Line and Point, Detail and Pattern, and Other Forms of Artistic Insanity

School of Art and Design: Integrative Project ThesisArt and Design, School ofUniversity of MichiganUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60477/1/IPThesis_Krieger.pd

The effects of socioeconomic status and indices of physical environment on reduced birth weight and preterm births in Eastern Massachusetts

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Air pollution and social characteristics have been shown to affect indicators of health. While use of spatial methods to estimate exposure to air pollution has increased the power to detect effects, questions have been raised about potential for confounding by social factors.Methods: A study of singleton births in Eastern Massachusetts was conducted between 1996 and 2002 to examine the association between indicators of traffic, land use, individual and area-based socioeconomic measures (SEM), and birth outcomes ( birth weight, small for gestational age and preterm births), in a two-level hierarchical model.Results: We found effects of both individual ( education, race, prenatal care index) and area-based ( median household income) SEM with all birth outcomes. The associations for traffic and land use variables were mainly seen with birth weight, with an exception for an effect of cumulative traffic density on small for gestational age. Race/ethnicity of mother was an important predictor of birth outcomes and a strong confounder for both area-based SEM and indices of physical environment. The effects of traffic and land use differed by level of education and median household income.Conclusion: Overall, the findings of the study suggested greater likelihood of reduced birth weight and preterm births among the more socially disadvantaged, and a greater risk of reduced birth weight associated with traffic exposures. Results revealed the importance of controlling simultaneously for SEM and environmental exposures as the way to better understand determinants of health.This work is supported by the Harvard Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Center, Grants R827353 and R-832416, and National Institute for Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) ES-0002

Teaching Problem-Solving Lawyering: An Exchange of Ideas

In the last issue of the Clinical Law Review, StefanKrieger argues that clinical law teachers who emphasize problem-solving approaches to lawyering incorrectly downplay as a necessary prerequisite to learning effective legal practice the significance of domain knowledge, which he mainly identifies as knowledge about legal doctrine(FN1) Among the writings on clinical law teaching criticized by Krieger are those of Mark Aaronson, who has articulated as a teaching goal helping students learn how to improve their practical judgment in lawyering, which he describes as a process of deliberation whose most prominent features are a contextual tailoring of knowledge, a dialogic form of reasoning that accounts for plural perspectives, an ability to be empathetic and detached at the same time an intertwining of intellectual and moral concerns, an instrumental and equitable interest in human affairs, and a heavy reliance on learning from cumulative experience.(FN2) Krieger stresses the foundational importance for law students of acquiring substantive legal knowledge; Aaronson focuses on developing the ability of students to think critically and appropriately in role as a lawyer. In this brief exchange of ideas, Aaronson comments on Krieger\u27s critique of problem-solving teaching in law schools, to which Krieger then responds

Lesbian and bisexual women's experiences of sexuality-based discrimination and their appearance concerns

Lesbian and bisexual women frequently experience sexuality-based discrimination, which is often based on others' judgements about their appearance. This short article aims to explore whether there is a relationship between lesbian and bisexual women's experiences of sexuality-based discrimination and their satisfaction with the way that they look. Findings from an online survey suggest that discrimination is negatively related to appearance satisfaction for lesbian women, but not for bisexual women. It is argued that this difference exists because lesbian appearance norms are more recognisable and distinctive than bisexual women's appearance norms

The Miller-Wohl Controversy: Equal Treatment, Positive Action and the Meaning of Women\u27s Equality

This Article has been constructed in three sections. Part I will examine the legal issues raised by the Miller-Wohl case by contrasting the equal treatment approach of the Pregnancy Discrimination Amendment with the positive action or reasonable accommodation approach of the MMLA. Such an examination leads to two conclusions. The first is that the PDA\u27s equal treatment approach is by itself inadequate to assure equal employment opportunity for women who, because of their role as child bearers, confront employment obstacles not faced by men. The second is that laws such as the MMLA, which recognize and take affirmative steps to equalize this inherent sex difference, can be legally supported without indirectly justifying either less favorable treatment of women in other contexts, or under - and over -inclusive protective legislation. After concluding this legal analysis the Article will move one analytical step deeper and examine the different models of equality underpinning the equal treatment and positive action approaches which clashed in the Miller- Wahl controversy. As Part II will demonstrate, the liberal model of equality which underlies the equal treatment approach is structurally inadequate to effectuate equality between the sexes. This inadequacy stems from the liberal model\u27s reliance on homogeneity and interchangeability within the society of equals, a reliance which has its roots in reductionist enlightenment-era political theory. After examining the sources and consequences of the homogeneityassumption inherent in the liberal view, Part II will proffer two supplemental conceptions of equality: Elizabeth Wolgast\u27s bivalent view, and Ann Scales\u27 related, narrowing incorporationist view. Both of these models are analytically equipped to effectuate equality within a heterogenous group. Finally, Part III contrasts the metaphysical view of social change underlying the equal treatment position with the dialectical and materialist conception supporting a positive action approach to the pregnancy issue. In the course of examining these two contrasting paradigms of change, Part III leads to the conclusion that no one theory or strategy, including the equal treatment approach to equality, can remain progressive or comprehensively efficacious over time and across different material contexts. It is only by remaining theoretically flexible and by selecting legal strategies or theories in light of the material conditions confronting today\u27s working women that feminist legal practitioners and theorists can facilitate substantive and not merely formalistic equality between women and men. To achieve this goal, a careful expansion of the traditional equal treatment conception of equality is required. This expansion must encompass and analytically support a positive action approach to the equality problems presented by pregnancy and childbirth

