Fableware from the garden of the grotesque

In biology, a chimaera is created when two zygotes collide at an early stage of development, resulting in a unique creature containing two distinct sets of genes. The name is borrowed from Greek mythology where chimaeras are fire-breathing monsters born with the mixed attributes of lions, snakes, and goats. As creatures of myth, chimaera represent a narrative union of disparate parts; a collision of the fantastic and the mundane. Clay can be used to explore this dichotomy, utilizing its ability as a mutable canvas to embody a vast range of visual vocabularies while referencing its rich history and placing new creations into context. The Fableware of the Garden of the Grotesque features ceramic vessels that tell the stories of metamorphosis and hybridity within an otherworld. Through the lens of the chimaera and the medium of clay the lines between story and vessel can begin to blur and guide viewers to ask what is possible rather than what is “natural.” Each fragment constructing a chimaera has its own history, and these origins are expressed in their temperament, compositions, and collision with other pieces. By using the chimaera as a model of synthesis, we can center the possibility of what could happen in life rather than become stuck in the expectations of what should happen. By using the chimaera as a blueprint we can find empathy for ourselves and others as beings composed of many influences and experiences. A fusion of the fantastic and the mundane

The Impact of Persuasive Messages on the Disclosure of Personal Health Information

Individuals’ disclosure of personal health information (PHI) holds substantial benefits for providers, but users are often reluctant to disclose. While providers can employ persuasive messages, little is known about their effects in the sensitive context of PHI disclosure. To address this research gap, we conduct a web-based experiment with 529 non-users of health wearables (HWs) to examine the influences of persuasive messages (attribute framing and argument strength) on individuals’ PHI disclosure. We reveal that individuals tend to disclose more PHI when they experience persuasive messages with more positively framed HW attributes or messages with higher argument strength concerning data collection. We enable researchers to uncover the impact of persuasive messages in highly sensitive data environments and provide practitioners with workable suggestions to have individuals disclose more PHI

The mutual find scandal: A day trading simulation

The 6.9 trillion dollar mutual fund industry has come under fire due to questionable practices conducted by mutual fund companies. Individual investors trying to diversify with a small amount of money have historically turned to mutual funds. Mutual funds were used as a safe vehicle for investors rather than buying thirty different stocks in order to diversify away unsystematic risk. The perception that mutual fund companies were acting in the best interests of individual investors has been challenged in the past year. Elliot Spitzer, the New York Attorney General, brought to light some illegal and highly questionable activities of mutual fund companies. These two activities are late trading, which is illegal, and day trading, which is not illegal but is discouraged in the mutual fund industry. This thesis will start out by focusing on the mutual fund scandal in general. Then it will focus on the day trading of international mutual funds followed by a hypothetical simulation to see how much money could have been made by day trading these funds. Finally, possible solutions to stem the practice of day trading will be explored

Continuously Healthy, Continuously Used? – A Thematic Analysis of User Perceptions on Consumer Health Wearables

Along with the miniaturization of digital devices, consumer health wearables (CHWs) further decrease the distance between users and devices, allowing users to continuously track their personal health information (PHI). While this provides more control to users, history has shown that users’ potential concerns (e.g. privacy) can lead to devices not meeting users’ expectations and failing market diffusion. The existing literature has mostly focused on particular aspects that could foster or hinder adoption of CHWs but the big picture is still missing. Drawing upon the previous literature, we use a rigorous iterative thematic analysis to provide a comprehensive picture of any potential benefits and deficiencies that users associate with CHWs. We take the example of fitness trackers and conduct 16 semi-structured interviews that help understand the determinants on which users assess the benefits and deficiencies of CHWs related to their continuous usage. We identify 11 subthemes that we can attribute to three main user determinants (perceived benefit, deficiency, and privacy). Our results not only show the failure to meet privacy expectations as a particular potential hindrance factor, we further propose a new theoretical construct (perceived relativity) as well as a novel tracking motive (social tracking), both of which can benefit future research on PHI disclosure. We enable both researchers and practitioners to uncover and visualize user perceptions of fitness trackers, on which future design decisions can be oriented and user expectations be better met. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol11/iss1/5

