Streetcorner Sociology

Sociology at the University of Kansas is steeped in the ethnographic tradition of tire "Chicago School." This is the result of a continuous exchange of promising graduate students and faculty between the two departments. Dr. E. Jackson Baur is a part of the "Chicago connection." He was awarded the Ph.D. by Chicago in 1942 and was hired as an Assistant Professor by the University of Kansas in 1947. He has been Professor Emeritus since 1983 and still maintains an active involvement in the department. The following is an informal history of Dr. Baur's experiences as a student at Chicago and as a professor at Kansas

Border States and Civil Rights: Activism Prior to 1955

Early civil rights activism prior to 1954 Brown case is marked by the absence of an intervening agency ororganization associated with the type of mass mobilization found in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and other events in the later civil rights movement. The community action in Topeka, Kansas before Brown illustrates that civil rights actions have always been around, but only recent scholarship of the civil rights movement has brought these seemingly less significant campaigns to the fore ground. The activism in Topeka, Kansas, characterized as indirect action tactics, was organized around primarily local level issues. These local level issues were also historically situated prior to the national push to desegregation which occurred after the 1954 Brown decision

Dance as Experience: Pragmatism and Classical Ballet

This essay examines the experience of classical ballet and its relationship to everyday life by drawing upon Dewy's emphasis on the importance of integrating the consummatory experience into everyday life, and the necessity of removing any limitations that prevent it from occurring. How can a regimented, formalized dance form such as classical ballet create a consummatory experience for the artist? How can such a structured art form as classical ballet be ephemeral or related to experience? It might be argued that classical ballet's structure is too rule bound, thus limiting the possibility of experience, vis a vis, modern, exploratory dance. The regimen of classical ballet by its very nature is criticized for limiting the freedom of expression that contributes to a consummatory experience. My analysis will focus on the assertion that classical ballet does not limit experience for the artist. Classical ballet is based on logical patterns and once these patterns become recognizable they express experience. By understanding the individual movements that comprise the patterns we achieve consummatory experience. Traditional or "classic" arts can provide a road map to consummatory experience

Higher Statistical Uncertainty With Small Pixel Sizes Gives Higher Pass Rates.

Monte Carlo (MC) based dose calculation methods trade-off accuracy at the expense of computational time, which is, correlated to the user input values of statistical uncertainty and pixel spacing (1). It was first hinted by low et. al. that noise generated within either the calculated or measured plan distributions can affect the result of the plan verification by method of ‘Gamma Index Analysis’(GI) (2). The purpose of this research experiment is to investigate a possible correlation between added noise from increasing MC statistical uncertainty and increasing the odds of a plan passing the GI verification criteria. For this research experiment, we calculated 10 head and neck radiation therapy treatment plans using the MC dose calculation method within Monaco TPS. We varied the statistical uncertainty values from 5%, 3%, 1% and 0.25% and varied the voxel size values from 3mm, 2mm and 1mm. The treatment plans were then administered on an Elekta Versa linear accelerator and measured using Mapcheck dose measurement device. Each plan was evaluated for clinical pass/fail using the GI Analysis with criteria 3%/3mm and 2%/2mm. For 1 mm voxel size, 3%/3mm GI, there was an increase in average gamma pass rates from 98.91% calculated at 0.5% statistical uncertainty to 99.61% calculated at 5% statistical uncertainty. For 1 mm voxel size, 2%/2mm GI, there was an increase in average gamma pass rates from 97.02% calculated at 0.5% statistical uncertainty to 98.80% calculated at 5% statistical uncertainty. At 2 mm and 3 mm voxel sizes, there was not a clear demonstrable increase in average gamma pass rates. The experimental results conclude that the user must be careful when selecting a statistical uncertainty prior to performing a MC dose calculation. The input of a high statistical uncertainty does not lead to more points failing the GI, but paradoxically, can increase the chances that the evaluated radiation therapy plan will pass the acceptance evaluation

Social and Cultural Barriers to Diabetes Prevention in Oklahoma American Indian Women

INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of diabetes is disproportionately higher among minority populations, especially American Indians. Prevention or delay of diabetes in this population would improve quality of life and reduce health care costs. Identifying cultural definitions of health and diabetes is critically important to developing effective diabetes prevention programs. METHODS: In-home qualitative interviews were conducted with 79 American Indian women from 3 tribal clinics in northeast Oklahoma to identify a cultural definition of health and diabetes. Grounded theory was used to analyze verbatim transcripts. RESULTS: The women interviewed defined health in terms of physical functionality and absence of disease, with family members and friends serving as treatment promoters. Conversely, the women considered their overall health to be a personal issue addressed individually without burdening others. The women presented a fatalistic view of diabetes, regarding the disease as an inevitable event that destroys health and ultimately results in death. CONCLUSION: Further understanding of the perceptions of health in at-risk populations will aid in developing diabetes prevention programs

