviation from optimal production plans, drawn up with a single local target optimization criterion has been adduced. The modeling of variability in the preparation of the production program and the selection from possible scenarios of those, which can actually be successfully implemented, has been analyzed by example. In addition to the method described above, two more options have been proposed for optimizing the program, which can be considered as alternative ways to solve the existing problem, or as additional scenarios for the development of events. The results of this work will be useful to persons, involved in the rational and effective management of industrial production systems

Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective

Bilingual children regularly hear sentences that contain words from both languages, also known as code-switching. Investigating how bilinguals process code-switching is important for understanding bilingual language acquisition, because young bilinguals have been shown to experience processing costs and reduced comprehension when encountering code-switched nouns. Studies have yet to inves-tigate if processing costs are present when children encounter code-switches at other parts of speech within a sentence. The current study examined how 30 young bilinguals (age range: 37 – 48 months) processed sentences with code-switches at an uninformative determiner-adjective pair before the target noun (e.g., “Can you find le bon [the good] duck?) compared to single-language sentences (e.g., “Can you find the good duck?”). Surprisingly, bilingual children accurately identified the target object in both sentence types, contrasting with previous findings that sentences containing code-switching lead to processing difficulties. Indeed, children showed similar (and in some cases, better) comprehension of sentences with a code-switch at an uninformative adjective phrase, relative to single-language sentenc-es. We conclude that functional information conveyed by a code-switch may contribute to bilingual children’s sentence processing

A sociodemographic and neuropsychological characterization of an illiterate population

The objectives of this article are to characterize the performance and to discuss the performance differences between literate and illiterate participants in a well-defined study population. We describe the participant-selection procedure used to investigate this population. Three groups with similar sociocultural backgrounds living in a relatively homogeneous fishing community in southern Portugal were characterized in terms of socioeconomic and sociocultural background variables and compared on a simple neuropsychological test battery; specifically, a literate group with more than 4 years of education (n = 9), a literate group with 4 years of education (n = 26), and an illiterate group (n = 31) were included in this study. We compare and discuss our results with other similar studies on the effects of literacy and illiteracy. The results indicate that naming and identification of real objects, verbal fluency using ecologically relevant semantic criteria, verbal memory, and orientation are not affected by literacy or level of formal education. In contrast, verbal working memory assessed with digit span, verbal abstraction, long-term semantic memory, and calculation (i.e., multiplication) are significantly affected by the level of literacy. We indicate that it is possible, with proper participant-selection procedures, to exclude general cognitive impairment and to control important sociocultural factors that potentially could introduce bias when studying the specific effects of literacy and level of formal education on cognitive brain function

Optische Manipulation von Mikropartikeln in mikro-opto-fluidischen Systemen

In mikro-opto-fluidischen Anwendungen werden Anforderungen an die Optik gestellt, die spezifische Systemdesigns notwendig machen. Es werden zwei Verfahren zu optischen Mikromanipulation an einem realen Fluidiksystem demonstriert, mit denen Wechselwirkung über weite Distanzen erreicht werden kann