Race and Representation: A Case Study of Racial Diversity in Student Government

Colleges and universities in the United States have attempted for years to implement policies and procedures to promote racial diversity in their student bodies, as well as to ensure reflective minority representation in student programs at their institutions. I have done an independent evaluation assessment of the necessity and program theory for a policy aimed at assuring diversity of the undergraduate student government at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, covering the period 2003-2005. The policy in effect during those years was a system which guaranteed minority representation reasonably mirroring the known minority population of the undergraduate student body by reserving 13 percent of Senator positions in the Student Government Association for students affiliated with the African, Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American caucus. The policy intent was to achieve campus fair and just minority representation in UMass student government. In reality, however, that policy produced unintended consequences instead – bitter, and sometimes violent racial tensions, and widespread and prolonged charges of reverse and illegal discrimination. As a result of this evaluation of that policy, and its attendant procedures for implementation, in the conclusion I offer recommendations which would allow UMass to replace a problematic policy with one which could achieve reflective minority representation in student government acceptable to, and supported by, the majority of the undergraduate population

Translating Latin America: Harriet De Onís and the U.S. publishing market

Responding to recent debates about the circulation of literary texts in the global market, this dissertation examines various literary and socio-political factors that shaped the translation and reception of Latin American literature in the U.S. between 1930-1969. This study seeks to fill a critical gap in the history of translated Latin American literature, focusing on the editorial project of Alfred A. Knopf, the most influential publisher of Latin American literature in the U.S. during these years, and Harriet de Onís, Knopf’s principal translator from Spanish and Portuguese into English. Drawing on archival research, each chapter traces the publication history, and follows with a close reading, of a different text translated and sometimes edited, by de Onís. The three case studies from both Spanish and Portuguese source texts and from geographically diverse regions (Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba) examine specific problems of translation. Chapter One addresses the ways in which explicitly political texts are transformed in translation and are shaped by readers’ cultural expectations. It analyzes de Onís’s translation of Martín Luis Guzmán’s semifictional memoir of the Mexican Revolution, El águila y la serpiente (1928), The Eagle and the Serpent (abridged version in English published in 1930 and complete version in 1965). Chapter Two studies the movement of scholarly texts from peripheral to central markets through an analysis of Fernando Ortiz’s Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (1940), translated in 1947 as Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar. Chapter Three studies the difficulties of reproducing experimental language in translation through close readings of de Onís’s translations of João Guimarães Rosa’s Sagarana (1946, title unchanged in the 1966 English translation) and Grande Sertão: Veredas (1956, translated in collaboration with James L. Taylor in 1963 as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands). These case studies suggest that current models of the global circulation of literature should acknowledge more fully the active editorial role of the translator and other agents in shaping source texts and in seeking out the cultural analogies that make those texts more readily understandable to foreign readers

Accuracy and feasibility of an android-based digital assessment tool for post stroke visual disorders - The StrokeVision App

Background: Visual impairment affects up to 70% of stroke survivors. We designed an app (StrokeVision) to facilitate screening for common post stroke visual issues (acuity, visual fields and visual inattention). We sought to describe the test-time, feasibility, acceptability and accuracy of our app based digital visual assessments against a) current methods used for bedside screening, and b) gold standard measures. Methods: Patients were prospectively recruited from acute stroke settings. Index tests were app based assessments of fields and inattention performed by a trained researcher. We compared against usual clinical screening practice of visual fields to confrontation including inattention assessment (simultaneous stimuli). We also compared app to gold standard assessments of formal kinetic perimetry (Goldman or Octopus Visual Field Assessment); and pencil and paper based tests of inattention (Albert’s, Star Cancellation, and Line Bisection). Results of inattention and field tests were adjudicated by a specialist Neuro-Ophthalmologist. All assessors were masked to each other’s results. Participants and assessors graded acceptability using a bespoke scale that ranged from 0 (completely unacceptable) to 10 (perfect acceptability). Results: Of 48 stroke survivors recruited, the complete battery of index and reference tests for fields was successfully completed in 45. Similar acceptability scores were observed for app-based (assessor median score 10 [IQR:9-10]; patient 9 [IQR:8-10]) and traditional bedside testing (assessor 10 [IQR:9-10; patient 10 [IQR:9-10]). Median test time was longer for app-based testing (combined time-to-completion of all digital tests 420 seconds [IQR:390-588]) when compared with conventional bedside testing (70 seconds, [IQR:40-70]) but shorter than gold standard testing (1260 seconds, [IQR:1005-1620]). Compared with gold standard assessments, usual screening practice demonstrated 79% sensitivity and 82% specificity for detection of a stroke-related field defect. This compares with 79% sensitivity and 88% specificity for StrokeVision digital assessment. Conclusion: StrokeVision shows promise as a screening tool for visual complications in the acute phase of stroke. The app is at least as good as usual screening and offers other functionality that may make it attractive for use in acute stroke

Exploring Prosopis Management and Policy Options in the Greater Horn of Africa: Proceedings of a Regional Conference, Addis Ababa, November 2014

Prosopis and the challenge itis posing has become a serious issue in most IGAD countries, affecting the livelihoods of farmers, agro-pastoral and pastoral communities. It has taken over farmland, browse and pasture, as well as reduced the water supply for people and for livestock in affected areas. Some governments have opted for expensive physical eradication methods which, however, are not proving effective. Others are trying alternative approaches which consider Prosopis an underutilised resource, rather than just an ecological menace

