Displacement and Latino Populations: Cultural Markers and Gentrification in Chicago Latino Communities

The term gentrification has been utilized to describe economic innovation as well as displacement. Currently cities across the United States are facing issues of gentrification. Various populations have historically settled, moved, been displaced and relocated throughout the city. For this research I will be focusing on two specific historically Latino neighborhoods in the city of Chicago: Humboldt Park and Pilsen. Latinos are one of the populations that have come to suffer from serial displacement in the city. Presently, gentrification has become a threat to these communities. Initiatives and coalitions have been created to defend the communities from being torn apart and displacing community members while simultaneously maintaining their identities as Latino communities.Ope

Evaluating enhanced hydrological representations in Noah LSM over transition zones : an ensemble-based approach to model diagnostics

textThis work introduces diagnostic methods for land surface model (LSM) evaluation that enable developers to identify structural shortcomings in model parameterizations by evaluating model 'signatures' (characteristic temporal and spatial patterns of behavior) in feature, cost-function, and parameter spaces. The ensemble-based methods allow researchers to draw conclusions about hypotheses and model realism that are independent of parameter choice. I compare the performance and physical realism of three versions of Noah LSM (a benchmark standard version [STD], a dynamic-vegetation enhanced version [DV], and a groundwater-enabled one [GW]) in simulating high-frequency near-surface states and land-to-atmosphere fluxes in-situ and over a catchment at high-resolution in the U.S. Southern Great Plains, a transition zone between humid and arid climates. Only at more humid sites do the more conceptually realistic, hydrologically enhanced LSMs (DV and GW) ameliorate biases in the estimation of root-zone moisture change and evaporative fraction. Although the improved simulations support the hypothesis that groundwater and vegetation processes shape fluxes in transition zones, further assessment of the timing and partitioning of the energy and water cycles indicates improvements to the movement of water within the soil column are needed. Distributed STD and GW underestimate the contribution of baseflow and simulate too-flashy streamflow. This work challenges common practices and assumptions in LSM development and offers researchers more stringent model evaluation methods. I show that, because of equifinality, ad-hoc evaluation using single parameter sets provides insufficient information for choosing among competing parameterizations, for addressing hypotheses under uncertainty, or for guiding model development. Posterior distributions of physically meaningful parameters differ between models and sites, and relationships between parameters themselves change. 'Plug and play' of modules and partial calibration likely introduce error and should be re-examined. Even though LSMs are 'physically based,' model parameters are effective and scale-, site- and model-dependent. Parameters are not functions of soil or vegetation type alone: they likely depend in part on climate and cannot be assumed to be transferable between sites with similar physical characteristics. By helping bridge the gap between the model identification and model development, this research contributes to the continued improvement of our understanding and modeling of environmental processes.Geological Science

Use of Social Networking Applications and Sexual Interactions among Latino MSM

New advances in communication technology have drastically altered the manner in which people interact with each other. Finding romantic and sexual partners can now be done so on the Internet as well as on cell phone devices. This exploratory case study focuses on Latino Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) who use GPS (Global Positioning System)-based social networking applications on cell phones and other electronic devices. Specifically, this project utilizes a mixed methods approach— surveys and in-depth interviews—to examine how Latino MSM between the ages of 18-24 living in Chicago utilize such social networking applications to meet other MSM and negotiate condom use. Little is known about how the use of location-based social networking applications contributes to users’ participation in spontaneous sexual encounters and importantly, how condom use unfolds during sexual encounters. The findings of this study will provide insight into how Latino MSM communicate with other MSM about STD and HIV status and negotiate condom use. This knowledge can be utilized to inform sexual health interventions and programs for Latino MSM.Ope

The Role of Stellar Feedback in the Dynamics of HII Regions

Stellar feedback is often cited as the biggest uncertainty in galaxy formation models today. This uncertainty stems from a dearth of observational constraints as well as the great dynamic range between the small scales (<1 pc) where the feedback occurs and the large scales of galaxies (>1 kpc) that are shaped by this feedback. To bridge this divide, in this paper we aim to assess observationally the role of stellar feedback at the intermediate scales of HII regions. In particular, we employ multiwavelength data to examine several stellar feedback mechanisms in a sample of 32 HII regions in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively). Using optical, infrared, radio, and X-ray images, we measure the pressures exerted on the shells from the direct stellar radiation, the dust-processed radiation, the warm ionized gas, and the hot X-ray emitting gas. We find that the warm ionized gas dominates over the other terms in all of the sources, although two have comparable dust-processed radiation pressures to their warm gas pressures. The hot gas pressures are comparatively weak, while the direct radiation pressures are 1-2 orders of magnitude below the other terms. We discuss the implications of these results, particularly highlighting evidence for hot gas leakage from the HII shells and regarding the momentum deposition from the dust-processed radiation to the warm gas. Furthermore, we emphasize that similar observational work should be done on very young HII regions to test whether direct radiation pressure and hot gas can drive the dynamics at early times.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; accepted by Ap

Evaluación de los Sistemas e-Learning: Estudio de las publicaciones realizadas en la Web Of Knowledge

