Book review: Ann Millett-Gallant, The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art

This is a review of The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art by Ann Millett-Gallant. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010

NASTRAN distribution through COSMIC

The NASTRAN program package is one of the most important in terms of size and use in the COSMIC inventory at the University of Georgia. A brief history of the COSMIC facility as it relates to the NASTRAN program package is presented, followed by a discussion of the NASTRAN disseminations. COSMIC, which is the acronym for the Computer Software Management and Information Center, is operated by the University of Georgia's Computer Center under contract to NASA. The purpose of COSMIC is to make available to the public the computer software and documentation developed as part of the NASA program. It is, perhaps, best described as a clearinghouse for the NASA-sponsored computer software, although the functions specified under the contract go much further than simply duplicating the programs and documentation for distribution. A sizeable portion of the workscope involves screening the programs to insure that they are free of syntax errors, that all necessary subroutines are present, and that the documentation includes sufficiently detailed instructions to allow purchasers to install and operate the program or system

Power Spectrum of Cosmic Momentum Field Measured from the SFI Galaxy Sample

We have measured the cosmic momentum power spectrum from the peculiar velocities of galaxies in the SFI sample. The SFI catalog contains field spiral galaxies with radial peculiar velocities derived from the I-band Tully-Fisher relation. As a natural measure of the large-scale peculiar velocity field, we use the cosmic momentum field that is defined as the peculiar velocity field weighted by local number of galaxies. We have shown that the momentum power spectrum can be derived from the density power spectrum for the constant linear biasing of galaxy formation, which makes it possible to estimate \beta_S = \Omega_m^{0.6} / b_S parameter precisely where \Omega_m is the matter density parameter and b_S is the bias factor for optical spiral galaxies. At each wavenumber k we estimate \beta_S(k) as the ratio of the measured to the derived momentum power over a wide range of scales (0.026 h^{-1}Mpc <~ k <~ 0.157 h^{-1}Mpc) that spans the linear to the quasi-linear regimes. The estimated \beta_S(k)'s have stable values around 0.5, which demonstrates the constancy of \beta_S parameter at scales down to 40 h^{-1}Mpc. We have obtained \beta_S=0.49_{-0.05}^{+0.08} or \Omega_m = 0.30_{-0.05}^{+0.09} b_S^{5/3}, and the amplitude of mass fluctuation as \sigma_8\Omega_m^{0.6}=0.56_{-0.21}^{+0.27}. The 68% confidence limits include the cosmic variance. We have also estimated the mass density power spectrum. For example, at k=0.1047 h Mpc^{-1} (\lambda=60 h^{-1}Mpc) we measure \Omega_m^{1.2} P_{\delta}(k)=(2.51_{-0.94}^{+0.91})\times 10^3 (h^{-1}Mpc)^3, which is lower compared to the high-amplitude power spectra found from the previous maximum likelihood analyses of peculiar velocity samples like Mark III, SFI, and ENEAR.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Research, Teaching and Service: Why Shouldn't Women's Work Count?

This article examines one way institutionalized sexism operates in the university setting by examining the gender roles and gender hierarchies implicit in (allegedly gender-neutral) university tenure and promotion policies. Current working assumptions regarding (1) what constitutes good research, teaching, and service and (2) the relative importance of each of these endeavors reflect and perpetuate masculine values and practices, thus preventing the professional advancement of female faculty both individually and collectively. A gendered division of labor exists within (as outside) the contemporary academy wherein research is implicitly deemed "men's work" and is explicitly valued, whereas teaching and service are characterized as "women's work" and explicitly devalued

On varieties of almost minimal degree I: Secant loci of rational normal scrolls

To complete the classification theory and the structure theory of varieties of almost minimal degree, that is of non-degenerate irreducible projective varieties whose degree exceeds the codimension by precisely 2, a natural approach is to investigate simple projections of varieties of minimal degree. Let $\tilde X \subset {\mathbb P}^{r+1}_K$ be a variety of minimal degree and of codimension at least 2, and consider $X_p = \pi_p (\tilde X) \subset {\mathbb P}^r_K$ where $p \in {\mathbb P}^{r+1}_K \backslash \tilde X$. By \cite{B-Sche}, it turns out that the cohomological and local properties of $X_p$ are governed by the secant locus $\Sigma_p (\tilde X)$ of $\tilde X$ with respect to $p$. Along these lines, the present paper is devoted to give a geometric description of the secant stratification of $\tilde X$, that is of the decomposition of ${\mathbb P}^{r+1}_K$ via the types of secant loci. We show that there are exactly six possibilities for the secant locus $\Sigma_p (\tilde X)$, and we precisely describe each stratum of the secant stratification of $\tilde X$, each of which turns out to be a quasi-projective variety. As an application, we obtain the classification of all non-normal Del Pezzo varieties by providing a complete list of pairs $(\tilde X, p)$ where $\tilde X \subset {\mathbb P}^{r+1}_K$ is a variety of minimal degree, $p$ is a closed point in $\mathbb P^{r+1}_K \setminus \tilde X$ and $X_p \subset {\mathbb P}^r _K$ is a Del Pezzo variety.Comment: 20 page

Text 4 Health: Addressing Consumer Health Information Needs via Text Reference Service

This study seeks to provide empirical evidence about how health-related questions are answered in text reference service in order to further the understanding of how to best use texting as a reference service venue to fulfill people’s health information needs. Two hundred health reference transactions from My Info Quest, the first nation-wide collaborative text reference service, were analyzed identify the types of questions, length of transactions, question-answering behavior, and information sources used in the transactions. Findings indicate that texting-based health reference transactions are usually brief, and cover a wide variety of topics. The most popular questions are those seeking general factual information about human body, medical/health conditions, diseases, or medical concepts/jargons. Great variance is discovered among the question-answering behavior, with only a little more than half of the answers containing citation to information sources. The study will inform the practice of health reference service via texting, and help libraries make evidence-based decisions on establishing service policies and procedures, providing training for librarians, and ultimately implementing the service successfully

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORY REFORM: DISCUSSION

Environmental Economics and Policy,