Geographic Relevance for Travel Search: The 2014-2015 Harvey Mudd College Clinic Project for Expedia, Inc.

The purpose of this Clinic project is to help Expedia, Inc. expand the search capabilities it offers to its users. In particular, the goal is to help the company respond to unconstrained search queries by generating a method to associate hotels and regions around the world with the higher-level attributes that describe them, such as “family- friendly” or “culturally-rich.” Our team utilized machine-learning algorithms to extract metadata from textual data about hotels and cities. We focused on two machine-learning models: decision trees and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The first appeared to be a promising approach, but would require more resources to replicate on the scale Expedia needs. On the other hand, we were able to generate useful results using LDA. We created a website to visualize these results

Fat is a Queer Issue, Too : Complicating Queerness and Body Size in Women\u27s Sexual Orientation and Identity

This dissertation explores the experiences of self-identified Lesbian-Bisexual-Queer-Transgender (LBQT) women wearing U.S. clothing size 1x and up. Drawing on research within queer theory, fat studies, and Crip theory, the main goal of this study is to explore how these women engage in their embodied everyday performances of the body and identity, particularly through looking at relationship to body and self, intersectional complications, and navigation of physical and discursive space(s). Through analyzing their narratives collected in in-depth interviews, I find that fatness contributes to how people see desire for their selves and others, community, and space-taking. Additionally, within the narratives of the participants’ ideologies around white femininity, whiteness, fatness and privilege and internalized fatphobia are present and influential in how these women related to themselves and the world. Lastly, when considering everyday identity performance, notions of failure and success, relational understandings of queerness and then queerness as a political choice are significant to participants in understanding how their bodies and identities are read within the world

Vortical fluid and Λ\Lambda spin correlations in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

Fermions become polarized in a vortical fluid due to spin-vorticity coupling. The spin polarization density is proportional to the local fluid vorticity at the next-to-leading order of a gradient expansion in a quantum kinetic theory. Spin correlations of two $\Lambda$-hyperons can therefore reveal the vortical structure of the dense matter in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. We employ a (3+1)D viscous hydrodynamic model with event-by-event fluctuating initial conditions from A MultiPhase Transport (AMPT) model to calculate the vorticity distributions and $\Lambda$ spin correlations. The azimuthal correlation of the transverse spin is shown to have a cosine form plus an offset due to a circular structure of the transverse vorticity around the beam direction and global spin polarization. The longitudinal spin correlation shows a structure of vortex-pairing in the transverse plane due to the convective flow of hot spots in the radial direction. The dependence on colliding energy, rapidity, centrality and sensitivity to the shear viscosity are also investigated.Comment: 5 pages in Latex, 3 figure

Techno-Invasion: Are Blackberries Blurring the Line Between Work and Home

This paper investigates the psychological costs of mandating information and communication technology (ICT), specifically Blackberries, in the workplace. Based on the literature on workfamily conflict and technostress, we explore whether Blackberries have caused workers to feel techno-invaded, thus interfering with the boundary between work and family. Using survey data from 76 workers at an eastern organization, we use regression analysis to test whether technoinvasion mediates the relationship between work-family conflict and work exhaustion. Results of the survey confirm that negative attitudes are arising from Blackberry usage. However, supplemental qualitative data counteracts this negative finding, suggesting that positive adjustments can advance the benefits of Blackberry usage while minimizing the costs. We end with implications for research and practice

Expanding the Dialogue: The Need for Fat Studies in Critical Intercultural Communication

In this paper, I argue that critical intercultural communication, as a discipline, can benefit from an inclusion of fat studies within its literature and analysis. Reciprocally, fat studies can also benefit from this relationship and the questions that would be raised for both fat studies and critical intercultural communication by such a juxtaposition of the areas of study. In particular, I employ my experiences as a fat, U.S. American woman to situate my own embodied knowledge as a way of understanding, in concert with literature reviews of fat studies and identity research within critical intercultural communication. I also utilize muted group theory and intersectionality to suggest specific ways that fat studies can be applied within communication studies, and critical intercultural communication specifically