Time-resolved photoelectron imaging of excited state relaxation dynamics in phenol, catechol, resorcinol and hydroquinone

Time-resolved photoelectron imaging was used to investigate the dynamical evolution of the initially prepared S1 (\u3c0\u3c0*) excited state of phenol (hydroxybenzene), catechol (1,2-dihydroxybenzene), resorcinol (1,3-dihydroxybenzene), and hydroquinone (1,4-dihydroxybenzene) following excitation at 267 nm. Our analysis was supported by ab initio calculations at the coupled-cluster and CASSCF levels of theory. In all cases, we observe rapid (<1 ps) intramolecular vibrational redistribution on the S1potential surface. In catechol, the overall S1 state lifetime was observed to be 12.1 ps, which is 1\u20132 orders of magnitude shorter than in the other three molecules studied. This may be attributed to differences in the H atom tunnelling rate under the barrier formed by a conical intersection between the S1 state and the close lying S2 (\u3c0\u3c3*) state, which is dissociative along the O\u2013H stretching coordinate. Further evidence of this S1/S2 interaction is also seen in the time-dependent anisotropy of the photoelectron angular distributions we have observed. Our data analysis was assisted by a matrix inversion method for processing photoelectron images that is significantly faster than most other previously reported approaches and is extremely quick and easy to implement.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

X-ray Phase-Resolved Spectroscopy of PSRs B0531+21, B1509-58, and B0540-69 with RXTE

The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer ({\sl RXTE}) has made hundreds of observations on three famous young pulsars (PSRs) B0531+21 (Crab), B1509-58, and B0540-69. Using the archive {\sl RXTE} data, we have studied the phase-resolved spectral properties of these pulsars in details. The variation of the X-ray spectrum with phase of PSR B0531+21 is confirmed here much more precisely and more details are revealed than the previous studies: the spectrum softens from the beginning of the first pulse, turns to harden right at the pulse peak and becomes the hardest at the bottom of the bridge, softens gradually until the second peak, and then softens rapidly. Different from the previous studies, we found that the spectrum of PSR B1509-58 is significantly harder in the center of the pulse, which is also in contrast to that of PSR B0531+21. The variation of the X-ray spectrum of PSR B0540-69 seems similar to that of PSR B1509-58, but with a lower significance. Using the about 10 years of data span, we also studied the real time evolution of the spectra of these pulsars, and no significant evolution has been detected. We have discussed about the constraints of these results on theoretical models of pulsar X-ray emission.Comment: 42 pages, 24 figure

Prediction of melt depth in selected architectural materials during high power diode laser treatment

The development of an accurate analysis procedure for many laser applications, including the surface treatment of architectural materials, is extremely complicated due to the multitude of process parameters and materials characteristics involved. A one-dimensional analytical model based on Fourier’s law, with quasi-stationary situations in an isotropic and inhomogeneous workpiece with a parabolic meltpool geometry being assumed, was successfully developed. This model, with the inclusion of an empirically determined correction factor, predicted high power diode laser (HPDL) induced melt depths in clay quarry tiles, ceramic tiles and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) that were in close agreement with those obtained experimentally. It was observed, however, that as the incident laser line energy increased (>15 W mm-1 s-1/2), the calculated and the experimental melt depths began to diverge at an increasing rate. It is believed that this observed increasing discrepancy can be attributed to the fact the model developed neglects sideways conduction which, although it can be reasonably neglected at low energy densities, becomes significant at higher energy densities since one-dimensional heat transfer no longer holds true

The neurons that mistook a hat for a face

Despite evidence that context promotes the visual recognition of objects, decades of research have led to the pervasive notion that the object processing pathway in primate cortex consists of multiple areas that each process the intrinsic features of a few particular categories (e.g. faces, bodies, hands, objects, and scenes). Here we report that such category-selective neurons do not in fact code individual categories in isolation but are also sensitive to object relationships that reflect statistical regularities of the experienced environment. We show by direct neuronal recording that face-selective neurons respond not just to an image of a face, but also to parts of an image where contextual cues-for example a body-indicate a face ought to be, even if what is there is not a face

Following the excited state relaxation dynamics of indole and 5-hydroxyindole using time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy

Time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy was used to obtain new information about the dynamics of electronic relaxation in gas-phase indole and 5-hydroxyindole following UV excitation with femtosecond laser pulses centred at 249 nm and 273 nm. Our analysis of the data was supported by ab initio calculations at the coupled cluster and complete-active-space self-consistent-field levels. The optically bright 1La and 1Lb electronic states of 1\u3c0\u3c0* character and spectroscopically dark and dissociative 1\u3c0\u3c3* states were all found to play a role in the overall relaxation process. In both molecules we conclude that the initially excited 1La state decays non-adiabatically on a sub 100 fs timescale via two competing pathways, populating either the subsequently long-lived 1Lb state or the 1\u3c0\u3c3* state localised along the N-H coordinate, which exhibits a lifetime on the order of 1 ps. In the case of 5-hydroxyindole, we conclude that the 1\u3c0\u3c3* state localised along the O-H coordinate plays little or no role in the relaxation dynamics at the two excitation wavelengths studied.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye