Explorations of Respectability and Resistance in Constructions of Black Womanhood at HBCUs

Somewhere in her college experience she must have an opportunity to develop poise, to increase her self-esteem and to establish a sense of her worth and dignity as an individual. She must experience peace and beauty in her environment and she must be accorded the respect and courtesy, which is so lacking in her life on the outside. The education of the Negro woman should give her an opportunity to exhaust to the fullest her powers of expression and creativit

Developing Attorneys for the Future: What Can We Learn From the Fast Trackers?

Leaders in law firms tend to be those attorneys who thrive in a law firm environment from the beginning—successful associates who become successful partners. Later, they are asked to be the leaders of practice areas, committees and, ultimately, part of senior management. While high-performing associates may not be formally promoted to leadership positions for some time, it is important to understand what makes them—as young associates—stand out from their peers. Who are these future leaders, and what qualities predict their advancement in a law firm environment? These are the questions we set out to explore. To date, little empirical work exists on the characteristics and behaviors of high-potential associates—how to recognize them from the beginning and how to develop them. Instead, law students continue to be hired most commonly based on the law school they attended and their GPA, under the assumption that law school and GPA are related to future performance as an attorney. Transcript and resume review are typically accompanied by a series of 30-minute interviews consisting of questions that vary from candidate to candidate. Consequently, hiring decisions result from a combination of the reputation of the law school attended, GPA, and the interviewing partners’ gut feeling

Amniotic fluid from healthy term pregnancies does not harbor a detectable microbial community

Abstract Recent studies have conflicting data regarding the presence of intra-amniotic microbiota. Viral communities are increasingly recognized as important although overlooked components of the human microbiota. It is unknown if the developing fetus is exposed to a community of viruses (virome). Given the debate over the existence of an intra-amniotic microbial community and the importance of understanding how the infant gut is populated, we characterized the virome and bacterial microbiota of amniotic fluid from 24 uncomplicated term pregnancies using next-generation sequencing methods. Contrary to expectations, the bacterial microbiota of amniotic fluid was indistinguishable from contamination controls. Viral reads were sparse in the amniotic fluid, and we found no evidence of a core viral community across samples

The Tolman Surface Brightness Test for the Reality of the Expansion. II. The Effect of the Point-Spread Function and Galaxy Ellipticity on the Derived Photometric Parameters

To complete the Tolman surface brightness test on the reality of the expansion of the Universe, we need to measure accurately the surface brightness profiles of the high-redshift galaxy sample. We, therefore, investigate the effects of various sizes of point-spread-functions composed of telescope diffraction, CCD pixel resolutions, and ground-based seeing on the measurements of mean surface brightness. We have done the calculations using two synthetic galaxies of effective radii of 0.70" and 0.25" with point-spread functions of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.9 arcseconds. We have also compared actual observations of three high-redshift galaxies in the cluster Cl 1324 + 3011 (z = 0.76) made both with the Keck telescopes in seeing of about 0.9" and with HST which has a PSF that is approximately ten times smaller. The conclusion is that HST data can be used as far into the galaxy image as a Petrosian metric radius of eta = 1.3 magnitudes, whereas the ground-based data will have systematic errors of up to 2.9 magnitudes in the mean surface brightness at eta values of less than 2.2 magnitudes. In the final section, we compare the differences in derived average surface brightness for nearly circular galaxy images compared with highly flattened images. The comparison is made by using the two reduction procedures of (1) integrating the profile curves using circular apertures, and (2) approximating an ``equivalent circular'' galaxy that is highly elongated by using an ``effective'' radius of sqrt{ab}, where a and b are the semi-major and semi-minor axis, respectively, of the best-fitting ellipse. The conclusion is that the two methods of reduction give nearly identical results and that either method can be used to analyze the low and high-redshift galaxy samples used in the Tolman test.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in Astronomical Journa

Evaluating Communication Campaigns

Summarizes presentations from a September 2007 conference on evaluating communication campaigns. Discusses the mechanism of effecting change through communication; the principles of advocacy evaluation; the design, methods, and tools; and lessons learned

