The Mother of a Revolution

Julia Alvarez’s novel, In the Time of Butterflies, is not confined to a single voice. Instead, her writing affords each sister her perspective of not only the political revolution, but also each woman’s own personal growth. Each sister experiences her own life in the similar stages of school, romance, and actualizing her own place in society, yet the particular voice of Patria, the oldest Mirabal sister, through religiously poetic prose paired with her unique motivations to join the revolution create the tone of a complex, powerful Latina woman. Through the contrast of Patria’s personality and perspective, Alvarez creates a unified harmony between elements sensual feminine power and the unique ability for women to gain more through loss

Alien Registration- Cox, Margaret (Winslow, Kennebec County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/16519/thumbnail.jp

An Exploratory Study on Mental Illness Perspectives in Hanoi

Almost 12 million people in Vietnam have been diagnosed with a mental illness; the prevalence of mental illness within the population means that understanding how people perceive it. Previous research has demonstrated the negative impacts that stigma and negative perceptions of mental illness have and how they can inhibit individuals from seeking treatment for a mental illness. The aim of this exploratory study was to answer the question: How do Vietnamese university students and mental health professionals living in Hanoi perceive mental illness? Fifteen university students and five mental health professionals were interviewed in a series of semi-structured interviews. A mixed-methods approach was used in the analysis of data, interviews were transcribed and the coded using content analysis, in addition to using a context-sensitive method of analyzing qualitative data from responses. The results of the study reveal trends of lingering stigmatization of mental illness among university students in Hanoi. The stigmatization is possibly related to the cultural context and values of Vietnamese society such as Traditional medicine, lack of awareness, and Confucian values. The results of the interviews with the mental health professionals coincide with the perspectives many of the students have. It is not that Vietnamese culture needs to undergo drastic changes to decrease stigmatization, but increased understanding will clarify how it currently matches existing cultural values

And They Shall Be Men: An Original Anthology & Analysis of the Modern Male Bildungsroman

The stories that boys have been told about what it means to be a man change throughout history. This study considers the postmodern effect of masculinities, female empowerment, as well as the canon of Western bildungsroman in an attempt to understand how the narratives have changed over the past 50 years. Additionally, an anthology of original fiction illustrates how universal stories persist within the changing social narratives

Indymedia.ie: a critical space for social movements in Ireland

“Hegemony” – the way popular consent to power and economic structures is organised – is an alien word to many people, seemingly coming from a different world to the familiar trivialities of Middle Ireland. But the complacent idea of Gay Byrne’s Late Late Show as the nation’s living room is a perfect example of hegemony at work: the state broadcaster offering a cosy, semi-official version of “national community”. Its liberal version appears in comments about how “it was a breakthrough” when something appeared on the Late Late: not grasping that “issues” make the mainstream media as a result, not a cause, of social movements struggling against the official state of affairs

A review of the research literature relating to ICT and attainment

Summary of the main report, which examined current research and evidence for the impact of ICT on pupil attainment and learning in school settings and the strengths and limitations of the methodologies used in the research literature

Instability of pulses in gradient reaction-diffusion systems: A symplectic approach

In a scalar reaction-diffusion equation, it is known that the stability of a steady state can be determined from the Maslov index, a topological invariant that counts the state's critical points. In particular, this implies that pulse solutions are unstable. We extend this picture to pulses in reaction-diffusion systems with gradient nonlinearity. In particular, we associate a Maslov index to any asymptotically constant state, generalizing existing definitions of the Maslov index for homoclinic orbits. It is shown that this index equals the number of unstable eigenvalues for the linearized evolution equation. Finally, we use a symmetry argument to show that any pulse solution must have nonzero Maslov index, and hence be unstable.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc.

Learning by volunteer computing, thinking and gaming: What and how are volunteers learning by participating in Virtual Citizen Science?

Citizen Science (CS) refers to a form of research collaboration that engages volunteers without formal scientific training in contributing to empirical scientific projects. Virtual Citizen Science (VCS) projects engage participants in online tasks. VCS has demonstrated its usefulness for research, however little is known about its learning potential for volunteers. This paper reports on research exploring the learning outcomes and processes in VCS. In order to identify different kinds of learning, 32 exploratory interviews of volunteers were conducted in three different VCS projects. We found six main learning outcomes related to different participants' activities in the project. Volunteers learn on four dimensions that are directly related to the scope of the VCS project: they learn at the task/game level, acquire pattern recognition skills, on-topic content knowledge, and improve their scientific literacy. Thanks to indirect opportunities of VCS projects, volunteers learn on two additional dimensions: off topic knowledge and skills, and personal development. Activities through which volunteers learn can be categorized in two levels: at a micro (task/game) level that is direct participation to the task, and at a macro level, i.e. use of project documentation, personal research on the Internet, and practicing specific roles in project communities. Both types are influenced by interactions with others in chat or forums. Most learning happens to be informal, unstructured and social. Volunteers do not only learn from others by interacting with scientists and their peers, but also by working for others: they gain knowledge, new status and skills by acting as active participants, moderators, editors, translators, community managers, etc. in a project community. This research highlights these informal and social aspects in adult learning and science education and also stresses the importance for learning through the indirect opportunities provided by the project: the main one being the opportunity to participate and progress in a project community, according to one's tastes and skills