Mobilizing Public Will For Social Change

Examines the theory and strategies of "public will" campaigns and offers tangible criteria for their evaluation. It provides a rich inventory of strategies for use in mobilizing the public will through an integration of models of agenda building, social problem construction, issues management, social movements, media advocacy, and social capital. In addition, the paper provides cases and examples of public will campaigns directed at various social problems, along with criteria for evaluating these campaigns at various stages of a social problem's life cycle

Putting Galileo in his Place: Geographical Origins and the Rhetoric of Scholarly Credibility

While in theory frowned upon, comments on the (regional) provenance of scholars frequently found their way into the scholarly debates of the Republic of Letters. This article uses early responses to Galileo Galilei's Sidereus Nuncius as a case study to explore various broader assumptions and associations underlying the use of such comments on provenance. Presenting a typology of these arguments, the article contends that provenance was used as a rather flexible marker of credibility, which allowed seventeenth-century scholars to employ it to either advocate for, or against credibility. Scholars made full use of the rhetorical possibilities that origin-based associations offered, demonstrating their flexible – if not to say opportunistic – attitude towards scholarly credibility in the process. This article furthermore investigates the motives Galileo's contemporaries had for invoking surreptitious boasts or slurs about provenance. In doing so, it illuminates a crucial mechanism informing the selection of specific arguments: competition on a personal, regional and national level

Semirelativistic stability of N-boson systems bound by 1/r pair potentials

We analyze a system of self-gravitating identical bosons by means of a semirelativistic Hamiltonian comprising the relativistic kinetic energies of the involved particles and added (instantaneous) Newtonian gravitational pair potentials. With the help of an improved lower bound to the bottom of the spectrum of this Hamiltonian, we are able to enlarge the known region for relativistic stability for such boson systems against gravitational collapse and to sharpen the predictions for their maximum stable mass.Comment: 11 pages, considerably enlarged introduction and motivation, remainder of the paper unchange

An infinite family of superintegrable Hamiltonians with reflection in the plane

We introduce a new infinite class of superintegrable quantum systems in the plane. Their Hamiltonians involve reflection operators. The associated Schr\"odinger equations admit separation of variables in polar coordinates and are exactly solvable. The angular part of the wave function is expressed in terms of little -1 Jacobi polynomials. The spectra exhibit "accidental" degeneracies. The superintegrability of the model is proved using the recurrence relation approach. The (higher-order) constants of motion are constructed and the structure equations of the symmetry algebra obtained.Comment: 19 page

Nontraditional Students, Multilingual Learners, and University Type: The Vital Missing Comparisons in our Basic Course Research

After the G.I. Bill was passed in 1944, the United States saw a massive expansion of higher education. The subsequent economic growth, expanding middle class, and support of public education meant that more Americans had access to college education than ever before (Bok, 2006). In the decades that followed, a typical or “traditional” college student was a person who entered a four-year university at the age of eighteen immediately after completing high school, attended full time, considered their education a full-time responsibility, had no dependents, was employed part time or not at all, and graduated in four years (Center for Institutional Effectiveness, 2004; Ross-Gordon, 2011). Most descriptions also assume that traditional students are born in the United States, speak English as their first language, and live in student housing on or near campus. However, the majority of students in college and university classrooms today do not reflect these “traditional” characteristics. In 2014-2015, 886,052 international students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities (Institute for International Education, 2014), and many universities facing budget cuts are trying to increase international student recruiting. Since the basic communication course is frequently required for most or all students at many colleges and universities as part of a general education requirement, and because the basic course is typically intended to help incoming undergraduate students build communication skills that they will use in other courses, their future careers, and in their communities, this diversity of student preparation and experience has important implications for how we approach the basic course

The Impact of Public Speaking and Hybrid Introductory Communication Courses on Student Perceptions of Homophily and Classroom Climate