Optimal Clustering under Uncertainty

Classical clustering algorithms typically either lack an underlying probability framework to make them predictive or focus on parameter estimation rather than defining and minimizing a notion of error. Recent work addresses these issues by developing a probabilistic framework based on the theory of random labeled point processes and characterizing a Bayes clusterer that minimizes the number of misclustered points. The Bayes clusterer is analogous to the Bayes classifier. Whereas determining a Bayes classifier requires full knowledge of the feature-label distribution, deriving a Bayes clusterer requires full knowledge of the point process. When uncertain of the point process, one would like to find a robust clusterer that is optimal over the uncertainty, just as one may find optimal robust classifiers with uncertain feature-label distributions. Herein, we derive an optimal robust clusterer by first finding an effective random point process that incorporates all randomness within its own probabilistic structure and from which a Bayes clusterer can be derived that provides an optimal robust clusterer relative to the uncertainty. This is analogous to the use of effective class-conditional distributions in robust classification. After evaluating the performance of robust clusterers in synthetic mixtures of Gaussians models, we apply the framework to granular imaging, where we make use of the asymptotic granulometric moment theory for granular images to relate robust clustering theory to the application.Comment: 19 pages, 5 eps figures, 1 tabl

Photoluminescence Study of GaN Implanted with Erbium and Erbium-Oxygen

Erbium emits at 1540 nm, which propagates well through fiber optic cables. This work studies the photoluminescence (PL) from GaN, GaN implanted with Er alone, and GaN implanted with both Er and O as functions of excitation laser energy and sample temperature. When the exciton bound to a neutral donor recombined, a photon was emitted at 3.47 eV. A photon emitted at 3.457 eV may have been evidence of the recombination of an exciton bound to a neutral acceptor. Second, the Er-ion transitions were observed in two groups around 0.805 and 1.25 eV. The PL intensity was measured at four laser excitation wavelengths of 275.4-305.5, 333.6-363.8, 488.0, and 514.5 nm from an Ar-ion laser. Although the PL intensities from GaN:Er were strongest when the sample was excited by the 275.4-305.5 nm multiline, the PL emissions from GaN:Er+O were strongest when excited with the 333.6-363.8 nm line. Regardless, both above and below bandgap laser lines induced strong PL intensities. Third, PL form the two samples was studied as temperature was increased from 2 to 150 K. In general, the intensities of most peaks decreased as temperature was raised in both samples, but the PL signals persist even at 150 K

Disposition of a Federal Criminal Case When Defendant Dies Pending Appeal

This article discusses the way in which courts historically have disposed of such cases and the apparent change recently introduced by the United States Supreme Court. After an examination of the ramifications of the new and old rules, certain changes in current practice are recommended which will better serve the interests of the deceased, his survivors, and society as a whole

Improving Patient Safety in the Operating Room: Utilizing a Safety Checklist and Briefings

The perioperative care setting can be a hazardous environment for patients undergoing surgery. Surgical teams caring for patients undergoing complex surgical procedures may create an opportunity for surgical errors impacting patient safety. The purpose of this project is to improve consistent standardized Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) use and briefings in the orthopedic perioperative care setting in a large Midwestern hospital, thereby supporting a culture of safety through staff engagement and a team-based communication approach. Watson’s Theory of Human Caring guided this project through the theoretical concepts of presence and faith. An initial implementation of the SSC and briefings revealed a decrease in compliance, teamwork, and communication and staff engagement. Introduction of a team training program, Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety TeamSTEPPS® provided improved communication and enabled more efficient surgical teams, thus improving the compliance of both the SSC and briefings. Further evaluation of compliance and development of a model of care translated the technical and safety processes involved in the operating room into an enhanced patient experience. Conclusions derived from this project suggest that SSCs and briefings provide the standard of care to foster patient safety, teamwork, and communication to aid in the prevention of surgical errors