The Hollow Class: African-American Class-Passing and the Popular

My project presses to include popular fiction, television, and film for serious critical consideration. To contextualize my research, I use theories that critically examine popular literature, connecting to the work of Janice Radway and Keenan Norris, and I study the African-American focus on class as explored by E. Franklin Frazier. In focusing on the popular, I highlight the everydayness of class and race anxieties. I build on Gwendolyn Foster’s work on class passing but stress racial intersections with identity performance. I rely on New Historicism and Critical Race Theory to substantiate my examination of the literature. I look at specific moments in black America in the latter 20th century as inspiring literary responses to class concerns. My research contributes to the cultural discourse on respectability politics and racial uplift. Challenging the class focus of African-Americans, through literature, television, and film, I seek to reenergize discussions on the routes to black equality in America and contest notions of “making it” advanced by some cultural critics. My approach undermines the idea that class performances including, sartorial presentation, linguistic codeswitching, and distance from racial justice conversations can cover racial realities. The historical focus on lifting and climbing to a better American experience has attenuated the African-American community’s power and my project intervenes in the discourse on the best path forward. In concentrating on the hollowness of “making it,” I hope to encourage a re-prioritization of holistic racial uplift over respectability politics and class

Effects of heat stress on thermoregulation, reproduction and performance of different parity sows

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 13, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Matthew C. LucyIncludes bibliographical references.Vita.M.S. University of Missouri--Columbia 2012."May 2012"Heat stress caused by high ambient temperatures causes seasonal infertility in sows, leading to decreased production and a loss in reproductive efficiency. The objective of these studies was to specifically determine the effect of heat stress on the thermoregulatory behavior, growth and production characteristics as well as endocrine responses of sows during lactation. Factors such as parity, energy balance and farrowing facility design were closely examined to determine their role in controlling body temperature and respiration rate of sows during heat stress and lactation. Primiparous and multiparous Landrace or Landrace x Large White sows of different parities were studied from late gestation through weaning. The study was performed at the University of Missouri Swine Research Complex (Columbia, MO) in order to provide similar results as would be found in a real-world commercial swine farm setting. Rectal temperature (RT), respiration rate (RR), shoulder skin temperature, ear skin temperature, metabolite concentrations, energy balance (EB), sow body weights and piglet body weights were measured throughout the studies

Exploring the scholar-practitioner gap in personnel selection assessments : an analysis of scholarly versus practitioner literature.

Research suggests that a gap exists between scholarly findings and practitioner knowledge, beliefs, and practices in the Human Resource field, particularly in the area of employee selection (Deadrick & Gibson, 2007; Rynes, Giluk, & Brown, 2007). This study seeks to explore this gap relative to self-report selection assessments by examining practitioner-oriented versus scholarly literature. Articles published between January 2006 and September 2011 from two scholarly sources (Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology) and two practitioner sources (HR Magazine and HR Executive) were reviewed, and 49 articles were selected for inclusion in analysis. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the articles relative to five themes: purpose of the article, type of selection assessment discussed, specific instruments mentioned, how validity was discussed, and how utility was discussed. It was found that there were significant differences in the way that scholarly and practitioner publications discussed assessments, especially in the areas of validity and utility. Implications for scholars and practitioners are discussed

Computation of Light Scattering in Young Stellar Objects

A Monte Carlo light scattering code incorporating aligned non-spherical particles is described. The major effects on the flux distribution, linear polarisation and circular polarisation are presented, with emphasis on the application to Young Stellar Objects (YSOs). The need for models with non-spherical particles in order to successfully model polarisation data is reviewed. The ability of this type of model to map magnetic field structure in embedded YSOs is described. The possible application to the question of the origin of biomolecular homochirality via UV circular polarisation in star forming regions is also briefly discussed.Comment: Accepted by The Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer. Replaced version corrects an error in the definition of the sense of Cpol in the published version and other minor errors found at the proof stag

The influence of pigmentation patterning on bumblebee foraging from flowers of <em>Antirrhinum majus</em>

Patterns of pigmentation overlying the petal vasculature are common in flowering plants and have been postulated to play a role in pollinator attraction. Previous studies report that such venation patterning is significantly more attractive to bee foragers in the field than ivory or white flowers without veins. To dissect the ways in which venation patterning of pigment can influence bumblebee behaviour, we investigated the response of flower-naïve individuals of Bombus terrestris to veined, ivory and red near-isogenic lines of Antirrhinum majus. We find that red venation shifts flower colour slightly, although the ivory background is the dominant colour. Bees were readily able to discriminate between ivory and veined flowers under differential conditioning but showed no innate preference when presented with a free choice of rewarding ivory and veined flowers. In contrast, both ivory and veined flowers were selected significantly more often than were red flowers. We conclude that advantages conferred by venation patterning might stem from bees learning of their use as nectar guides, rather than from any innate preference for striped flowers. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