El propósito de este estudio es analizar el crecimiento y desarrollo de la literatura sobre la evaluación de los sistemas e-Learning. La bibliografía publicada en 18 de las principales revistas de la base de datos ISI Web of Knowledge fue obtenida, de manera directa, a través de las palabras clave: “model”, “evaluation”, “e-Learning system”, con sus respectivos sinónimos. La información como autor, título, subtítulo, fuente, citas, etc., se registró en MS-Excel (2010) para su análisis e interpretación. El estudio encontró 127 artículos de esta temática, publicados en el período 2008-2012. Además, revela que el 2012 fue el año más prolífico, con 33 artículos. La revista más productiva es Computers &amp; Education, con 15 artículos; se la puede considerar como una revista básica de consulta. Se encontró que Peter Shea y Temi Bidjerano, ambos de Estados Unidos, son los autores que más han publicado y realizado trabajos conjuntos. Podría ser una limitante del estudio que la información que se tomó fue restringida a un período de cinco años, tiempo que de manera general se acepta, en relación a la antigüedad de la producción bibliográfica. El documento proporciona información confiable y auténtica sobre el tema y es el primer estudio de este tipo

Automated resolution of chromatographic signals by independent component analysis-orthogonal signal deconvolution in comprehensive gas chromatography/mass spectrometry-based metabolomics

Comprehensive gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC x GC-MS) provides a different perspective in metabolomics profiling of samples. However, algorithms for GCx GC-MS data processing are needed in order to automatically process the data and extract the purest information about the compounds appearing in complex biological samples. This study shows the capability of independent component analysis-orthogonal signal deconvolution (ICA-OSD), an algorithm based on blind source separation and distributed in an R package called osd, to extract the spectra of the compounds appearing in GCx GC-MS chromatograms in an automated manner. We studied the performance of ICA-OSD by the quantification of 38 metabolites through a set of 20 Jurkat cell samples analyzed by GCx GC-MS. The quantification by ICA-OSD was compared with a supervised quantification by selective ions, and most of the R2 coefficients of determination were in good agreement (R-2>0.90) while up to 24 cases exhibited an excellent linear relation (R-2>0.95). We concluded that ICA-OSD can be used to resolve co-eluted compounds in GC x GC-MS. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.Postprint (author's final draft

Deviation from bulk in the pressure-temperature phase diagram of V2O3 thin films

We found atypical pressure dependence in the transport measurements of the metal to insulator transition (MIT) in epitaxial thin films of vanadium sesquioxide (V2O3). Three different crystallographic orientations and four thicknesses, ranging from 40 to 500 nm, were examined under hydrostatic pressures (P-h) of up to 1.5 GPa. All of the films at transition exhibited a four order of magnitude resistance change, with transition temperatures ranging from 140 to 165 K, depending on the orientation. This allowed us to build pressure-temperature phase diagrams of several orientations and film thicknesses. Interestingly, for pressures below 500 MPa, all samples deviate from bulk behavior and show a weak transition temperature (T-c) pressure dependence (dT(c)/dP(h) = 1.2 x 10(-2) +/- 0.3 x 10(-2) K/MPa), which recovers to bulklike behavior (3.9 x 10(-2) +/- 0.3 x 10(-2) K/MPa) at higher pressures. Furthermore, we found that pressurization leads to morphological but not structural changes in the films. This indicates that the difference in the thin film and bulk pressure-temperature phase diagrams is most probably due to pressure-induced grain boundary relaxation, as well as both plastic and elastic deformations in the film microstructure. These results highlight the difference between bulk and thin films behaviors

Simulated verification for a finite rate of innovation method applied to terahertz signals

Methods utilizing finite rate of innovation theory have been employed to achieve low sampling rates in ultrasound experiments. Here, we apply this theory to create a terahertz specific method to gain the benefits of faster signal processing speeds and data acquisition compared with current standard processing methods. We verify our method by simulating a THz like signal, adding Gaussian noise, using a low sampling rate, processing it through our code and then comparing the reconstructed output to the original simulated signal to find close agreement

Electro-responsive shape-memory composites obtained via dual-curing processing

In this work, electro-responsive shape-memory actuators were developed by incorporating a conductive heater in a dual-curing thiol-acrylate-epoxy shape-memory polymer (SMP). A conductive heater, consisting of an electrically conductive silverink track printed on Kapton® substrate, was assembled to the SMP, taking advantage of the dual-curing processing. The shape-memory effect (SME) was activated by the heat dissipated by the Joule effect in the conductive track. Boron nitride agglomerates were dispersed in the thiol-acrylate-epoxy layers to increase thermal conductivity and achieve faster shape-recovery. A thermoelectric control unit was developed to control the shape recovery of the electro-responsive actuators and provide different activation strategies. The electrically activated SME was investigated and compared to a traditional SME based on an external heating source given by the dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) apparatus. Electro-responsive actuators were found extremely faster than the conventional SMPs based on external heating. The fastest recovery was obtained by the 15% boron nitride actuator, which recovered the 100% of the original shape in only 8 s. The thermoelectric controlling device provided an optimal control of the shape recovery speed based on the pulse width modulation of the heating current under the application of a low voltage (5 V).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version