Beauty Pageants, FIU, and Worlds Ahead : An Open Letter to FIU President Mark Rosenberg

In response to FIU\u27s decision to rent space to Donald Trump\u27s Miss Universe Beauty pageant, it is argued that FIU has a responsibility toward its female and male students to work for a less sexist world. As the leadership of the university does not seem to be aware of the dangers of exaggerated beauty standards and female objectification, the letter draws on feminist insights to add non-sexist substance to FIU\u27s vision of being worlds ahead

Motivating Students Positively Through Restorative Justice Discipline

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of discipline formats on student development and analyze if the practice of restorative justice can decrease the school to prison pipeline. Does criminalizing every discrepancy against the law create better law-abiding citizens? Is the zero-tolerance policy change an effective mechanism for school discipline? Do restorative justice practices reduce the school to prison pipeline? To investigate this, the infraction rates at various high schools have been observed in regard to their discipline practices to analyze the number of incidences that students incur and how they were managed

A Hybrid Metric for Navigation of Autonomous Intralogistics Vehicles in Mixed Indoor and Outdoor Operation

While autonomous guided vehicle systems are increasingly used in homogeneous and structured environments, their use in complex and variable scenarios is usually limited. Established algorithms for the navigation of systems use static maps with deterministic metrics, which can only achieve optimal results in clearly defined environments. In dynamic and extensive deployment scenarios, which are also dependent on a large number of influencing parameters, autonomous intralogistics systems cannot yet be deployed dynamically. One example here is mixed transport between buildings under changing weather conditions. As a solution for dynamic navigation, we propose a hybrid metric in combination with topological maps and cyclic environmental sensing. Based on a quantification of influencing factors on each intralogistics entity, an optimal and dynamic navigation of every system can be performed at any time. The individual components are implemented in the context of an autonomous tow truck system and evaluated in different application scenarios. The results show significant added value in use cases with sudden weather changes and complex route networks

Augmented Virtuality Data Annotation and Human-in-the-Loop Refinement for RGBD Data in Industrial Bin-Picking Scenarios

Beyond conventional automated tasks, autonomous robot capabilities aside to human cognitive skills are gaining importance. This comprises goods commissioning and material supply in intralogistics as well as material feeding and assembly operations in production. Deep learning-based computer vision is considered as enabler for autonomy. Currently, the effort to generate specific datasets is challenging. Adaptation of new components often also results in downtimes. The objective of this paper is to propose an augmented virtuality (AV) based RGBD data annotation and refinement method. The approach reduces required effort in initial dataset generation to enable prior system commissioning and enables dataset quality improvement up to operational readiness during ramp-up. In addition, remote fault intervention through a teleoperation interface is provided to increase operational system availability. Several components within a real-world experimental bin-picking setup serve for evaluation. The results are quantified by comparison to established annotation methods and through known evaluation metrics for pose estimation in bin-picking scenarios. The results enable to derive accurate and more time-efficient data annotation for different algorithms. The AV approach shows a noticeable reduction in required effort and timespan for annotation as well as dataset refinement

Photoluminescence and damage recovery studies in Fe-implanted ZnO single crystals

We report Fe3+-related emission in ion-implanted ZnO single crystals. Iron ions were implanted at room temperature with 100 keV and a fluence of 1×1016 Fe+/cm2, and were submitted to annealing treatments in vacuum and in air. After implantation, the damage raises the minimum yield (χmin) from 2% to 50%. Annealing in an oxidizing atmosphere leads to a reduction of the implantation damage, which is fully recovered after annealing at 1050 °C with a χmin∼3% in the implanted region. With extrinsic excitation, red Fe-related emission is observed at low temperatures. The intensity is dependent on the annealing conditions. For samples annealed in air, the luminescence can be detected up to 120 K. When a comparison is made between unimplanted and post-implanted annealed samples, noticeable changes on near-band-edge and deep-level photoluminescence spectra are observed. A thermally populated structured green emission could be observed in the sample annealed in air, as shown by the temperature-dependent photoluminescence excitation studies