A Compton reflection dominated spectrum in a peculiar accreting neutron star

We report on a puzzling event occurred during a long BeppoSAX observation of the slow-rotating binary pulsar GX 1+4. During this event, lasting about 1 day, the source X-ray flux was over a factor 10 lower than normal. The low-energy pulsations disappeared while at higher energies they were shifted in phase. The spectrum taken outside this low-intensity event was well fitted by an absorbed cut-off power law, and exhibited a broad iron line at ~6.5 keV probably due to the blending of the neutral (6.4 keV) and ionised (6.7 keV) K_alpha iron lines. The spectrum during the event was Compton reflection dominated and it showed two narrow iron lines at ~6.4 keV and ~7.0 keV, the latter never revealed before in this source. We also present a possible model for this event in which a variation of the accretion rate thickens a torus-like accretion disc which hides for a while the direct neutron star emission from our line of sight. In this scenario the Compton reflected emission observed during the event is well explained in terms of emission reflected by the side of the torus facing our line of sight.Comment: 10 pages; to be published in MNRA

Damned if they do, damned if they don't: negotiating the tricky context of anti-social behaviour and keeping safe in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods

Young people's relationship with anti-social behaviour (ASB) is complicated. While their behaviours are often stereotyped as anti-social (e.g. ‘hanging about’), they also experience ASB in their neighbourhood. In this study, we explore young people's own perspectives on ASB, comparing results from ‘go-along’ interviews and focus groups conducted in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Glasgow, Scotland. This article discusses how young people's everyday experience of ASB was contextualised by social factors such as cultural stereotyping of marginalised groups, poor social connectivity and spatial marginalisation within their neighbourhood. Furthermore, we found that these social factors were mutually reinforcing and interacted in a way that appeared to leave young people in a ‘no-win’ situation regarding their association with ASB. Participation in ASB and attempts to avoid such involvement were seen to involve negative consequences: participation could entail violence and spatial restrictions linked to territoriality, but avoidance could lead to being ostracised from their peer group. Regardless of involvement, young people felt that adults stereotyped them as anti-social. Our findings therefore provide support for policies and interventions aimed at reducing ASB (perpetrated by residents of all ages); in part by better ensuring that young people have a clear incentive for avoiding such behaviours

The Grizzly, February 17, 1989

Malicious Arson Attempt Suspected In Fire • Board of Dirs. Calls for Big, but Beneficial Bucks • Letter: Let\u27s Keep Campbell! • WVOU Far From FM Waves • Glastnost Russian Roulette? • Freeman Displays Her Patchwork • Grim: No Meal Like a Home Meal • Drug Awareness a Downer • Title in Sight • Wrestlers Cruising at Unprecedented 21-2 • \u27Nasts O.K. • Intro. to Judaism Offered • Women\u27s Indoor Crushes \u27Em • Men\u27s Track \u27Sloshing\u27 Along • Aquabears Paddlin\u27 Wellhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1229/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, February 24, 1989

Ursinus Finds and Dumps Its Own Dump • Depression Treatable • GPA Lowered for Frat Pledges • Letter: Mannherz Assaults Grizzly • Myrin Library Meeting Future • Photos Don\u27t Show All, More to Dump Than Meets the Eye • Ursinus Awaits ECAC Bid • Matters Set School Record • McMullin Keys U.C. Track • U.C.: Up, Then Down • Ursinus Women: The Stuff of Champions • Cinders Smoking • Meisters: Ohio or Bust! • Richter Doesn\u27t Trash Klee • Wismer Deceiving Diners • DeCatur Nips Nippon • Yanks and Frogs Alike • Airband Tonight • Graduation 1989 Coming Together • Peruvian Paradisehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1230/thumbnail.jp

Southern Cosmology Survey II: Massive Optically-Selected Clusters from 70 square degrees of the SZE Common Survey Area

We present a catalog of 105 rich and massive (M>3\times10^{14}M_{\sun}) optically-selected clusters of galaxies extracted from 70 square-degrees of public archival griz imaging from the Blanco 4-m telescope acquired over 45 nights between 2005 and 2007. We use the clusters' optically-derived properties to estimate photometric redshifts, optical luminosities, richness, and masses. We complement the optical measurements with archival XMM-Newton and ROSAT X-ray data which provide additional luminosity and mass constraints on a modest fraction of the cluster sample. Two of our clusters show clear evidence for central lensing arcs; one of these has a spectacular large-diameter, nearly-complete Einstein Ring surrounding the brightest cluster galaxy. A strong motivation for this study is to identify the massive clusters that are expected to display prominent signals from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (SZE) and therefore be detected in the wide-area mm-band surveys being conducted by both the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope. The optical sample presented here will be useful for verifying new SZE cluster candidates from these surveys, for testing the cluster selection function, and for stacking analyzes of the SZE data.Comment: 13 pages, 7 Figures. Accepted for publication to ApJSS. Full resolution plots and additional material available at http://peumo.rutgers.edu/~felipe/e-prints