The Global Turn in Nationalism: The USA as a Battleground for Hinduism and Hindu Nationalism

Hindu nationalism operates on a global scale today. Evinced by the transnational networks of the Sangh Parivar and the replication of strategies such as amending textbooks and patriotic rewriting of history, politics and discourse of Hindu nationalism are not solely contained to the territorial boundary of the nation. In this globalized battle for and against Hindu nationalism, the United States of America serves as an important site. In light of this, this article puts together existing scholarship on diasporic Hindu nationalism with late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century deterritorial history of Indian nationalism to present a broader framework for historicizing Indian activism in the US. It argues that while long-distance Hindu nationalism in the US cannot be traced before the 1970s, examining the early experiences of Indian activists in the US offers useful insights with which to evaluate the ongoing battles of Hindu nationalism in the US and opens another field of enquiry: Hindutva’s counterpublic

Park Equity in Action: Envisioning, Utilizing, and Writing Outdoor Spaces with New Mainer Girls

As it is deeply rooted in young immigrant women’s experiences in nature in the Lewiston area, this project centers around underprivileged voices and strives for equity within public parks in their home city. In Lewiston, and throughout cities across the entire nation, public parks are extremely valuable for the children growing up around them. In urban environments, green spaces are few and far between, and the accessibility to public parks for Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous communities is noticeably lower than it is for White communities. In working closely with Maine Community Integration, our project aimed at rewriting the typical script that follows public park access in America. In collaboration with the ‘New Mainer Girls’—a group of immigrant high school women of color in the Lewiston public school system—our group set out to archive experiences the girls have had within Lewiston parks in written blogs. After meeting with the New Mainer Girls and discussing a brief overview of our project, we crafted specific prompts for them to answer on their own. These prompts were constantly manipulated as we learned more about what the parks meant to our participants. As our project continued, and as we narrowed our prompts down, we chose to focus heavily on Kennedy Park, which is located near Lisbon Street and is widely known as Lewiston’s most popular park. Switching our focus to Kennedy Park in particular allowed our group to zone in and study the park’s infrastructure. As the project continued, our group was met with unforeseen challenges. Before we were able to distribute prompts to the New Mainer Girls, Ramadan had begun. Because of the holiday’s importance and strict rules, the New Mainer Girls program was suspended until the end of Ramadan. Instead of suspending our project entirely, we switched our plans and created a framework for future engagement. Accompanying our prompts, we constructed a Wordpress site in which blog posts can be made, with the options to also upload pictures, videos, and audio recordings. Along with the Wordpress site, our group created a brief overview of park equity and its importance which can be handed out to participants. All of these components fell in line with a timeline that ends with distributing the archived blog posts to the Lewiston City Council, and, hopefully, earning a seat for the New Mainer Girls at the table that discusses upcoming implementations and action plans for Kennedy Park. This project is scheduled to continue in the summer of 2022, underneath the framework we have prepared and with a Bates student working alongside the New Mainer Girls. The student will be paid by a work-action grant and will work closely with Maine Community Integration to distribute prompts, discuss responses, and receive input from participants to constantly edit the Wordpress site

What have we learnt? A year on from the first UK Community Partner Summit

Following an observed need to build community partner infrastructure and support to enhance community-university partnerships, a successful bid was made to the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. This funding provided an opportunity for community partners to come together with engaged academics at the first ever UK Community Partner Summit. They resolved to set up a community partner network to help build capacity for effective community-university partnerships, and to influence the policy environment which supports this work. This article reflects on the activity of the working group in seeking to establish the network, and introduces some of the concepts that have proved critical to its development. Drawing on a wealth of perspectives from a range of sources including academic and grey literature, community partner experiences, and international work, we open up some of the challenges that we have faced, and explore some of the implications of our first year’s work together. We reflect on the time it takes to establish any form of network, the need to be clear about definitions and boundaries, and the challenge of changing cultures. We conclude that the progress with the network to date is encouraging, and we look forward to building on our learning thus far, to develop stronger community-university partnerships of the future. Keywords: community partner infrastructure and networks, partnership resilience, community-university partnershi

Yin and yank? Public opinion in Europe toward the US and China

Perceptions of the United States in European public opinion greatly improved around 2008, while perceptions of China simultaneously deteriorated. The Transatlantic and Sino-European relationships stem from radically different historical contexts. Yet could the image of China and the image of the U.S. be related in the eyes of Europeans? This paper examines whether attitudes toward China have contributed to determining attitudes toward the U.S. in Europe by analyzing data from the Transatlantic Trends survey taken in 2010, a critical juncture in Europe’s relations with both the U.S. and China. We investigate three hypotheses about this relation: the “yin and yank” or negative correlation (the more Europeans fear China, the more positive they become about the U.S.; the more favorably Europeans view China, the more negatively they see the U.S.); the “open vs. closed” or positive correlation (the more favorably Europeans see China, the more favorably they see the U.S.; the more negatively they see China, the more negatively they see the U.S.); and no relation (European attitudes toward China and the U.S. are independent). To the question of whether anti-Chinese sentiment has the potential for replacing anti-Americanism in Europe, our main conclusion is that positively correlated attitudes toward the U.S. and China reveal a deep cleavage in Europe between those who are “in” and those who are “out” of globalization

