PROTECTIVE OR DESTRUCTIVE? INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENTRIFICATION AND CHILDHOOD HEALTH OUTCOMES

Gentrification is a wildly contentious, highly politicalized issue that some scholars view as beneficial and others view as harmful. Historically, public health researchers have studied several neighborhood effects on health but only recently has this research field evolved to include studies specifically looking at the health ramifications associated with this neighborhood-change process. This secondary analysis is one of the first studies to examine the effect neighborhood-level gentrification has on mental health status in a childhood and adolescent sample. Results find that no main effect exists between gentrification and mental health problems directly. However, a statistically significant interaction-- between gentrification and perceptions of community safety-- was discovered to increase the odds of having children with mental health problems for caregivers perceiving their gentrifying communities as safe. Future researchers should reattempt to unearth a similar interaction effect as well as determine if gentrification acts indirectly to compromise emotional health in childhood. Finally, the minority stress theory should be looked at as a potential model to frame the evidence being produced at the intersection of gentrification and mental health

Politics and ethics of student self-assessment in the composition classroom

While writing instructors often assign student self-assessment essays with the goal of motivating their students and helping them to develop writerly self-awareness, the reality of the classroom power dynamic limits what can be accomplished in such essays. Students might feel pressured to construct versions of their selves that are simply reproductions of traditional student roles rather than to engage in honest, meaningful reflection. Scholars in the fields of Education, Assessment and Composition Studies have noted the lack of research into the political and ethical implications of requiring students to compose these essays. This dissertation answers the call for research into students\u27 complex negotiations of identity when presented with the task of self-assessment. Using case study methodology, it follows two college-level introductory writing courses that implemented student self- assessment and self-evaluation/grading. This study uses Robert Brooke\u27s Identity Negotiations Theory to demonstrate how instructors constructed the assignment via handouts and in-class discussions, often giving subtle cues to students regarding the versions of self that would be privileged, and how students responded to these cues in their self-assessments. Additionally, one-on-one interviews provide insight into instructors\u27 and students\u27 motivations during this process. The study catalogs a number of fully cooperative or bought in student stances to the task of self-assessment, as well as apathetic/compliant and resistant stances. It also demonstrates how students shifted their stances throughout their essays as they attempted to define and negotiate their student and writer roles. Documented patterns include students\u27 imitation and appropriation of academic discourse and narratives of academic progress; their construction of the persona of a developing or struggling writer (often accompanied by an attempt to mitigate the risk of revealing weaknesses); and their use of external standards and safe criteria such as effort when evaluating their own work. The study also highlights students who appeared to misread expectations and perform a student or writer role inconsistent with the values of the course, the instructor and the institution. This dissertation proposes an ethical implementation of self-assessment in which students and teachers attempt to build a better version of the task that acknowledges, critiques and incorporates role-based negotiations

Structural stability of the two-fold singularity

At a two-fold singularity, the velocity vector of a flow switches discontinuously across a codimension one switching manifold, between two directions that both lie tangent to the manifold. Particularly intricate dynamics arises when the local flow curves toward the switching manifold from both sides, a case referred to as the Teixeira singularity. The flow locally performs two different actions: it winds around the singularity by crossing repeatedly through, and passes through the singularity by sliding along, the switching manifold. The case when the number of rotations around the singularity is infinite has been analyzed in detail. Here we study the case when the flow makes a finite, but previously unknown, number of rotations around the singularity between incidents of sliding. We show that the solution is remarkably simple: the maximum and minimum numbers of rotations made anywhere in the flow differ only by one and increase incrementally with a single parameter -the angular jump in the flow direction across the switching manifold at the singularity

