Battered Women and Identity Work: Negotiating Agency, Responsibility, and Justice with the State

Sine the 1970s when the battered women’s movement brought increased public attention to the issue of woman battering, a set of domestic violence discourses have emerged. These discourses have been influenced by a variety of social institutions. Through such discourses, the “battered woman” has been represented in specific ways. In this dissertation, I draw from discourse analysis, symbolic interactionism, poststructuralism, and feminist theory in order to explore the relationship between discourse, subjectivity, and the criminalization of domestic violence. Through an examination of current criminal justice domestic violence policy, interviews with prosecutors who work with domestic violence cases and interviews with women who have experienced violence in the context of an intimate relationship, I examine how domestic violence discourses: (1) re(present) victims of woman battering; (2) influence the interpretive processes of both criminal justice system professionals and battered women in their interactions with one another; and (3) situate and mediate the experiences of both criminal justice system professionals and battered women. I demonstrate that mainstream representations of abused women both enable and limit the self-constructions and presentations of battered women and ultimately impact the women’s experiences, particularly in the context of the criminal justice system. However, as I illustrate, despite being constrained by the institutional power of the criminal justice system, battered women are never completely powerless and are able to engage in acts of agency and resistance

Cardiovascular Risk Factor Disparities in Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer Compared With the General Population

BACKGROUND: It is unknown whether a history of childhood cancer modifies the established disparities in cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs) observed in the general population. OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine if disparities in CVRFs by race/ethnicity are similar among childhood cancer survivors compared with the general population. METHODS: The Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) is a retrospective cohort with a longitudinal follow-up of 24,084 5-year survivors diagnosed between 1970 and 1999. Multivariable piecewise exponential regression estimated incidence rate ratios (IRRs) for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, obesity, and ≥2 CVRFs by race/ethnicity. The CCSS sibling cohort and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey cohort were used to compare the sociodemographic-adjusted IRRs for same-race/same-ethnicity disparities. RESULTS: Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) (n = 1,092) and Hispanic (n = 1,405) survivors compared with non-Hispanic White (NHW) (n = 13,960) survivors reported a higher cumulative incidence of diabetes (8.4%, 9.7%, and 5.1%, respectively); obesity (47.2%, 48.9%, and 30.2%, respectively); multiple CVRFs (17.7%, 16.6%, and 12.3%, respectively); and, for NHB survivors, hypertension (19.5%, 13.6%, and 14.3%, respectively) by 40 years of age ( CONCLUSIONS: The higher burden of CVRFs among NHB and Hispanic survivors compared with NHW survivors was similar to the general population. The promotion of cardiovascular health equity is critical in this high-risk population

Astro2020 APC White Paper: The Early Career Perspective on the Coming Decade, Astrophysics Career Paths, and the Decadal Survey Process

In response to the need for the Astro2020 Decadal Survey to explicitly engage early career astronomers, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted the Early Career Astronomer and Astrophysicist Focus Session (ECFS) on October 8-9, 2018 under the auspices of Committee of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The meeting was attended by fifty six pre-tenure faculty, research scientists, postdoctoral scholars, and senior graduate students, as well as eight former decadal survey committee members, who acted as facilitators. The event was designed to educate early career astronomers about the decadal survey process, to solicit their feedback on the role that early career astronomers should play in Astro2020, and to provide a forum for the discussion of a wide range of topics regarding the astrophysics career path. This white paper presents highlights and themes that emerged during two days of discussion. In Section 1, we discuss concerns that emerged regarding the coming decade and the astrophysics career path, as well as specific recommendations from participants regarding how to address them. We have organized these concerns and suggestions into five broad themes. These include (sequentially): (1) adequately training astronomers in the statistical and computational techniques necessary in an era of "big data", (2) responses to the growth of collaborations and telescopes, (3) concerns about the adequacy of graduate and postdoctoral training, (4) the need for improvements in equity and inclusion in astronomy, and (5) smoothing and facilitating transitions between early career stages. Section 2 is focused on ideas regarding the decadal survey itself, including: incorporating early career voices, ensuring diverse input from a variety of stakeholders, and successfully and broadly disseminating the results of the survey

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Subsequent female breast cancer risk associated with anthracycline chemotherapy for childhood cancer

Anthracycline-based chemotherapy is associated with increased subsequent breast cancer (SBC) risk in female childhood cancer survivors, but the current evidence is insufficient to support early breast cancer screening recommendations for survivors treated with anthracyclines. In this study, we pooled individual patient data of 17,903 survivors from six well-established studies, of whom 782 (4.4%) developed a SBC, and analyzed dose-dependent effects of individual anthracycline agents on developing SBC and interactions with chest radiotherapy. A dose-dependent increased SBC risk was seen for doxorubicin (hazard ratio (HR) per 100 mg m−2: 1.24, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.18–1.31), with more than twofold increased risk for survivors treated with ≥200 mg m−2 cumulative doxorubicin dose versus no doxorubicin (HR: 2.50 for 200–299 mg m−2, HR: 2.33 for 300–399 mg m−2 and HR: 2.78 for ≥400 mg m−2). For daunorubicin, the associations were not statistically significant. Epirubicin was associated with increased SBC risk (yes/no, HR: 3.25, 95% CI: 1.59–6.63). For patients treated with or without chest irradiation, HRs per 100 mg m−2 of doxorubicin were 1.11 (95% CI: 1.02–1.21) and 1.26 (95% CI: 1.17–1.36), respectively. Our findings support that early initiation of SBC surveillance may be reasonable for survivors who received ≥200 mg m−2 cumulative doxorubicin dose and should be considered in SBC surveillance guidelines for survivors and future treatment protocols

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Book Review: Battering States: The Politics of Domestic Violence in Israel. By Madelaine Adelman. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 2017. Pp. xiv+290. 69.95(cloth);69.95 (cloth); 34.95 (paper).

In Battering States: The Politics of Domestic Violence in Israel, anthropologist Madelaine Adelman utilizes an impressive array of ethnographic methods to examine how statecraft shapes domestic violence. Her thoughtful project is interdisciplinary in nature and analyzes when and how intimate partner violence intersects with cultural politics of the state. Her focus centers on Israel, where a number of distinctive factors make this a particularly compelling site for the type of study in which she engages: the existence of a “contentious multinational and multiethnic population,” “competing and overlapping sets of religious civil family law” (p. 2), pervasive state securitism and political violence, and widening economic disparity. As Adelman argues, while this exact combination of processes is unique to Israel, its component parts are not atypical of states with diverse populations in an era of globalization

Classed Conceptions of Academic Self-Efficacy at an Elite University

Using the classic triadic model of class (lower, middle and upper), this paper explores how a students’ class-based cultural capital relates to their conceptualization and development of academic efficacy. Academic efficacy refers to the ability, not only of a student to think positively about their academic selves, but also to have and carry out plans that support their academic selves. Academic efficacy is positively associated with a myriad of student outcomes (Zajacova, Lynch and Espenshade 2005; Lent, Brown and Hackett 2000; Alfaro, Umaña-Taylor and Bámaca 2006). The findings, based on in-depth interviews with 44 students at a highly selective private university, reveal that, compared to upper-class students, who predominantly reported high academic efficacy, the orientations among non-elite students were not as great. Findings suggest that policy makers should be paying attention not only to the experiences of lower-class students, but also to the difficulties unique to middle-class students at an elite university