Women’s Road to Imprisonment: Reflections on Dehumanization

Women in prisons represent a unique and complex population throughout the world. The authors have provided psychiatric consultation, diagnoses and treatment for hundreds of these women over the past three decades in the United States. We have identified five factors that can precipitate a cascade of consequences that result in women coming to prison. Sometimes it is a one-time experience; other times, women repeat offenses, ending up in prisons for longer periods. These factors include 1) being sexually abused and/or prostituted as a child, 2) alcohol abuse, 3) legal and illegal psychoactive substances use and abuse, 4) conspiracy with an intimate partner, and 5) mental disorders. We provide quotes from some of the many women interviewed in prison who have experienced at least one of these precipitant factors. We hope that our reflections offer insights into the complexity of incarceration and the pressing need to address the mental health concerns of these disenfranchised and vulnerable women in our prison systems.Las mujeres en las cárceles representan una población única y compleja en todo el mundo. Los autores han llevado a cabo consultas psiquiátricas, diagnósticos y tratamiento para cientos de estas mujeres en las últimas tres décadas en los Estados Unidos. Hemos identificado cinco factores que pueden precipitar una cascada de causas que llevan a que las mujeres lleguen a prisión. A veces es una experiencia única; otras veces, las mujeres repiten los delitos y terminan en las cárceles por más tiempo. Estos factores incluyen 1) ser abusado sexualmente y/o prostituido de niño, 2) abuso de alcohol, 3) uso y abuso de sustancias psicoactivas legales e ilegales, 4) conspiración con una pareja íntima y 5) trastornos mentales. Proporcionamos citas de algunas de las muchas mujeres en prisión que han experimentado al menos uno de estos factores precipitantes. Esperamos que nuestras reflexiones ofrezcan información sobre la complejidad del encarcelamiento y la necesidad apremiante de abordar preocupaciones de salud mental de estas mujeres privadas de derechos y vulnerables en nuestros sistemas penitenciarios

Solving the quantum dimer and six-vertex models one electric field line at a time

The nature and the very existence of the resonant plaquette valence bond state that separates the classical columnar phase and the Rokhsar-Kivelson point in the quantum dimer model remains unsettled. Here we take a different line of attack on this model, and on the closely related six-vertex model, by exploiting the global conservation law of the number of electric field lines. This allows us to study a single fluctuating electric field line which we show maps exactly onto a one-dimensional spin chain. In the case of the six-vertex model, the electric field line maps onto the celebrated spin 1/2 XXZ model which can be solved exactly. In the quantum dimer model, the electric field line is mapped onto a two-leg spin 1/2 ladder, which we study using numerical exact diagonalization. Our findings are consistent with the existence of three distinct phases including a Luttinger liquid phase, the one-dimensional precursor to the two-dimensional plaquette valence bond solid. The uncanny resemblance of our quasi-one-dimensional electric field line problem to the full two-dimensional problem suggests that much of the behavior of the latter might be understood by thinking of it as a closely packed array of field lines which themselves are undergoing nontrivial phase transitions

Iowa’s Bridge and Highway Climate Change and Extreme Weather Vulnerability Assessment Pilot

The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) is responsible for approximately 4,100 bridges and structures that are a part of the state’s primary highway system, which includes the Interstate, US, and Iowa highway routes. A pilot study was conducted for six bridges in two Iowa river basins—the Cedar River Basin and the South Skunk River Basin—to develop a methodology to evaluate their vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather. The six bridges had been either closed or severely stressed by record streamflow within the past seven years. An innovative methodology was developed to generate streamflow scenarios given climate change projections. The methodology selected appropriate rainfall projection data to feed into a streamflow model that generated continuous peak annual streamflow series for 1960 through 2100, which were used as input to PeakFQ to estimate return intervals for floods. The methodology evaluated the plausibility of rainfall projections and credibility of streamflow simulation while remaining consistent with U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) protocol for estimating the return interval for floods. The results were conveyed in an innovative graph that combined historical and scenario-based design metrics for use in bridge vulnerability analysis and engineering design. The pilot results determined the annual peak streamflow response to climate change likely will be basin-size dependent, four of the six pilot study bridges would be exposed to increased frequency of extreme streamflow and would have higher frequency of overtopping, the proposed design for replacing the Interstate 35 bridges over the South Skunk River south of Ames, Iowa is resilient to climate change, and some Iowa DOT bridge design policies could be reviewed to consider incorporating climate change information

COMBUSTION MODEL FOR SPARK IGNITION ENGINES OPERATING ON GASOLINE-ETHANOL BLENDS

This article presents a phenomenological combustion model using turbulent flame propagation theory developed by Keck and coworkers, 1974. The model was adapted to work with gasoline-ethanol blends, following correlations presented by Bayraktar,2005. New sub-models were introduced for intake valve velocity and combustion efficiency. These allow simulating the effect of compression ratio, spark timing and fuel change. Results show good agreement with the ones in the original work as well as with experimental results in a Cooperative Fuels Research (CFR) engine

A non-universal U(1)XU(1)_{X} extension to the Standard Model to study the BB meson anomaly and muon g−2g-2

