Untangling the Myth of the Model Minority

The model minority stereotype depicts Asian Americans as a group that has succeeded in America and overcome discrimination through its hard work, intelligence, and emphasis on education and achievement - a modern-day confirmation of the American Dream. A large body of work by Asian critical scholars condemns this image and charges that it conceals more sinister beliefs about Asian Americans and other racial minorities in America. Is this critique correct? Does the model minority stereotype really mask hostility toward Asian Americans or breed contempt for other minorities? This article presents the results of an empirical study into the model minority stereotype. Using 1990, 1994, and 2000 General Social Survey data (including some of the very data used by critical scholars to establish the existence of this stereotype), we confirm claims that some non-Hispanic white Americans think that Asian Americans as a group are more intelligent, harder working, and richer than other minorities and that some think Asian Americans are more intelligent and harder working than whites. But we also discovered that these ideas are not usually linked with negative views of Asian Americans (or of other minorities, for that matter). Indeed, we found weak support for the contrary position - that those who rate Asian Americans higher than other minorities, or particularly higher than whites, are more likely to hold other positive views about Asian Americans, immigration, African Americans, and government programs supporting these groups. Our study nonetheless confirms the scholarly suspicions in one crucial respect: non-Hispanic whites who have positive views of Asian Americans are less likely to think that Asian Americans are discriminated against in both jobs and housing, thus tending to support the claims of some Asian critical scholars that positive stereotypes about Asian Americans tend to be associated with a failure to recognize continuing discrimination. In these data, however, this complacency by whites about prejudice against Asians does not translate into hostility toward government programs to alleviate the problems of Asian or African Americans

Comparison of Driving Transect Methods for Acoustic Monitoring of Bats

Acoustic monitoring for bats along driving transects typically involves recording call sequences (bat passes) continuously while driving. While this offers benefits over other survey techniques, it also poses challenges, including background noise on recordings. An alternative approach that may rectify this involves conducting sampling at discrete points along each transect instead. We compared these methods using the same bat detector, along with an additional higher sensitivity detector to determine which method yields the highest amount and quality of data per unit of time. Results from 26 18 km transects, each sampled continuously and at 10 point count sites indicate that, with a lower sensitivity detector, the two methods yield a similar number of passes per minute, percent of passes identified to species, and species documented. The higher sensitivity bat detector could not be used for continuous sampling due to background noise. However, at point count sites, the higher sensitivity detector recorded 17 times more passes per minute, 44 times more passes identified to species, and documented nearly twice as many species. Thus, while both sampling designs appear comparable, for most applications, a higher sensitivity detector trumps sampling design

Student and Faculty Perceptions of Effects of Midcourse Evaluation

We report on faculty and student perceptions of the effects of midcourse evaluations on teaching improvement and student learning. We provided faculty with a midcourse evaluation tool, surveyed faculty and students, interviewed faculty, observed debriefing sessions, and compared midcourse with end-of-semester ratings. Of 510 mean ratings on individual learning items, 342 (67 percent) mean scores showed improvement from midcourse to the end of the semester. Faculty who read their midcourse feedback, discussed it with their students, and made pedagogical changes saw the most improvement in their ratings

Assessment of anti-TNF-α activities in keratinocytes expressing inducible TNF- α: A novel tool for anti-TNF-α drug screening

© 2016 Udommethaporn et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine important in normal and pathological biological processes. Newly synthesized pro-TNF-α is expressed on the plasma membrane and cleaved to release soluble TNF-α protein: both are biologically active. Secreted TNF-α signals through TNF receptors and the membrane-bound TNF-α acts by cell contact-dependent signaling. Anti-TNF-α antibodies have been used effectively for treatment of chronic inflammation, however with adverse side effects. Thus, there is a need for new anti-TNF-α small molecule compounds. Anti-TNF-α activity assays involve treatment of keratinocytes with exogenous TNF-α before or after anti-TNF-α incubation. However, this model fails to address the dual signaling of TNF-α. Here we describe a Doxycycline (Dox)-inducible TNF-α (HaCaT-TNF-α) expression system in keratinocytes. Using this in-vitro model, we show cell inhibition and induced expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and markers, including IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, NF-êB1, and KRT-16, similar to cells treated with exogenous TNF-α. Sufficient secreted TNF-α produced also activated IL-1β and IL-8 expression in wt HaCaT cells. Importantly, stimulated expression of IL-1β and IL-8 in HaCaT-TNF-α were blocked by Quercetin, a flavanol shown to possess anti-TNF-α activities. This novel in vitro cell model provides an efficient tool to investigate the dual signaling of TNF-α. Importantly, this model provides an effective, fast, and simple screening for compounds with anti-TNF-α activities for chronic inflammatory disease therapies