Data-Driven Mixed-Integer Optimization for Modular Process Intensification

High-fidelity computer simulations provide accurate information on complex physical systems. These often involve proprietary codes, if-then operators, or numerical integrators to describe phenomena that cannot be explicitly captured by physics-based algebraic equations. Consequently, the derivatives of the model are either absent or too complicated to compute; thus, the system cannot be directly optimized using derivative-based optimization solvers. Such problems are known as “black-box” systems since the constraints and the objective of the problem cannot be obtained as closed-form equations. One promising approach to optimize black-box systems is surrogate-based optimization. Surrogate-based optimization uses simulation data to construct low-fidelity approximation models. These models are optimized to find an optimal solution. We study several strategies for surrogate-based optimization for nonlinear and mixed-integer nonlinear black-box problems. First, we explore several types of surrogate models, ranging from simple subset selection for regression models to highly complex machine learning models. Second, we propose a novel surrogate-based optimization algorithm for black-box mixed-integer nonlinear programming problems. The algorithm systematically employs data-preprocessing techniques, surrogate model fitting, and optimization-based adaptive sampling to efficiently locate the optimal solution. Finally, a case study on modular carbon capture is presented. Simultaneous process optimization and adsorbent selection are performed to determine the optimal module design. An economic analysis is presented to determine the feasibility of a proposed modular facility.Ph.D

Education Matters: Certified health professionals have higher credibility than non health professionals on Instagram

Social media serves as an accessible source of health information and nutrition information. Instagram, an internationally known social media platform with an average of more than 1 billion monthly active users, allows its users to create and share content. However, the credibility of the nutrition content created by users with unknown qualifications may be questionable. The objective of this study is to assess the credibility of content created by nutrition influencers on Instagram by comparing health professionals with non-health professionals.  For this study, “influencer” is defined as an Instagram user with at least 15,000 followers who promotes products, services, or ideas and who creates nutrition- or health-related content. For each influencer (n=29), two posts were selected every month from August 2018 to July 2019. Using the “Credible Information Factsheet” from the Dietitians of Canada, a credibility score based on four dichotomous criteria was created. Looking at the 24 posts of each influencer holistically, a credibility score out of 4 was calculated, with 0 being the least credible and 4 being the most credible.  Without exception, a greater proportion of health professionals compared to non-health professionals met each criterion from the “Credible Information Factsheet”. 92% of the health professionals met criteria 1 (Miracle Cure) compared to only 31% of non-health professionals. This demonstrates how the vast majority of health professionals would not promise a miracle cure, while most non-health professionals would readily promise a miracle cure. Additionally, 46% of health professionals met criteria 4 (Research-based) compared to only 19% of non-health professionals, which demonstrates how non-health professionals do not support claims with research. When looking at the total credibility scores for health professionals and non-health professionals, not a single health professional scored a total of 0, while not a single non-health professional scored a total of 4. Most importantly, health professionals had an average credibility score of 2.4, which is twice as high as that of non-health professionals (1.2).  Overall, health professionals appeared to be more credible than non-health professionals. By viewing nutrition information posted on Instagram by non-health professionals, followers potentially expose themselves to misinformation. Further research should be undertaken to validate the credibility score based on the “Credible Information Factsheet” by determining how adept the factsheet is at differentiating credibility for Instagram content

Comorbid Conditions, Mental Health and Cognitive Functions in Adults with Fibromyalgia

This study examined age group differences across adulthood in comorbid conditions, mental health, and cognitive function in people with fibromyalgia. Participants completed an online survey about how fibromyalgia affects their everyday life. Chi square analyses were conducted to examine associations between age groups and (a) comorbid conditions and (b) severity of anxiety and depression. ANOVA analyses examined age group differences on aspects of self-report cognitive function. The greatest prevalence of comorbid conditions was found in middle adulthood. Early adulthood was associated with more cases of severe anxiety with the lowest number of cases being in the oldest age group. Middle adulthood was associated with worse self-report pain compared to the youngest age group. Older adults showed better self-report cognitive function compared to younger adults. Distinct age profiles based on comorbid conditions, mental health, and symptom severity across adulthood in fibromyalgia have been demonstrated

Patients' perspective of the effectiveness and acceptability of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments of fibromyalgia.

Background and aims Fibromyalgia is a complex condition characterised by widespread pain, sleep disturbance, fatigue and cognitive impairment, with a global mean prevalence estimated at 2.7%. There are inconsistencies in guidelines on the treatment of fibromyalgia leading to dissatisfaction from patients and healthcare professionals. This study investigated patient-reported outcomes of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment usage and effectiveness with an assessment of acceptability. Methods Nine hundred and forty-one participants completed a self-administered anonymous questionnaire giving quantitative data of demographics, treatment usage and treatment outcomes. Participant-reported effectiveness and side effects were compared in the following treatment classes: analgesics, antidepressants, gabapentinoids, gastrointestinal treatments, activity interventions, dietary-based treatments, and psychological, physical and alternative therapies. Participants also reported whether they knew about or had tried different treatments. Results The results from the online survey indicated that the range of mean effectiveness ratings were similar for pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments, whereas non-pharmacological treatments had lower side effects ratings and higher acceptability relative to pharmacological treatments. Participants were not aware of some treatment options. Conclusions The results show lower side effects ratings and higher acceptability for non-pharmacological treatments compared to pharmacological treatments despite similar effectiveness ratings. Implications This article presents results from a large online survey on fibromyalgia patient perspectives of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments. Results will inform healthcare professionals and patients about optimal treatments based on ratings of effectiveness, side effects and acceptability that are tailored to patient symptom profiles. Some participants were unaware of treatment options highlighting the importance of patient education allowing collaboration between patients and healthcare professionals to find optimal treatments