We study an abelian $U(1)_{X}$ extension to the Standard Model group consisting of an extended scalar sector of two doublets and one singlet plus three additional exotic quarks and two exotic leptons through non-universal interaction of the new $X$ quantum number and a $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ parity. In this model, the lightest fermions are massless at tree-level so effective operators up to dimension seven are considered to fill all zeros in mass matrices, providing an upper bound for the $\Lambda$ energy scale from the electron, up, down and strange quark masses. We obtain predictions on the anomalous $B$ meson decay showing that it can explain the anomaly while it provides an upper bound for $v_{\chi}$ of $21$ TeV which translates in an upper bound for the new $Z_{2}^{\mu}$ gauge boson of $25$ TeV. Finally, muon $g-2$ contributions are also studied, where we found that positive contributions coming from charged $W^{+}$ bosons and exotic Majorana neutrinos while contributions coming from heavy charged and neutral scalar bosons, are negative. In particular, the allowed regions according to the experimental muon $g-2$ parameter, shows that as the exotic neutrino mass increases, heavy scalars and the exotic lepton masses increase as well.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, 5 table

The politics of linking educational research, policy, and practice: The case of improving educational quality in Ghana, Guatemala and Mali

This paper examines the political dimension of the educational research undertaken by Ghanian,\ud Guatemalan, and Malian teams as part of the 1991 to 1996, USAID-funded “Improving Educational\ud Quality” (IEQ) project. The following questions are addressed: (a) why were (or were not) aspects\ud of the educational reforms studied by the researchers; (b) why were (or were not) research findings\ud used in decision-makingabout the educationalpolicies and practices associatedwith the reforms; and\ud (c) why were particular institutional arrangements and funding levels constituted for the research and\ud dialogue activity. In offering answers to these questions, attentionis paid to local, national, and global\ud power relations and resource distributions

Environmental education in its infancy at Lake Alaotra, Madagascar

Madagascar is renowned for its unique biodiversity but also for the continuous degradation of its natural environment and its high poverty rate. In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental education has been assigned a key role. In the lake Alaotra region, Madagascar’s most important rice and inland fish production area, primary schools are the sole formal education for the majority of the population. In order to gain an overview on the education of ‘tomorrow’s’ resource users, this study assessed the general state of the school system and of environmental education in particular. The focus was on understanding local definitions of environmental education, its application and local perceptions of environmental problems. Over 50 in - depth interviews were conducted using the Funnel approach with teachers from 18 public primary schools. The interviews were supplemented with focus groups and a participatory problem analysis workshop. Teachers in the Alaotra region provided a different definition of environmental education than the United Nations. Their focus is on social aspects rather than the actual problems of the natural environment, which represents a different point of view than non - governmental organizations (NGOs) from abroad, who are the main promoters of environmental education in the area. This indicates that education for sustainable development might be more suitable in the region than the currently promoted environmental education. When developing educational programs, it is important to include the teachers in the development processes to ensure inclusion of local views and needs. This will increase the probability that such programs are locally meaningful and useful.RÉSUMÉSi Madagascar est réputée pour sa biodiversité unique, elle l’est aussi pour la dégradation de son environnement naturel et son taux de pauvreté élevé. L’éducation à l’environnement est un élément important dans l’accès au développement durable. Dans la région Alaotra qui est le principal producteur de riz et de poissons d’eau douce de Madagascar, l’éducation est dispensée presqu’exclusivement par les écoles primaires pour la majorité de la population limitrophe du lac Alaotra. Pour comprendre globalement l’éducation des futurs utilisateurs des ressources, l’étude a évalué la situation qui prévaut dans le système scolaire en général et celui de l’éducation environnementale en particulier. Les travaux se sont concentrés sur les définitions locales de l’éducation environnementale, sa mise en oeuvre et les perceptions locales des problèmes environnementaux. Plus de 50 interviews détaillées ont été réalisées avec des enseignants de 18 écoles primaires sous méthode Funnel. Les interviews ont été complétées par des groupes de discussion et un atelier participatif portant sur l’analyse du problème. Les enseignants de la région de l’Alaotra ont énoncé une définition différente de l’éducation environnementale que celle proposée par les Nations Unies. Leur priorité porte davantage sur les aspects sociaux que sur les problèmes de l’environnement naturel lui-même, divergeant ainsi du point de vue des organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) étrangères, qui sont actuellement les principaux promoteurs de l’éducation environnementale dans la région. Il apparait ainsi que l’éducation portant sur le développement durable pourrait être plus appropriée que l’éducation environnementale. Lors de l’élaboration des programmes éducatifs, il est donc important d’inclure des enseignants pour veiller à ce que les visions et besoins locaux soient considérés, ce qui donnera plus de chances aux dits programmes de prendre du sens et de servir leur dessein

Histories of hating

This roundtable discussion presents a dialogue between digital culture scholars on the seemingly increased presence of hating and hate speech online. Revolving primarily around the recent #GamerGate campaign of intensely misogynistic discourse aimed at women in video games, the discussion suggests that the current moment for hate online needs to be situated historically. From the perspective of intersecting cultural histories of hate speech, discrimination, and networked communication, we interrogate the ontological specificity of online hating before going on to explore potential responses to the harmful consequences of hateful speech. Finally, a research agenda for furthering the historical understandings of contemporary online hating is suggested in order to address the urgent need for scholarly interventions into the exclusionary cultures of networked media

An effective procedure to design the layout of standard and enhanced mode-S multilateration systems for airport surveillance

In this paper, an effective procedure to emplace standard and enhanced mode-S multilateration stations for airport surveillance is studied and developed. This procedure is based on meta-heuristic optimization techniques, such as genetic algorithm (GA), and is intended to obtain useful parameters for an optimal system configuration that provides acceptable performance levels. Furthermore, the procedure developed here is able to evaluate and improve previous system designs, as well as possible system enhancements. Additionally, the design strategies to be used along with the procedure proposed here are fully described. Parameters such as the number of stations, the system geometry, the kind of measurements to be used, and the system accuracy are obtained taking into account the basic requirements such as the Line of Sight, the probability of detection, and the accuracy levels. © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association, 2012