Integrated sensor network for monitoring steel corrosion in concrete structures

[EN] Corrosion is one of the main triggering factors affecting the service life and durability of structures. Several methods are used for corrosion studies but electrochemical techniques are the most commonly applied. Corrosion processes monitoring and control by means of non-destructive techniques, such as the implementation of embedded sensors, has been the target of many works.  It is possible to obtain relevant information of structural corrosion processes in real time. This document describes a system including specific equipment and which allows obtaining relevant information about these corrosion processes. This system is formed by a sensor network. There are several types of electrodes, which are distributed throughout the structure under study and a specific equipment developed by the research group, which is used to determine pertinent parameters such as the corrosion potential (Ecorr) and the corrosion density (icorr) by applying sequences of potentiostatic pulses. The system allows to reliably determine the corrosion rate in different areas of the structure. The sensor, due to its configuration, provides information of a specific area of the structure, but on the other hand it is involved in the galvanic events that can occur along the structure by differential aeration, galvanic cells, etc. because the sensor is not isolated from the structure.  This system also procures information of buried and submerged elements. Besides, it is possible to obtain information related to temperature, concrete resistance. The system includes specific potentiometric sensors to monitor chloride access and carbonatation processes.The pre-doctoral scholarship was granted to Román Bataller Prats by the Research Staff Training Program, “Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI) 2012” from Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia and to José Enrique Ramón Zamora by the University Faculty Training Program FPU13/0091, “Formación del Profesorado Universitario (FPU) 2013” from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. ETSIE (UPV) by their support to the laboratory is also gratefully acknowledged.Ramón Zamora, JE.; Gandía Romero, JM.; Valcuende Payá, MO.; Bataller Prats, R. (2016). Integrated sensor network for monitoring steel corrosion in concrete structures. VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. 1(1):65-79. https://doi.org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2016.5191SWORD65791

Early Civil Rights Activism In Topeka, Kansas, Prior To The 1954 Brown Case

On an early spring day in the city of Topeka, Kansas, a father walked his child to their neighborhood school. His child was refused admission and was instructed to attend one reserved for colored children. The parent filed a lawsuit and sued the Topeka Board of Education, demanding that his child be received and instructed at that school, regardless of race. The case went to the Kansas State Supreme Court where it became a precedent for maintaining school segregation in Topeka and other cities in Kansas. The year was 1902. Despite its outcome, this lawsuit illustrates the local-level issues and distinctive color-line practices that characterized challenges to segregation in Topeka before the civil rights movement. Like the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka some fifty years later, the issues in the 1902 Reynolds v. Board of Education grew out of efforts by the local board of education to maintain school segregation against challenges from African Americans dissatisfied with the status quo. The ongoing legal battles in Topeka revolved around segregation contingencies not addressed in the Kansas state constitution written in 1861. Confrontations over maintaining the color line erupted as public schools began to develop junior high schools separate from elementary schools (which were covered under segregation statutes) and high schools (which were exempt).1 Challenges to the color line also occurred as the city limits of Topeka expanded to incorporate rural communities in outlying areas that had already established their own informal, yet distinctive, patterns of integration and segregation. Each annexation created new fault lines along the color line as its practices were renegotiated as part of the confrontations between real estate developers, city government officials, the board of education, and parents of school-age children. The important role that the community of Topeka played in the events that eventually led up to the famous 1954 Supreme Court case has been underemphasized. This lack of interest might be related to the fact that Topeka, Kansas, was not located in the deep South and did not have the same history of violence in race relations as, for instance, a place like Birmingham, Alabama. There were no spectacular events such as bombings, race riots, mass marches, or boycotts that characterized the mass mobilizations in the South. Little acknowledgment has been given to Topeka\u27s own unique history of race relations and the fact that its subsequent type of resistance to segregation is related to that history. HISTORICAL LEGACY OF RACE RELATIONS Kansas\u27s distinctive color-line practices regarding public education are illustrated by the shift back and forth between integration and segregation in school legislation. Instead of mandating a uniform system of segregated schools, the original constitution left that determination up to local school districts and local custom. This allowed a small window of opportunity for African Americans to establish some legal basis from which to challenge the constitutionality of segregated schools in their own communities. It also gave them the right to appeal to the local board of education to review its policy of segregation if the policy did not conform to state statutes. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Topeka did this in 1948, before pursuing the actions that resulted in the Brown case. Challenges to school segregation resulted in modifications to the school segregation laws in 1867 and 1879.