Dynamics of Faculty Engagement in the Movement for Democracy's Education at Nothern Arizona University: Backgrounds, Practices, and Future Horizons

As scholarship has become increasingly narrow and disconnected from public life, Kettering research has documented an intense sense of malaise in higher education, what Harry Boyte has called a loss of civic agency. Surprisingly, however, faculty at a few campuses have begun to self-organize to integrate civic work into their teaching and research. This study, by Blase Scarnati and Romand Coles, documents such efforts at Northern Arizona University. Rather than making civic engagement a specific project of one or two faculty, what makes this campus special is that civic engagement has taken hold across the university. Building on research by KerryAnn O'Meara, this working paper shows that civic engagement is not only fulfilling to faculty at an individual level but is starting to impact the civic culture of their institutions

Biocultural polymorphic fields, receptive agency and symbiotic evolution beyond the anthropocentric wave

I sketch aspects of Samantha Frost’s writing that I find most intriguing and discuss directions in my work that resonate with them, elaborating possible connections between her reflections on subatomic through intercellular fields, and mine on the intercorporeal sensual relations among organisms—particularly those between humans and nonhumans. I read the human sensual field, or clearing, as trafficking and teaming with the affective energies and perceptual fields of myriad other beings and suggest a theory of symbiotic selection that accounts for the emergence of extravagant receptivity. This pulls toward political ecological practices and institutions that foster receptive agency with nonhumans

Feeding rates of Aphyosemion geryyi (Cyprinodontidae) on mosquito larvae in the laboratory and in the field

L'analyse du contenu stomacal de trois populations d'#Aphyosemion geryi originaires de la Guinée (Conakry) a montré que cette espèce se nourrit principalement de petits crustacés, de formicidés et de larves de chironomes. La capacité prédatrice de ce poisson envers deux espèces de moustiques #Aedes aegypti et #Culex thalassius a été examinée par des expériences en laboratoire. La taille des proies, laquelle peut être en relation avec la mobilité des larves, est un facteur important pour déterminer la capacité prédatrice. #A. geryi, qui se nourrit aussi bien la nuit que le jour, présente cependant un maximum entre 10-19h00. Des expériences réalisées dans des habitats naturels montrent que ce poisson a un impact important sur les plus jeunes stades larvaires. Une réduction de 90% de la population de larves de culicidés a été obtenue pendant la période maximale de prise de nourriture. Au vu de ces résultats, cette espèce de #Cyprinodontidae$ pourrait être considérée pour une utilisation possible dans le contrôle biologique des larves de moustiques en Afrique de l'Ouest. (Résumé d'auteur

The new environmentalism of everyday life: Sustainability, material flows and movements

This article analyzes recent developments in environmental activism, in particular movements focused on reconfiguring material flows. The desire for sustainability has spawned an interest in changing the material relationship between humans, other beings, and the non-human realm. No longer willing to take part in unsustainable practices and institutions, and not satisfied with purely individualistic and consumer responses, a growing focus of environmental movement groups is on restructuring everyday practices of circulation, for example, on sustainable food, renewable energy, and making. The shift to a more sustainable materialism is examined using three frameworks: a move beyond an individualist and value-focused notion of post-materialism, into a focus on collective practices and institutions for the provision of the basic needs of everyday life; Foucault’s conceptions of governmentality and biopolitics, which articulate modes of power around the circulation of things, information, and individuals; and a new ethos around vibrant and sustainable materialism with an explicit recognition of human immersion in non-human natural systems. These frames allow us to see and interpret common themes across numerous, seemingly disparate initiatives focused on replacing unsustainable practices and forging alternative flows

The Effects of Graphic Design on Socioeconomic Status

After last year’s research “The Effects of Package Design on Consumers: How Designers Target Traditional Gender Roles” we chose to further research graphic design’s impact on target audiences. Design impacts socioeconomic status in a variety of ways, particularly through package design. This year we have chosen to implement a survey that will reveal how perceived socioeconomic status affects buying trends as well as how design influences purchasing habits within these classes. This survey will give us data on actual versus perceived socioeconomic status and how this influences the habits of particular demographics and individual consumers. In reviewing this data, based on our knowledge of graphic design, we will have a more in-depth view of how designers target socioeconomic class structures. We hope to expose the tendency on how companies ignore lower class consumers through a lack of design and create an illusion of luxury for higher end products. We are presenting an infographic poster that shows the data in a simplified manner so all audiences can understand our research as well as appreciate the poster as an art work

Transpulmonary lactate gradient after hypothermic cardiopulmonary bypass

Objective: Several studies demonstrated that the lungs could produce lactate in patients with acute lung injury (ALI). Because after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) some patients develop ALI, the effect of CPB on pulmonary lactate release was investigated. Design: Prospective observational clinical study. Setting: Twenty-beds, surgical ICU at a university hospital. Patients: Sixteen deeply sedated, ventilated and post-cardiac surgery patients, all equipped with a pulmonary artery catheter. Measurements and results: Lactate concentration was measured using a lactate analyser in simultaneously drawn arterial (A) and mixed venous (V) blood samples. Three measurements per patients were taken at 30-min interval, after body temperature reached 37°C. Concomitantly, measurements of cardiac output were also obtained. Pulmonary lactate release was calculated as the product of transpulmonary A-V lactate and cardiac index. The mean cardiopulmonary bypass duration was 100±44min (SD), and the aortic cross-clamping time was 71±33min. After CPB, lactate release was 0.136±0.210mmol/min m−2. These values were not correlated with cardiopulmonary bypass duration. Conclusion: The present study shows that in patients receiving mechanical ventilation after CPB, the lung is a source of lactate production. This pulmonary release was not dependent on cardiopulmonary bypass duratio

Social influence protects collective decision making from equality bias

A basic tenet of research on wisdom of the crowds – and key assumption of Condorcet’s Jury Theorem – is the independence of voters’ opinions before votes are aggregated. However, we often look for others’ opinions before casting our vote. Such social influence can push groups towards herding, leading to “madness of the crowds”. To investigate the role of social influence in joint decision making, we had dyads of participants perform a visual odd-ball search task together. In the Independent (IND) condition participants initially made a private decision. If disagreeing, discussion and collective decision ensued. In the Influence (INF) condition no private decisions were made and collective decision was immediately negotiated. Dyads that did not accrue collective benefit under IND condition improved with added social influence under INF condition. In Experiment 2, covertly, we added noise to one of the dyad members’ visual search display. The resulting increased heterogeneity in dyad members’ performances impaired the dyadic performance under IND condition (Bahrami et al., 2010). Importantly, dyadic performance improved with social influence under INF, replicating Experiment 1. Further analyses revealed that under IND condition, dyads exercised equality bias (Mahmoodi et al., 2015) by granting undue credit to the less reliable partner. Under INF condition, however, the more reliable partner (correctly) dominated the joint decisions. While social influence may impede collective success under ideal conditions, our results demonstrate how it can help the group members overcome factors such as equality bias, which could potentially lead to catastrophic failure