Growing Community: Planting Justice, Prisoner Reintegration and Community Gardening

As community gardens become more prevalent across the country, do they have more to offer than ensuring communities have access to fresh produce? While a vital part of their mission, some grassroots and nonprofit organizations see gardening as an avenue to counteract and work against systems of food and social inequality. Planting Justice, a grassroots organization located in Oakland, use gardening as a tool for reintegrating prisoners back into the community, and ensure these ex-offenders do not return to prison. Planting Justice also engages with the forces of gentrification, working to coopt the systems of divestment and inequality to create a more equal and harmonious food and social system. I argue that gardening, and the structure of Planting Justice, create a positive, healing atmosphere that allows ex-offenders to reintegrate back into the community and removes barriers that could potentially lead them to returning to prison down the line. As a vehicle of social justice, food is a powerful tool to create equality, and Planting Justice works to harness that ability to combat high recidivism rates and environmental dispossession within the Bay Area. I find that through community engagement, education and a commitment to their staff, Planting Justice creates a community within their organization that improves the reintegrative process of formerly incarcerated individuals while pushing against social forces of dispossession

Personality and second language learning

This paper examines the relationships which exist between personality and second language learning and adds to the data available on the use of a highly respected personality indicator, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Language learning and academic success are both highly correlated with intelligence, but research suggests that the importance of intelligence declines after high school age, partly because of the stronger effects of personality. This study places emphasis on the importance of personality in learning success and examines research evidence on the issue, discussing some of the inconsistent results that have been obtained. A study of 100 Hong Kong university undergraduates was carried out to add to this research base. The instruments used were the MBTI for personality traits, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (S.I.L.L.) for learning strategies and a standardized test for language proficiency. Significant statistical relationships were not found and the reasons for this are discussed

Still a long journey to decentralize geopolitics

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 41701149; 41871127; 41630635), and the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) No: 99147-42080011.In this brief response paper, we respond to the insightful commentaries that critically engage with our original article in this forum. First, we discuss whether Confucian culture is fundamental to Chinese geopolitics, emphasizing how and why culture is part of a wider epistemic resource. We also note that our model is not normative, but an analytic framework for understanding complex non-western situations. Second, we discuss the geographies and scales of our model, noting a core tension between geopolitics at the state level and in everyday life. Third, we address the ‘gap’ between theory and practice under our Confucian model, noting that there is often a strategic inclusion (or exclusion) of Confucianism in practice. We finish by emphasizing that our paper is part a longer journey to further decentralize the western hold upon geopolitics.PostprintPeer reviewe

Visual error augmentation enhances learning in three dimensions

Because recent preliminary evidence points to the use of Error augmentation (EA) for motor learning enhancements, we visually enhanced deviations from a straight line path while subjects practiced a sensorimotor reversal task, similar to laparoscopic surgery. Our study asked 10 healthy subjects in two groups to perform targeted reaching in a simulated virtual reality environment, where the transformation of the hand position matrix was a complete reversal--rotated 180 degrees about an arbitrary axis (hence 2 of the 3 coordinates are reversed). Our data showed that after 500 practice trials, error-augmented-trained subjects reached the desired targets more quickly and with lower error (differences of 0.4 seconds and 0.5 cm Maximum Perpendicular Trajectory deviation) when compared to the control group. Furthermore, the manner in which subjects practiced was influenced by the error augmentation, resulting in more continuous motions for this group and smaller errors. Even with the extreme sensory discordance of a reversal, these data further support that distorted reality can promote more complete adaptation/learning when compared to regular training. Lastly, upon removing the flip all subjects quickly returned to baseline rapidly within 6 trials

Identification of a non-mammalian leptin-like gene:characterization and expression in the tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum)

Leptin is well established as a multifunctional cytokine in mammals. However, little is known about the evolution of the leptin gene in other vertebrates. A recently published set of ESTs from the tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) contains a sequence sharing 56% nucleotide sequence identity with the human leptin cDNA. To confirm that the EST is naturally expressed in the salamander, a 409 bp cDNA was amplified by RT-PCR of salamander testis and stomach mRNAs. The coding sequence of the cDNA is predicted to encode 169 amino acids, and the mature peptide to consist of 146 residues, as in mammals. Although the overall amino acid identity with mammalian leptins is only 29%, the salamander and mammalian peptides share common structural features. An intron was identified between coding exons providing evidence that the sequence is present in the salamander genome. Phylogenetic analysis showed a rate of molecular divergence consistent with the accepted view of vertebrate evolution. The pattern of tissue expression of the leptin-like cDNA differed between metamorphosed adult individuals of different sizes suggesting possible developmental regulation. Expression was most prominent in the skin and testis, but was also detected in tissues in which leptin mRNA is present in mammals, including the fat body, stomach, and muscle. The characterization of a salamander leptin-like gene provides a basis for understanding how the structure and functions of leptin have altered during the evolution of tetrapod vertebrates

The star formation rate at redshift one: H-alpha spectroscopy with CIRPASS

We have conducted an H-alpha survey of 38 0.77<z<1 galaxies over ~100 arcmin^2 of the Hubble Deep Field North and Flanking Fields, to determine star formation rates (SFRs), with the near-infrared multi-object spectrograph CIRPASS on the WHT. This represents the first successful application of this technique to observing high redshift galaxies. Stacking the spectra in the rest-frame to infer a total SFR for the field, we find a lower limit (uncorrected for dust reddening) on the star formation rate density at redshift z = 1 of 0.04Msol/yr/Mpc^3. This implies rapid evolution in the star formation rate density from z = 0 to z = 1 which is proportional to (1+z)^{3.1}.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 13 pages including 9 figure