Fluid Elasticity Can Enable Propulsion at Low Reynolds Number

Conventionally, a microscopic particle that performs a reciprocal stroke cannot move through its environment. This is because at small scales, the response of simple Newtonian fluids is purely viscous and flows are time-reversible. We show that by contrast, fluid elasticity enables propulsion by reciprocal forcing that is otherwise impossible. We present experiments on rigid objects actuated reciprocally in viscous fluids, demonstrating for the first time a purely elastic propulsion set by the object's shape and boundary conditions. We describe two different artificial "swimmers" that experimentally realize this principle.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Saving refugees or policing the seas? How the national press of five EU member states framed news coverage of the migration crisis

Migration from the Middle East and Africa to Europe increasingly hit the headlines in 2014-5 as the unprecedented scale of deaths at sea was gradually recognised as a newsworthy and important story. This article presents findings from research commissioned by UNHCR to measure how the issue of migration was framed in the news media across the EU. We compare the national press coverage of five member states: UK, Sweden, Germany, Spain and Italy, focusing upon the main themes of news coverage, reasons for and responses to migration outlined. We find striking variations in framing between national contexts, but also a significant disconnection, overall, between causal interpretation and treatment recommendation framing. We conclude that the resulting fragmented frames of European migration news in themselves signify ‘crisis’ - an unsettled discourse reflecting shifting anxieties between humanitarian concern to save refugees, and a securitising fortress mentality to better police European and national borders

Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: a content analysis of five European countries

In 2014, more than 200,000 refugees and migrants fled for safety across the Mediterranean Sea. Crammed into overcrowded, unsafe boats, thousands drowned, prompting the Pope to warn that the sea was becoming a mass graveyard. The early months of 2015 saw no respite. In April alone more than 1,300 people drowned. This led to a large public outcry to increase rescue operations. Throughout this period, UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations, engaged in a series of largescale media advocacy exercises, aiming at convincing European countries to do more to help. It was crucial work, setting the tone for the dramatic rise in attention to the refugee crisis that followed in the second half of 2015. But the media was far from united in its response. While some outlets joined the call for more assistance, others were unsympathetic, arguing against increasing rescue operations. To learn why, UNHCR commissioned a report by the Cardiff School of Journalism to explore what was driving media coverage in five different European countries: Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK and Sweden. Researchers combed through thousands of articles written in 2014 and early 2015, revealing a number of important findings for future media advocacy campaigns. Most importantly, they found major differences between countries, in terms of the sources journalists used (domestic politicians, foreign politicians, citizens, or NGOs), the language they employed, the reasons they gave for the rise in refugee flows, and the solutions they suggested. Germany and Sweden, for example, overwhelmingly used the terms ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum seeker’, while Italy and the UK press preferred the word ‘migrant’. In Spain, the dominant term was ‘immigrant’. These terms had an important impact on the tenor of each country’s debate. Media also differed widely in terms of the predominant themes to their coverage. For instance, humanitarian themes were more common in Italian coverage than in British, German or Spanish press. Threat themes (such as to the welfare system, or cultural threats) were the most prevalent in Italy, Spain and Britain. Overall, the Swedish press was the most positive towards refugees and migrants, while coverage in the United Kingdom was the most negative, and the most polarised. Amongst those countries surveyed, Britain’s right-wing media was uniquely aggressively in its campaigns against refugees and migrants. This report provides important insights into each country’s press culture during a crucial period of agenda-setting for today’s refugee and migrant crisis. It also offers invaluable insights into historical trends. What emerges is a clear message that for media work on refugees, one size does not fit all. Effective media advocacy in different European nations requires targeted, tailored campaigns, which takes into account their unique cultures and political context

Performance of UK wastewater treatment works with respect to trace contaminants

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Science of Total Environment. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.This study examined the performance of 16 wastewater treatment works to provide an overview of trace substance removal in relation to meeting the objectives of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Collection and analysis of over 2400 samples including sewage influent, process samples at different stages in the treatment process and final effluent has provided data on the performance of current wastewater treatment processes and made it possible to evaluate the need for improved effluent quality. Results for 55 substances, including metals, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals are reported. Data for sanitary parameters are also provided. A wide range of removal efficiencies was observed. Removal was not clearly related to the generic process type, indicating that other operational factors tend to be important. Nonetheless, removals for many substances of current concern were high. Despite this, current proposals for stringent water quality standards mean that further improvements in effluent quality are likely to be required