The Effect of the Lake Restoration Project on Passerine Bird Diversity

A three page summary by six Furman students showing their research results on the lake restoration\u27s effects on passerine bird populations.https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/lake-documents/1017/thumbnail.jp

2-D Radiative Transfer in Protostellar Envelopes: II. An Evolutionary Sequence

We present model spectral energy distributions, colors, polarization, and images for an evolutionary sequence of a low-mass protostar from the early collapse stage (Class 0) to the remnant disk stage (Class III). We find a substantial overlap in colors and SEDs between protostars embedded in envelopes (Class 0-I) and T Tauri disks (Class II), especially at mid-IR wavelengths. Edge-on Class I-II sources show double-peaked spectral energy distributions, with a short-wavelength hump due to scattered light and the long-wavelength hump due to thermal emission. These are the bluest sources in mid-IR color-color diagrams. Since Class 0 and I sources are diffuse, the size of the aperture over which fluxes are integrated has a substantial effect on the computed colors, with larger aperture results showing significantly bluer colors. This causes overlap in color-color diagrams between all evolutionary states, especially in the mid-IR. However the near-IR polarization of the Class 0 sources is much higher than the Class I-II sources, providing a means to separate these evolutionary states. We varied the grain properties in the circumstellar envelope, allowing for larger grains in the disk midplane and smaller in the envelope. We find that grain growth in disks of Class I sources can be detected at wavelengths greater than 100 $\mu$m. Our image calculations predict that the diffuse emission from edge-on Class I and II sources should be detectable in the mid-IR with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) in nearby star forming regions (out to several hundred parsecs).Comment: A version with high-resolution images is available at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/glimpse/glimpsepubs.htm

Happily Ever Persuaded? A look at the influence of character involvement, transportation, and emotion on perceived threat, reactance, and persuasion

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. October 2017. Major: Mass Communication. Advisors: Daniel Wackman, Marco Yzer. 1 computer file (PDF); x, 173 pages.Narratives have been proven to be an effective means by which people are persuaded. However, the exact psychological mechanism(s) that is/are responsible for persuasion have been debated. Some argue the process of transportation is necessary in determining whether or not the persuasive message will succeed (e.g., Green & Brock, 2000; Green & Clark, 2013; Murphy et al., 2011). Others have found character involvement to influence attitudes (Banerjee & Greene, 2012; de Graaf, Hoeken, Sanders, & Beentjes, 2011; Igartua & Barrios, 2012), behavioral intentions, and actual behaviors in the context of narratives (Moyer-Gusé, Chung, & Jain, 2011). Other say it is a combination of psychological mechanisms that is responsible for attitudes message consistent and behavioral intentions (Slater & Rouner, 2002). Theories such as the entertainment overcoming resistance model (EORM) posit that narratives reduce consumers’ reactance, which then makes persuasion possible. This dissertation draws upon theories in both reactance (psychological reactance theory (PRT)) and narrative persuasion literature (EORM) in order to fulfill three objectives. First, this work uniquely identifies and distinguishes the role(s) transportation, character involvement, and/or emotional involvement play(s) in overcoming reactance. Second, this work distinguishes between perceived threat to freedom and reactance – a mediated process yet to be studied in narrative persuasion literature. Last, this dissertation explores the influence of reactance proneness as a moderating variable in the context of narratives. Results suggest a model that explains the relationship amongst the three psychological mechanisms and adds to reactance literature. Reactance was found to have direct effect on persuasion, though it is not a mediator of perceived threat and persuasion (as has been suggested in most PRT studies). Last, reactance proneness was, indeed, a moderating variable of the relationship between perceived threat and reactance. Suggestions for future studies in the area of reactance and narrative persuasion are offered

Effectively Open Real Functions

A function f is continuous iff the PRE-image f^{-1}[V] of any open set V is open again. Dual to this topological property, f is called OPEN iff the IMAGE f[U] of any open set U is open again. Several classical Open Mapping Theorems in Analysis provide a variety of sufficient conditions for openness. By the Main Theorem of Recursive Analysis, computable real functions are necessarily continuous. In fact they admit a well-known characterization in terms of the mapping V+->f^{-1}[V] being EFFECTIVE: Given a list of open rational balls exhausting V, a Turing Machine can generate a corresponding list for f^{-1}[V]. Analogously, EFFECTIVE OPENNESS requires the mapping U+->f[U] on open real subsets to be effective. By effectivizing classical Open Mapping Theorems as well as from application of Tarski's Quantifier Elimination, the present work reveals several rich classes of functions to be effectively open.Comment: added section on semi-algebraic functions; to appear in Proc. http://cca-net.de/cca200