Symmetric Criticality for Tight Knots

We prove a version of symmetric criticality for ropelength-critical knots. Our theorem implies that a knot or link with a symmetric representative has a ropelength-critical configuration with the same symmetry. We use this to construct new examples of ropelength critical configurations for knots and links which are different from the ropelength minima for these knot and link types.Comment: This version adds references, and most importantly an acknowledgements section which should have been in the original postin

The Gap on the Block: Aboriginality, Subjectivity, and Agency in Contemporary Urban Australia

This thesis utilizes a theoretical and methodological approach that explores subjectivity as the relational, complex, fluid, multidimensional, recursive and intersectional modes in which social subjects are animated (Ortner 2005, 31). I discuss these different aspects of subjectivity construction through a contemporary example from urban Australia and by employing frameworks that underscore the agency of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (Aboriginal or Aboriginal Australians) in constructing and maintaining their own subjectivities through discourses that challenge settler colonialism. I work to intertwine related theoretical approaches such as practice theory as defined by Sherry Ortner, and Pierre Bourdieu\u27s discussion of the distinction of taste and its ties to unequal power relations in contemporary societies (Ortner 1984, 146; Bourdieu 1984, 57). Specifically, my study questions and problematizes the processes that constitute, perpetuate, and hinder the subjectivity formation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People (Aboriginal Australians) in an inner city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales called Redfern. My case study examines the intersection of Aboriginality (as both an ethnicity and as a facet of subjectivity), agency in contemporary urban Australia, and to a lesser extent the role of bureaucracy. I analyze these concepts in terms of their historical and cultural contexts, which complicate and inform contemporary lived experiences of members of Aboriginal communities in Redfern. Specifically, I argue that initiatives aimed at lowering inequality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians as well as attempts at incorporating Aboriginal Sydneysiders into an Anglo-Australian society ultimately perpetuate longstanding tensions involving Aboriginality, agency, and subjectivity. This paper also argues that the adoption, contestation, maintenance, rejection, and construction of Aboriginality are inextricably tied with bureaucratic processes and the agency of Aboriginal Australians in Sydney, which can be seen through examples of initiatives such as this housing development that are aimed at combatting inequality between Aboriginal Australians and Anglo-Australians

Birth matters: discourses of childbirth in contemporary American culture

In this project, I use a rhetorical-cultural approach to examine the multiple and often-contradictory messages circulating in contemporary American culture about the event of childbirth. Though many feminist scholars have shown how professional obstetrics’ view of physiological birth shapes medical practice and women’s experiences in hospitals, few have asked what the American public is learning about birth outside of the hospital, or why that knowledge might matter. In order to fill that gap, I trace a dominant narrative that positions institutionalized biomedical knowledge and technology as the exclusive producers of health and safety for birthing women and their babies in popular film and television, in the making of medical research and policy, and in the way the insurance industry frames women as consumers or recipients. I argue that it is not just in the delivery room that this ideology gets communicated, nor are birthing women the only ones affected by its messages. Rather, my analysis illustrates how this narrative has seeped into the fabric of how American society as a whole understands and engages with medicine, women’s bodies, and science. In the final chapter, in order to explore a growing resistance to this ideology, I turn to the discursive construction of birth in online media. Read alongside the mainstream narrative, the rhetoric in these online spaces illustrates how the stakes of this debate are not just about who gets to decide where and how women should have their babies, but ultimately over who gets to interpret and apply science. The battle over birth in this country is, as this dissertation shows, also a battle over the public’s understanding of institutionalized medicine’s exclusive claims to scientific knowledge. By exposing the ways that narratives about and within that system function to sustain it, and illuminating the ways that the organizing power of new media is generating resistance to that system, this project seeks to intervene in conversations about the cultural meanings of childbirth, about meaningful and ethical health care, and, ultimately, about the production and circulation of knowledge about science, medicine, and women’s bodies

Learning Support and Auxiliary Services Committee report, 2016-2017

Annual report for a committee of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Faculty Senate

Personality Trait Interactions With Narrator Empathy In A Brief Computerized Intervention

Computer-delivered, brief interventions (CDBIs) have been an increasingly popular way to treat substance use disorders; however, very few studies have examined which characteristics of CDBIs maximize intervention effectiveness. The literature has consistently demonstrated that therapist empathy is associated with reduced substance use; however, it is unclear whether this principal applies to CDBIs. Therefore, one aim of this study was to examine whether the presence of an empathic narrator increases motivation to reduce heavy drinking in a CDBI. A second aim was to examine whether an individual’s personality traits (empathy, psychopathy, and Big Five Traits) interact with treatment characteristics (specifically high vs. low empathy). Results suggested that empathy did not influence motivation to reduce drinking across the entire sample, but that certain personality characteristics interacted with narrator empathy. Specifically, individuals with low conscientiousness and high neuroticism had greater readiness to change with the high empathy narrator, whereas individuals with high reactance, openness, and fearless dominance reported greater readiness to change with the low empathy narrator