This study examines whether public speaking and hybrid introductory communication courses contribute to whether students feel connected to one another as a result of taking the course. Results indicate that students develop stronger perceptions of homophily and connected classroom climate over time, and this growth is slightly larger in public speaking courses than in hybrid introductory communication courses. Attendance impacted the levels of perceived homophily and connected classroom climate at the end of the course. However, perceived homophily did not predict academic performance in either course, and perceptions of classroom connectedness only predicted the academic performance of students in the hybrid introduction to communication course

Understanding and Finding Solutions to the Problem of Sedimentation in the National Wildlife Refuge System

The National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) is a collection of public lands maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for migratory birds and other wildlife. Wetlands on individual National Wildlife Refuges (Refuges) may be at risk of increased sedimentation because of land use and water management practices. Increased sedimentation can reduce wetland habitat quality by altering hydrologic function, degrading water quality, and inhibiting growth of vegetation and invertebrates. On Refuges negatively affected by increased sedimentation, managers have to address complex questions about how to best remediate and mitigate the negative effects. The best way to account for these complexities is often not clear. On other Refuges, managers may not know whether sedimentation is a problem. Decision makers in the Refuge System may need to allocate resources to studying which Refuges could be at risk. Such analyses would help them understand where to direct support for managing increased sedimentation. In this paper, we summarize a case study demonstrating the use of decision-analytic tools in the development of a sedimentation management plan for Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge, Minnesota. Using what we learned from that process, we surveyed other Refuges in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 3 (an area encompassing the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin) and Region 6 (an area encompassing the states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming) about whether they experience sediment-related impacts to management. Our results show that cases of management being negatively affected by increased sedimentation are not isolated. We suggest that the Refuge System conduct a comprehensive and systematic assessment of increased sedimentation among Refuges to understand the importance of sedimentation in context with other management problems that Refuges face. The results of such an assessment could guide how the Refuge System allocates resources to studying and managing widespread stressors

Maxwell's theory on a post-Riemannian spacetime and the equivalence principle

The form of Maxwell's theory is well known in the framework of general relativity, a fact that is related to the applicability of the principle of equivalence to electromagnetic phenomena. We pose the question whether this form changes if torsion and/or nonmetricity fields are allowed for in spacetime. Starting from the conservation laws of electric charge and magnetic flux, we recognize that the Maxwell equations themselves remain the same, but the constitutive law must depend on the metric and, additionally, may depend on quantities related to torsion and/or nonmetricity. We illustrate our results by putting an electric charge on top of a spherically symmetric exact solution of the metric-affine gauge theory of gravity (comprising torsion and nonmetricity). All this is compared to the recent results of Vandyck.Comment: 9 pages, REVTeX, no figures; minor changes, version to be published in Class. Quantum Gra

Renal health after long-term exposure to tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) in HIV/HBV positive adults in Ghana

Objectives: The study assessed markers of renal health in HIV/HBV co-infected patients receiving TDF- containing antiretroviral therapy in Ghana. Methods: Urinary protein-to-creatinine ratio (uPCR) and albumin-to-protein ratio (uAPR) were measured cross-sectionally after a median of four years of TDF. At this time, alongside extensive laboratory testing, patients underwent evaluation of liver stiffness and blood pressure. The estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was measured longitudinally before and during TDF therapy. Results: Among 101 participants (66% women, median age 44 years, median CD4 count 572 cells/mm 3 ) 21% and 17% had detectable HIV-1 RNA and HBV DNA, respectively. Overall 35% showed hypertension, 6% diabetes, 7% liver stiffness indicative of cirrhosis, and 18% urinary excretion of Schistosoma antigen. Tubular proteinuria occurred in 16% of patients and was independently predicted by female gender and hypertension. The eGFR declined by median 1.8 ml/min/year during TDF exposure (IQR −4.4, −0.0); more pronounced declines ( ≥5 ml/min/year) occurred in 22% of patients and were associated with receiv-ing ritonavir-boosted lopinavir rather than efavirenz. HBV DNA, HBeAg, transaminases, and liver stiffness were not predictive of renal function abnormalities. Conclusions: The findings mandate improved diagnosis and management of hypertension and suggest targeted laboratory monitoring of patients receiving TDF alongside a booster in sub-Saharan Africa