Unlearning Sexual Harassment

In an androcentrist society, where men are the most privileged group, and where they are not taking issues seriously that do not personally affect them, they are the ones who need to change the most. In this spirit, I offer three suggestions that could help us move toward a less sexist future

Fachkräfte stärken, von Anfang an – Theoretische und konzeptionelle Überlegungen zu einem Supervisionsangebot für Berufseinsteiger der Sozialen Arbeit

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Themenfeld Berufsanfang in der Sozialen Arbeit und den spezifischen Herausforderungen, mit denen sich Fachkräfte in diesem Arbeitsfeld konfrontiert sehen. Junge Sozialarbeiter erwerben in den ersten Berufsjahren zentrale Fähigkeiten und Kompetenzen, welche sie für einen gelingenden Umgang mit den Anforderungen der Tätigkeit benötigen. Gemeinsam mit einer tragfähigen beruflichen Identität bilden sie die Grundausstattung für das fachliche Handeln einer Fachkraft. Diese Überlegungen sind Inhalt des ersten theoretischen Teils der Arbeit und bilden, zusammen mit einem theoretischen Überblick über das Themenfeld der Supervision, die Grundlage für den dritten Teil. Ausgehend von den grundlegenden Ausführungen wird ein Unterstützungsbedarf der jungen Fachkräfte in den ersten Berufsjahren erkennbar, dem mit einem passenden Angebot begegnet werden soll. Als Anregung dafür können die im dritten Teil der Arbeit vorgestellten konzeptionellen Überlegungen zu einem Supervisionsangebot für Berufsanfänger verstanden werden. Das Modellangebot soll junge Sozialarbeiter von Anfang an auf fachlicher sowie gesundheitlicher (psychischer und körperlicher) Ebene stärken, indem es sie in ihrer Professionalisierung unterstützt

Miami Dade County’s CEDAW Ordinance: A Tool of Local Transformation toward Gender Justice?

Cities4CEDAW represents a new form of activism in the United States, where a global framework – the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, of 1979) – is used in local contexts to advance gender equality. After San Francisco became the first municipality to adopt a CEDAW ordinance in 1998, Cities4CEDAW was founded in 2013 and has since triggered a significant number of initiatives that work with the CEDAW framework locally. This paper takes a scholar-activist perspective on the Cities4CEDAW dynamics in Miami Dade County, Florida. We start with an overview of the literature on global-to-local activism and the potentials and obstacles for transformation it has identified. We then trace local dynamics in Miami Dade County with a view to concrete steps taken, assessments of the actors directly involved in the County’s CEDAW ordinance as well as of local social justice organizations that focus on gender among other dimensions of discrimination. We find that the framework has had some impact that is considered significant by those directly involved, but that nevertheless has to be described as limited, especially due to lack of resources within local government structures, lack of wider and strategic community involvement, and an understanding of women’s rights that does not resonate with the intersectional realities of discrimination in the county. We draw conclusions from this process for a more transformative model of intervention in a local context whose extreme disparities have been exacerbated by the gendered impact of pandemic

Asking Fathers and Employers to Volunteer: A (De)Tour of Reconciliation Policy in Germany? -super-1

In Germany, up until recently, the combination of weak antidiscrimination laws and the rationale of family benefits had sustained the male breadwinner-female family caretaker model as the norm in social policy arrangements and gender relations. In the context of the unification of East and West Germany and the change in government to a left-wing coalition in the late 1990s, the biases of this deeply entrenched model have been significantly put into question. After providing a brief description of the German welfare state context, the article presents the development of reconciliation policies in two parts. First, the measures taken by the Christian Democrat/Liberal governments in the 1980s and 1990s are critically summarized. Second, we examine new steps taken by the Social Democrat/Green governments since 1998 and discuss the possible impact of the new approach on reconciliation policy. In this context, we also consider reconciliation policies at the firm level, an object of recent government attention. The article concludes with some further reflections on a gender-balanced future between work and family obligations in the German context. Copyright 2003 by The Policy Studies Organization.