Trini to de Bone: The Impact of Migration on the Cultural Identities of Trinidadian Immigrants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This study examined the impact of migration and the resulting intercultural interactions on the cultural identities of first-generation immigrant Trinidadians living in the Philadelphia area of the United States. It focused on four identities: race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nationality. The goal of the study was to determine how Trinidadian immigrants define and reconceptualize these four dimensions of their identities as they make new lives in American society. Another goal was to determine whether identities shift and, if so, how, for Trinidadian immigrants when they move across cultures to a society where they are no longer in the racial, ethnic, or cultural majority. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research included an initial online survey followed by qualitative interviews with a few selected participants. Survey results showed that for three of the identities (ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nationality), more than half of respondents indicated no change in saliency. Survey respondents rated their shift in racial identity as almost equal between more salient and no change in saliency upon moving to the United States. However, qualitative findings showed that, of the four identities, race became most salient in the United States, even for those who showed no shift in this identity after resettling here. The racial identity of interviewees was influenced by three main factors: the racial identity they were ascribed in the United States, their experiences with racial discrimination, and being made to feel “othered” in a society that does not recognize their Trinidadian racial and ethnic categories. Findings also showed that immigrants in this study who are ascribed a Black identity in the United States acculturate to both African American and European American cultures in multicultural Philadelphia, while maintaining a strong connection to their Trinidadian national identity. This research has practical implications for intercultural researchers and trainers who work with Trinidadian or West Indian populations

Simulating Speech Perception in Bilateral Cochlear Implant Users with Asymmetric Input

Understanding speech in noise is difficult for cochlear-implant (CI) users. One potential reason for this difficulty is asymmetrical hearing between the two ears; that is, when one ear can process sound more effectively and clearly than the other ear. Such asymmetry may impair some CI users’ ability to fuse speech signals from both ears into a single stream. One way to test this is with an alternating speech paradigm, which is an experimental simplification of speech moving from talker to talker in a rapid conversation between a group of people. Previous studies have shown CI users perform 40% worse on alternating speech listening than normal-hearing individuals. The present study aims to examine if reduced alternating speech perception is the result of asymmetrical hearing, which could cause a listener to only use their better ear when listening to alternating speech, and to miss out on much of the signal that is present in the poorer ear. Six young normal-hearing participants were tested using a CI simulation with varying levels of signal degradation to simulate both asymmetrical and symmetrical hearing. The hypothesis was that participants will show selective attention to the ear with the clearer, less degraded signal in asymmetrical hearing conditions, and will overall perform worse in this condition compared to the symmetrical hearing condition. The results comparing the “better ear” and the asymmetric condition suggest that there is no evidence of selective attention; therefore we can reject the hypothesis. Future directions include increasing asymmetry across ears by simulating more drastic degradation in the “poorer ear”. Speech perception in noise is one of the most common issues CI users face, and quantifying the contributions of asymmetrical hearing to this problem is important for resolving this issue.Maryland Summer Scholars Progra

Baking Trays in the Second Millennium bce Levant and Egypt: Form, Function and Cultural Significance

Cette étude présente un type de récipients de l’âge du Bronze moyen et récent au Levant : un plateau fait à la main à fond épais et à bords courts, d’habitude identifié comme une plaque de four. Bien que reconnu comme un type distinct, cet élément n’a jamais été discuté en détail. Dans la plupart des rapports de fouilles, les exemples de ce type sont datés du Bronze moyen et présentés de face, à l’endroit ou à l’envers, de sorte que les bords en soient visibles. Cet article propose d’étudier la typologie, la fonction, la distribution géographique, la chronologie et l’origine de ces objets et d’analyser leur proximité avec les récipients semblables trouvés en Égypte et d’en tirer des conclusions sur cette proximité entre l’Égypte et le Levant à l’âge du Bronze moyen.This study discusses a vessel type from the Middle and Late Bronze Age Levant —a flat handmade tray with thick bottom and low sidewalls— that is usually identified as baking tray. Although it was recognized as a distinct type, it was almost never discussed in a detailed manner. In most excavation reports, the examples of this type are described as being characteristic of MBA, and they are published with the rim facing either up or down. This paper presents an overview of the typology, geographical distribution, chronology, origin and function of these vessels. In addition, the Egyptian vessels of related shapes and possibly similar function are discussed, and the bearing of these parallels on the connections between Egypt and the Levant during the MBA is studied.تقدم هذه الدراسة نوعاً من الأواني العائدة لعصري البرونز الوسيط و الحديث في منطقة المشرق: طبق أو صينية مصنوعة يدوياً ذات قعر سميك و حواف قصيرة، محددة عادة كصينية فرن. و بالرغم من كونه معروفاً كنوع مميز، لم يتم مناقشة هذا العنصر أبداً بالتفصيل. في معظم تقارير الحفريات، تؤرخ الأمثلة من هذا النوع من البرونز الوسط و تقدم من وجهها الأمامي، واقفةً أو مقلوبةً رأساً على عقب، بحيث تكون الحواف فيها مرئية. تقترح هذه المقالة دراسة شكل، وظيفة، التوزيع الجغرافي، التسلسل التأريخي و أصل هذه القطع، و تحليل قربها من أوانٍ مماثلة وجدت في مصر، واستخلاص نتائج حول هذا التقارب بين مصر و المشرق في العصر البرونزي الوسيط

Reflective Processing and Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a prevalent problem, especially among college students. The serious physical and psychological consequences of IPV highlight the need to better understand its correlates. Individuals tend to process information and make decisions in different ways; these styles of thinking and decision likely hold important implications for intimate partnerships. Using a sample of undergraduate students, the current study aims to better understand the thinking processes of those who engage in IPV. Furthering our understanding of the cognitive processes that predict IPV may hold important treatment implications, both from a preventive and therapeutic standpoint. Previous studies show that IPV occurs under conditions of diminished control resources. Reflective processing is a style of thinking and decision-making that depends on the use of control resources. We therefore hypothesized that reflective processing at baseline, measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), would be negatively associated with IPV perpetration. Few studies examine the importance of reflective processing in predicting IPV, and no studies that we know of have used the CRT in examining this relation. Because IPV occurs in ‘hot,’ emotional contexts, we also examined the impact of negative emotion on reflective processing. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, either anger or neutral mood induction, and completed CRT items both pre- and post-induction. Based on previous research showing that anger triggers shallow processing, we hypothesized that participants in the anger mood condition would experience a greater decline in reflective processing from pre- to post-induction than those in the neutral mood condition. Based on theories of emotional flooding and the General Aggression Model (GAM), we also predicted that the anger mood induction would have a stronger negative effect on reflective processing for those reporting more extensive IPV perpetration. Results did not support our hypotheses; the implications of the null findings are discussed

Introduction to Queueing Theory and Stochastic Teletraffic Models

The aim of this textbook is to provide students with basic knowledge of stochastic models that may apply to telecommunications research areas, such as traffic modelling, resource provisioning and traffic management. These study areas are often collectively called teletraffic. This book assumes prior knowledge of a programming language, mathematics, probability and stochastic processes normally taught in an electrical engineering course. For students who have some but not sufficiently strong background in probability and stochastic processes, we provide, in the first few chapters, background on the relevant concepts in these areas.Comment: 298 page

Improving the fairness of FAST TCP to new flows

It has been observed that FAST TCP, and the related protocol TCP Vegas, suffer unfairness when many flows arrive at a single bottleneck link, without intervening departures. We show that the effect is even more marked if a new flow arrives when existing flows share bandwidth fairly, and propose a simple method to ameliorate this effect