Particle Migration and Focusing in Inertial Microfluidic Flows

The behavior of confined particles in microchannels at moderate Reynolds number has received much attention in recent years and has developed into a new area of research named “inertial microfluidics". This interest has been motivated by the development of high-throughput tools for the manipulation of bioparticles as a precursor for bio-analytic assays. However, a crucial first step towards developing these tools is understanding how particles are transported and localized in confined channels. Here I discuss how the interplay between axial and lateral flow in both a porous and curved microchannel results in non-trivial lateral migration and focusing of finite sized particles. To understand this behavior, I numerically explore this interplay by computing the lateral forces on a neutrally buoyant spherical particle that is subject to both inertial and secondary forces over a range of experimentally relevant particle sizes and channel Reynolds numbers. Interestingly, the lateral forces on the particles in both cases are well represented across a wide range of flow configurations using a simple perturbation based model. The representation of forces in this manner significantly reduces the complexity and time required to predict the migration of inertial particles in microfluidic channels. Finally, I experimentally validate this model and demonstrate how these moderate Reynolds number flows can be used to selectively enrich rare cells in a heterogeneous suspension

Dark Matter Search

The SuperCDMS SNOLAB is the first low-mass dark matter detector in the cryogenics system at SLAC. It is designed to be sensitive to detect dark matter down to 300 MeV in mass and resolve individual electrons-hole pairs from low energy scattering events in high purity Ge and Si crystals. The purpose is to simulate electrostatic fields within the detector medium and run detailed particle physics simulations to attempt to match simulation to observed detector response for the first time with detectors of this size using the GEANT4 simulation package, and SuperCDMS solid-state simulations. The simulation code is written in C++, my objective was to modify the probability of the electrons inter-valley scattering in the crystal. The previous function’s input was an electric field voltage the problem with this method was that it did not provide any underlining physics of the electron within the crystal. However, we added a physical model for the inter-valley scattering that instead intakes the energy of the electron and produces the probability of a particular electron’s propagation within the crystal. The results are still in progress and will be discussed in the poster. In conclusion, we hope that this new method will produce the same graphs as the previous method and in addition provides the underlying physics of the electron inside the crystal

Overexpression of chloroplast-targeted ferrochelatase 1 results in a genomes uncoupled chloroplast-to-nucleus retrograde signalling phenotype.

Chloroplast development requires communication between the progenitor plastids and the nucleus, where most of the genes encoding chloroplast proteins reside. Retrograde signals from the chloroplast to the nucleus control the expression of many of these genes, but the signalling pathway is poorly understood. Tetrapyrroles have been strongly implicated as mediators of this signal with the current hypothesis being that haem produced by the activity of ferrochelatase 1 (FC1) is required to promote nuclear gene expression. We have tested this hypothesis by overexpressing FC1 and specifically targeting it to either chloroplasts or mitochondria, two possible locations for this enzyme. Our results show that targeting of FC1 to chloroplasts results in increased expression of the nuclear-encoded chloroplast genes GUN4, CA1, HEMA1, LHCB2.1, CHLH after treatment with Norflurazon (NF) and that this increase correlates to FC1 gene expression and haem production measured by feedback inhibition of protochlorophyllide synthesis. Targeting FC1 to mitochondria did not enhance the expression of nuclear-encoded chloroplast genes after NF treatment. The overexpression of FC1 also increased nuclear gene expression in the absence of NF treatment, demonstrating that this pathway is operational in the absence of a stress treatment. Our results therefore support the hypothesis that haem synthesis is a promotive chloroplast-to-nucleus retrograde signal. However, not all FC1 overexpression lines enhanced nuclear gene expression, suggesting there is still a lot we do not understand about the role of FC1 in this signalling pathway. This article is part of the theme issue 'Retrograde signalling from endosymbiotic organelles'.BBRS