Investigating the Effects of Climate Change on the Phenology of Achillea millefolium, Aquilegia coerulea, and Penstemon cyanocaulis

As the effects of climate change are starting to unearth themselves, the impacts can be observed by tracking the patterns of cyclical natural phenomena also known as phenology, and monitoring how they have changed over time. These cycles are at the crux of making ecosystems viable for their local biodiversity, and understanding the ongoing change allows for further understanding of the ecosystem’s change over time. In this study, we look at the ordinal flowering dates of the Achillea millefolium, Aquilegia coerulea, and Penstemon cyanocaulis over the past century. Our data give insight into how warmer temperatures occurring earlier in the year are changing the cycle of flowering plants in the western United States. This framework encourages more investigation into the changes in plant phenology throughout different regions due to climate change

Understudied factors contributing to variability in cognitive performance related to language learning

While much of the literature on bilingualism and cognition focuses on group comparisons (monolinguals vs bilinguals or language learners vs controls), here we examine the potential differential effects of intensive language learning on subjects with distinct language experiences and demographic profiles. Using an individual differences approach, we assessed attentional performance from 105 university-educated Gaelic learners aged 21–85. Participants were tested before and after beginner, elementary, and intermediate courses using tasks measuring i.) sustained attention, ii.) inhibition, and iii.) attention switching. We examined the relationship between attentional performance and Gaelic level, previous language experience, gender, and age. Gaelic level predicted attention switching performance: those in higher levels initially outperformed lower levels, however lower levels improved the most. Age also predicted performance: as age increased attention switching decreased. Nevertheless, age did not interact with session for any attentional measure, thus the impact of language learning on cognition was detectable across the lifespan

The northern sector of the last British ice sheet : maximum extent and demise

Strongly divided opinion has led to competing, apparently contradictory, views on the timing, extent, flow configuration and decay mechanism of the last British Ice Sheet. We review the existing literature and reconcile some of these differences using remarkable new sea-bed imagery. This bathymetric data provides unprecedented empirical evidence of confluence and subsequent separation of the last British and Fennoscandian Ice Sheets. Critically, it also allows a viable pattern of ice-sheet disintegration to be proposed for the first time. Covering the continental shelf around the northern United Kingdom, extensive echosounder data reveals striking geomorphic evidence – in the form of tunnel valleys and moraines – relating to the former British and Fennoscandian Ice Sheets. The pattern of tunnel valleys in the northern North Sea Basin and the presence of large moraines on the West Shetland Shelf, coupled with stratigraphic evidence from the Witch Ground Basin, all suggest that at its maximum extent a grounded ice sheet flowed from SE to NW across the northern North Sea Basin, terminating at the continental-shelf edge. The zone of confluence between the British and much larger Fennoscandian Ice Sheets was probably across the northern Orkney Islands, with fast-flowing ice in the Fair Isle Channel focusing sediment delivery to the Rona and Foula Wedges. This period of maximum confluent glaciation (c. 30–25 ka BP) was followed by a remarkable period of large-scale ice-sheet re-organisation. We present evidence suggesting that as sea level rose, a large marine embayment opened in the northern North Sea Basin, as far south as the Witch Ground Basin, forcing the two ice sheets to decouple rapidly along a north–south axis east of Shetland. As a result, both ice sheets rapidly adjusted to new quasi-stable margin positions forming a second distinct set of moraines (c. 24–18 ka BP). The lobate overprinted morphology of these moraines on the mid-shelf west of Orkney and Shetland indicates that the re-organisation of the British Ice Sheet was extremely dynamic — probably dominated by a series of internally forced readvances. Critically, much of the ice in the low-lying North Sea Basin may have disintegrated catastrophically as decoupling progressed in response to rising sea levels. Final-stage deglaciation was marked by near-shore ice streaming and increasing topographic control on ice-flow direction. Punctuated retreat of the British Ice Sheet continued until c. 16 ka BP when, following the North Atlantic iceberg-discharge event (Heinrich-1), ice was situated at the present-day coastline in NW Scotlan