The Representation of Fatherhood by the Arab Diaspora in the United States

This article analyzes three debut novels -Alicia Erian's Towelhead (2005), Laila Halaby's West of the Jordan (2003), and Diana Abu-Jaber's Arabian Jazz (1993)- in order to explore the representation of fatherhood by the Arab diaspora in the United States. To do so, it will draw on Ralph La Rossa's notion of "new father", and on Julie Peteet's and Daniel Monterescu's ideas about Arab masculinity. It will then analyze the main father figures in the novels under the light of these concepts. It will finally conclude that the different existing models of Arab fatherhood move from traditionalism to liberalism, and that allows the possibility of "new fatherhoods" to emerge

Citizens control and the efficiency of local public services

It is generally accepted that fiscal decentralization increases citizens control over politicians, fostering accountability and increasing efficiency. This article identifies the socioeconomic characteristics of citizens (potential voters) that increase their control over local policy-makers and thus generate greater efficiency in a decentralized context. We also highlight the fiscal characteristics of local governments that influence this control and efficiency. The study examines a sample of Spanish municipalities, applying a methodology based on the conventional procedure of two-stage estimation. In the first stage we estimate the efficiency of local public services by calculating a new version of a global output indicator using the DEA technique. In the second stage, using a Tobit type estimation (censored models) and bootstrap methods, we show how the factors mentioned may influence efficiency. The results suggest that strong presence of retailers, retired people, and people entitled to vote favour citizens control, which fosters accountability and efficiency. A factor that facilitates this control, and therefore greater efficiency, is the presence of low opportunity costs for obtaining information regarding local public service management.technical efficiency, local governments, socioeconomic and fiscal variables, citizens control

A Software Radio Challenge Accelerating Education and Innovation in Wireless Communications

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents our methodology and tools for introducing competition in the electrical engineering curriculum to accelerate education and innovation in wireless communications. Software radio or software-defined radio (SDR) enables wireless technology, systems and standards education where the student acts as the radio developer or engineer. This is still a huge endeavor because of the complexity of current wireless systems and the diverse student backgrounds. We suggest creating a competition among student teams to potentiate creativity while leveraging the SDR development methodology and open-source tools to facilitate cooperation. The proposed student challenge follows the European UEFA Champions League format, which includes a qualification phase followed by the elimination round or playoffs. The students are tasked to build an SDR transmitter and receiver following the guidelines of the long-term evolution standard. The metric is system performance. After completing this course, the students will be able to (1) analyze alternative radio design options and argue about their benefits and drawbacks and (2) contribute to the evolution of wireless standards. We discuss our experiences and lessons learned with particular focus on the suitability of the proposed teaching and evaluation methodology and conclude that competition in the electrical engineering classroom can spur innovation.Comment: Frontiers in Education 2018 (FIE 2018

‘In love, she remains whole’: Heterosexual Love in Contemporary Arab American Poetry Written by Women

Since the advent of Arab American feminism in the 1990s, Arab American women writers have become prominent figures in the field of Arab American literature. At the same time, the victimization of Arab women and the stereotyping of Arab men have grown in the West. Given this mainstream perception of Arabs, this article aims at exploring the positioning of Arab American women towards Arab men, taking into account the feminist fight against sexism and racism. Analyzing the articulations of heterosexual love made by Arab American women in their poetry (including Mohja Kahf, Suheir Hammad and Pauline Kaldas), this article will examine the potential political use of poetry

Non-linear models for chip floorplanning

The design of the floor plan is an important step in the design process of integrated circuits. In this step, the modules are distributed along the die. A good floor plan can significantly increase the efficiency of the device. Floorplanning is a non-convex optimisation problem. It can be solved at different levels of abstraction. The first level would be to represent the modules as points. Higher levels would be those in which we distribute the modules as circles or orthogonal polygons with a given area. In this thesis we try to solve the first step of this problem by finding an algorithm that returns good distributions of the modules by representing them as points. This algorithm will be based on two steps: the initial distribution of the points using existing methods and the reorganization of the modules to improve the uniformity of the distribution

El dèficit inversor en infraestructures de transport del sector públic central a Catalunya i perspectives de futur

En el passat, les inversions espanyoles d’infraestructures a Catalunya s’han situat per sota del seu pes demogràfic i econòmic (-48%). En els dos darrers anys sembla que es corregeix la tendència. En part això es deu a les obres puntuals del TGV i aeroports, però també a l’admissió general del dèficit. Si s’acaben confirmant les previsions i la despesa es materialitza, això significarà que ha prosperat la visió catalana del problema. S’haurà reconegut que hi havia un dèficit considerable, aliè a principis econòmics, i que calia reparar-lo. El pacte financer contingut a l’Estatut, si realment el canvi es manté, serà més a prop d’assolir els objectius marcats

The Development of Codas in Catalan

This paper focuses on the development of syllable-final consonants in Catalan. Developmental data by four Catalan-speaking children (Serra-Solé corpus in CHILDES) has revealed that codas appear with the very first word productions. The role of the following factors in the development of coda acquisition has been systematically analyzed: within-word position, stress, morphological import and segmental composition. The paper presents empirical evidence in favor of the privileged status of metrically prominent syllables (or heads and edges of feet) in licensing coda consonants in Catalan: it is clear that stressed syllables make their coda available before unstressed syllables, independently of within-word position or morphological import. Similarly, word-final positions are privileged and codas in word-final position are acquired earlier than those in wordmedial position. Our results also contribute to the discussion about the potential facilitating effect of morphology in phonological acquisition. While Freitas, Miguel & Hub Faria (2001) find evidence for an early emergence of plural markers (expressed as word-final coda fricative [-ʃ]) in European Portuguese, Lleó (2003) reports late acquisition of plural markers (word-final coda fricative [-s]) in Spanish. The Catalan data, like the Spanish data, show that morphological codas are acquired relatively late

Consonants, vowels and levels of specification in the phonological representations of the first lexicon: a review.

A review of the main studies on the format of lexical representation in the initial stages of language development is presented. Current investigations reveal a significant level of phonological specificity in the representation of words in the first lexicon, even before age two years. These results can be explained from a theoretical framework that posits the existence of multiple levels of encoding and suggests differences in accessing the represented information as a function of task demands or vocabulary size. The existence of possible differences in the degree of specification of vowels and consonants represented in the lexicon is an area of current debate. This article discusses the present state of this debate in the light of recent findings from research with different languages, in populations with different linguistic environments (monolingual and bilingual) and from experimental approaches that involve varying degrees of cognitive demands

Las políticas sociales a nivel local en la Unión Europea (UE-15): Financiación y lecciones para España

En la mayoría de los países desarrollados el gasto social (educación, sanidad, protección social) está encomendado al nivel intermedio de administración y al nivel local. En este trabajo se hace un repaso de las diferentes políticas de gasto de carácter social de los países de la UE-15, agrupados según las características de su financiación, para seguidamente hacer una propuesta sobre las políticas sociales que se podrían descentralizar a los municipios españoles, así como de su financiación. Se explican las razones que justifican, en nuestro país, la descentralización de competencias hacia los gobiernos locales, así como las dificultades para ello, que aconsejan un proceso de descentralización gradual y la necesidad de contar con el nivel supramunicipal (mancomunidades, comarcas e incluso la provincia)