The Miller-Wohl Controversy: Equal Treatment, Positive Action and the Meaning of Women\u27s Equality

This Article has been constructed in three sections. Part I will examine the legal issues raised by the Miller-Wohl case by contrasting the equal treatment approach of the Pregnancy Discrimination Amendment with the positive action or reasonable accommodation approach of the MMLA. Such an examination leads to two conclusions. The first is that the PDA\u27s equal treatment approach is by itself inadequate to assure equal employment opportunity for women who, because of their role as child bearers, confront employment obstacles not faced by men. The second is that laws such as the MMLA, which recognize and take affirmative steps to equalize this inherent sex difference, can be legally supported without indirectly justifying either less favorable treatment of women in other contexts, or under - and over -inclusive protective legislation. After concluding this legal analysis the Article will move one analytical step deeper and examine the different models of equality underpinning the equal treatment and positive action approaches which clashed in the Miller- Wahl controversy. As Part II will demonstrate, the liberal model of equality which underlies the equal treatment approach is structurally inadequate to effectuate equality between the sexes. This inadequacy stems from the liberal model\u27s reliance on homogeneity and interchangeability within the society of equals, a reliance which has its roots in reductionist enlightenment-era political theory. After examining the sources and consequences of the homogeneityassumption inherent in the liberal view, Part II will proffer two supplemental conceptions of equality: Elizabeth Wolgast\u27s bivalent view, and Ann Scales\u27 related, narrowing incorporationist view. Both of these models are analytically equipped to effectuate equality within a heterogenous group. Finally, Part III contrasts the metaphysical view of social change underlying the equal treatment position with the dialectical and materialist conception supporting a positive action approach to the pregnancy issue. In the course of examining these two contrasting paradigms of change, Part III leads to the conclusion that no one theory or strategy, including the equal treatment approach to equality, can remain progressive or comprehensively efficacious over time and across different material contexts. It is only by remaining theoretically flexible and by selecting legal strategies or theories in light of the material conditions confronting today\u27s working women that feminist legal practitioners and theorists can facilitate substantive and not merely formalistic equality between women and men. To achieve this goal, a careful expansion of the traditional equal treatment conception of equality is required. This expansion must encompass and analytically support a positive action approach to the equality problems presented by pregnancy and childbirth

A change in the midpoint potential of the quinone QA in Photosystem II associated with photoactivation of oxygen evolution

AbstractThe effect of photoactivation (the assembly of the Mn cluster involved in oxygen evolution) in Photosystem II (PS II), on the redox midpoint potential of the primary quinone electron acceptor, QA, has been investigated. Measurements of the redox state of QA were performed using chlorophyll fluorescence. Cells of Scenedesmus obliquus were grown in the dark to obtain PS II lacking the oxygen-evolving complex. Growth in the light leads to photoactivation. The midpoint potential of QA was shifted, upon photoactivation, from + 110 mV to −80 mV. In cells of a low-fluorescence mutant, LF1, that is unable to assemble the oxygen-evolving complex but that has an otherwise normal PS II, the higher potential form of QA was found. NH2OH treatment of spinach PS II, which releases the Mn and thus inactivates the oxygen-evolving complex, causes an upshift of the redox potential of QA (Krieger and Weis (1992) Photosynthetica 27, 89–98). Oxygen evolution can be reconstituted by incubation in the light in the presence of MnCl2 and CaCl2. Such photoactivation caused the midpoint potential of QA to be shifted back from around +55 mV to lower potentials (−80 mV), typical for active PS II. The above results indicate that the state of the donor side of PS II has a direct influence on the properties of the acceptor side. It is suggested that the change from the high- to the low-potential form of QA may represent a mechanism for protection of PS II during the assembly of the O2-evolving enzyme

Nondispersive solutions to the L2-critical half-wave equation

We consider the focusing $L^2$-critical half-wave equation in one space dimension $$i \partial_t u = D u - |u|^2 u,$$ where $D$ denotes the first-order fractional derivative. Standard arguments show that there is a critical threshold $M_* > 0$ such that all $H^{1/2}$ solutions with $\| u \|_{L^2} < M_*$ extend globally in time, while solutions with $\| u \|_{L^2} \geq M_*$ may develop singularities in finite time. In this paper, we first prove the existence of a family of traveling waves with subcritical arbitrarily small mass. We then give a second example of nondispersive dynamics and show the existence of finite-time blowup solutions with minimal mass $\| u_0 \|_{L^2} = M_*$. More precisely, we construct a family of minimal mass blowup solutions that are parametrized by the energy $E_0 >0$ and the linear momentum $P_0 \in \R$. In particular, our main result (and its proof) can be seen as a model scenario of minimal mass blowup for $L^2$-critical nonlinear PDE with nonlocal dispersion.Comment: 51 page