Environmental heterogeneity and plankton community structure in the central North Pacific

Spatial and temporal patterns of heterogeneity in nutrients (PO4, NO3), integrated water column chlorophyll, integrated water column primary production, and macrozooplankton biomass in the central North Pacific are described on spatial scales ranging from less than one to several thousand kilometers and on temporal scales from one day to 12 years. Fluctuations in these properties represent an index of the biological response of the ecosystem to physical forcing on various scales. These patterns are an important aspect of ecosystem structure because environmental perturbations may affect the outcome of biological interactions between populations. Heterogeneity in each property was low on all scales. Diel changes were evident only in macrozooplankton biomass, and no seasonal cycles were detected. This is consistent with a low overall level of physical forcing, little advection from outside the system into it, and lack of seasonal changes in nutrient flux to the euphotic zone. The central North Pacific shows relatively low heterogeneity, especially on mesoscales (tens to hundreds of kilometers), when compared to other pelagic ecosystems, suggesting that environmental disturbances do not have a major effect upon macrozooplankton and nekton populations

The value of migration information for conservation prioritization of sea turtles in the Mediterranean

Aim: Conservation plans often struggle to account for connectivity in spatial prioritization approaches for the protection of migratory species. Protection of such species is challenging because their movements may be uncertain and variable, span vast distances, cross international borders and traverse land and sea habitats. Often we are faced with small samples of information from various sources and the collection of additional data can be costly and time-consuming. Therefore it is important to evaluate what degree of spatial information provides sufficient results for directing management actions. Here we develop and evaluate an approach that incorporates habitat and movement information to advance the conservation of migratory species. We test our approach using information on threatened loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Mediterranean. Location: The Mediterranean Sea. Methods: We use Marxan, a spatially explicit decision support tool, to select priority conservation areas. Four approaches with increasing amounts of information about the loggerhead sea turtle are compared, ranging from (1) the broad distribution, (2) multiple habitat types that represent foraging, nesting and inter-nesting habitats, (3) mark-recapture movement information to (4) telemetry-derived migration tracks. Results: We find that spatial priorities for sea turtle conservation are sensitive to the information used in the prioritization process. Setting conservation targets for migration tracks altered the location of conservation priorities, indicating that conservation plans designed without such data would miss important sea turtle habitat. We discover that even a small number of tracks make a significant contribution to a spatial conservation plan if those tracks are substantially different. Main conclusions: This study presents a novel approach to improving spatial prioritization for conserving migratory species. We propose that future telemetry studies tailor their efforts towards conservation prioritization needs, meaning that spatially dispersed samples rather than just large numbers should be obtained. This work highlights the valuable information that telemetry research contributes to the conservation of migratory species

Utilization of the Building-Block Approach in Structural Mechanics Research

In the last 20 years NASA has worked in collaboration with industry to develop enabling technologies needed to make aircraft safer and more affordable, extend their lifetime, improve their reliability, better understand their behavior, and reduce their weight. To support these efforts, research programs starting with ideas and culminating in full-scale structural testing were conducted at the NASA Langley Research Center. Each program contained development efforts that (a) started with selecting the material system and manufacturing approach; (b) moved on to experimentation and analysis of small samples to characterize the system and quantify behavior in the presence of defects like damage and imperfections; (c) progressed on to examining larger structures to examine buckling behavior, combined loadings, and built-up structures; and (d) finally moved to complicated subcomponents and full-scale components. Each step along the way was supported by detailed analysis, including tool development, to prove that the behavior of these structures was well-understood and predictable. This approach for developing technology became known as the "building-block" approach. In the Advanced Composites Technology Program and the High Speed Research Program the building-block approach was used to develop a true understanding of the response of the structures involved through experimentation and analysis. The philosophy that if the structural response couldn't be accurately predicted, it wasn't really understood, was critical to the progression of these programs. To this end, analytical techniques including closed-form and finite elements were employed and experimentation used to verify assumptions at each step along the way. This paper presents a discussion of the utilization of the building-block approach described previously in structural mechanics research and development programs at NASA Langley Research Center. Specific examples that illustrate the use of this approach are included from recent research and development programs for both subsonic and supersonic transports