Summary of Dissertation Recitals Three Programs of Harp Music

Three harp recitals were given in lieu of a written dissertation. My dissertation traced innovation on the harp. In particular, I focused on extended techniques. I examined composers’ social networks to help musicians better understand the development of extended harp techniques. In my doctoral recitals, I featured pieces that showcase a variety of extended techniques that come from a wide range of interconnected composers. My first recital was centered on networks of composers contributing to 20th-century innovation on the harp. My second recital continued this conversation, but with additional emphasis on premieres and electro-acoustic performance. My third recital featured innovative chamber works for harp and mezzo-soprano. Saturday, November 15, 2014, 8:00 p.m., Stamps Auditorium, Walgreen Drama Center, The University of Michigan. John Elam, piano. Germaine Tailleferre, Sonata for Harp; Jean Cras, Deux Impromptus Pour Harpe; Carlos Salzedo, Scintillation; Alberto Ginastera Harp Concerto, op. 25. Thursday, April 2, 2015, 8:00 p.m., Stamps Auditorium, Walgreen Drama Center, The University of Michigan. Jamie Bastian, trombone; Nadine Dyskant-Miller, flute; Peter Formanek, alto saxophone; Christine Hedden, fídíl; Alex Koi, voice; Andrew Peck, bass; Amanda Ross, trumpet; Benjamin Landen, percussion; Christopher Tabaczynski, tenor saxophone. David Lang, wed*, trans. Jennifer R. Ellis; Elliott Carter, Bariolage; Benjamin Britten, Suite for Harp, op. 83; Luciano Berio, Sequenza II; Jennifer R. Ellis, Disk*; Angélica Negrón, Technicolor for Harp and Pre-Recorded Electronics; Jennifer R. Ellis, Weav-Weav-Weaving, III. “And The Harp Strings Spoke”; Christine Hedden, Kitchen Dance*; Alex Koi, Violet. Asterisks denote premieres. Monday, May 18, 2015, 7:30 p.m., Center for Fiction, 17 E. 47th St., New York, NY. Brandon Patrick George, flute; Megan Ihnen, mezzo-soprano. Kaija Saariaho, Ariel’s Hail; William Grant Still, Mol’e; John Cage, In a Landscape; Joseph Schwantner, Wild Angels of the Open Hills.AMUMusic: PerformanceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147592/1/jerellis_1.pd

Assessing the development of high school chemistry students\u27 conceptual and visual understanding of dimensional analysis via supplemental use of a proprietary interactive software program

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of the proprietary science education software, “Conversionoes,” on students\u27 conceptual and visual understanding of dimensional analysis. The participants in the study were high school general chemistry students enrolled in two public high schools with different demographics (School A and School B) in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, metropolitan area. A mixed methods design was used in the data collection and analysis to provide a holistic view of the impact of the software on student learning, via a value-added design. The resulting qualitative and quantitative data indicated that the Conversionoes software enhanced the treatment groups’ conceptual and visual understanding of dimensional analysis. In fact, when all of the quantitative and qualitative data were viewed as a whole, the advantages of integrating Conversionoes into the general chemistry classroom appeared to have a positive impact on student conceptual and visual understanding of dimensional analysis. This was supported by the quantitative data, which indicated a significant difference between the overall pre-test and post-test scores of the treatment groups (n=14, t=-2.896, p=0.008). The treatment groups’ data were comprised of performance test results from Schools A and B. The descriptive statistics indicated that in general African-American students benefited the most from the software. African-American males had the highest increase in proficiency, 18%; followed by African-American females, 16%; White males, 10.22%; and White Females, 9.67%. With respect to gender, females had the highest increase in proficiency, 15.59%, males increased on average by 12.42%. More importantly the software elevated student performance in all of the ethnic groups and both genders, helping students make gains in their proficiency levels of dimensional analysis problem solving. The qualitative data also showed that most students valued their experiences using the Conversionoes software and claimed that it improved their knowledge of all aspects of dimensional analysis

Using National Measures of Patients' Perceptions of Health Care to Design and Debrief Clinical Simulations

This article describes an innovative approach to using national measures of patients' perspectives of quality health care. Nurses from a regional simulation consortium designed and executed a simulation using the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey to prepare nurses to improve care and, in turn, enhance patients' perceptions of care. The consortium is currently revising the reporting mechanism to collect data about specific learning objectives based on national quality indicator benchmarks, specifically HCAHPS. This revision reflects the changing needs of health care to include quality metrics in simulation

Analogue modelling of fracturing in cooling plutonic bodies

Fractures formed when igneous rocks cool below the surface of the Earth are of considerable current interest in studies of hydrology, mineral systems and radioactive waste disposal. However, little is known about the geometry and kinematics of such fractures. Conceptual models suggest that early fractures result from emplacement forces (the Cloos model) while two-dimensional numerical modelling suggests that fractures may result from the contraction of cooling bodies. We use analogue modelling to investigate the geometry of fractures formed in a cylindrical static contracting body. Our experiments show that dehydration of buried starch flour is a workable analogue. Fractures in the analogue material result from drying and contraction of a cylindrical volume which differs from previous experiments in which drying was from a single planar surface and resulted in the formation of columnar joints. In buried analogue models two key fracture sets form internally, producing sub-vertical radial fractures, and concentric fractures that curve downwards with depth. Fracture density decreases towards the centre and bottom of the samples. Samples that were buried more deeply have fewer and less curved concentric fractures than those with shallow burials. Radial fractures have similar orientations to those predicted from numerical models, and concentric fractures are comparable to marginal fissure orientations of the Cloos model. The analogue models suggest that both radial and concentric fractures may result from the contraction of plutonic bodies