The Old New World: Unearthing Mesoamerican Antiquity in the Art of the United States, 1839-1893

Through a series of case studies, this dissertation examines how and why artists in the United States imagined Mesoamerican antiquity between 1839 and 1893. The artists whose work I consider most closely include Frederick Catherwood, Peter F. Rothermel, Emanuel Leutze, George Martin Ottinger, and George de Forest Brush; works by other artists play supporting roles or amplify the observations made in this project. The decades in which I situate my study were key in the development of the United States' geographic borders and national identity as well as in the foundation of archaeological investigation in Mesoamerica. During the period under question, ancient Mesoamerica provided a "usable past" for many in the United States. Since little was known of the pre-Hispanic cultures of the region, Mesoamerican antiquity served as a palimpsest upon which a number of narratives could be written. As this dissertation reveals, ancient Mesoamerica resonated differently with various individuals and groups in the United States. The Mesoamerica that existed in the U.S. imagination was at once savage, exotic, advanced, and primitive, inhabited by a population assigned a similarly disparate and ultimately contradictory range of traits. Representations of Mesoamerica were not fixed but eminently variable, shaped to serve the exigencies of many historical moments. As such, these images reveal as much about the nineteenth-century United States as they do about the people and places depicted. Ultimately, I demonstrate that these images conveyed multivalent and often ambivalent attitudes about Mesoamerica, views that emphasized the importance of the Mesoamerican past as well as the presumed preeminence of the United States' future

Chlamydia infection as a risk factor in ectopic pregnancy: a case control study

Background: Chlamydia trachomatis has been linked to 30-50% of all ectopic pregnancies, due to irreversible tissue damage.  Hence it is pertinent to explore the risk factors pertaining to Chlamydia infection and ectopic pregnancies. The aim is to study whether Chlamydia infection is a risk factor for ectopic pregnancy in comparison with early intrauterine pregnancy, and study other risk factors in ectopic pregnancyMethods: Case-control study conducted at Sree Avittom Thirunal Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram over a period of six months taking 43 subjects in each group, i.e., cases and controls. An interview followed by collection of venous blood sample was done, which was subjected to Enzyme linked immunoassay test to detect Immunoglobulin G antibodies to Chlamydia. Comparison of qualitative variables such as age, socioeconomic status, history of infertility, history of pelvic inflammatory disease, previous history of ectopic pregnancy, use of IUCD, history of IVF, use of OCP or progesterone only pills and presence of Chlamydia IgG antibodies - between two groups was analyzed by chi-square test and the strength of association expressed in terms of Odds Rati. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Out of 86 samples 54 were positive for Chlamydia infection. Subjects with Chlamydia infection had an increased risk of developing ectopic pregnancy. Among the other risk factorshistory of pelvic inflammatory disease and history of infertility were the most significant with Odds of 3.46 and 3.98 respectively. History of oral contraceptive use also had a significant risk associated with developing ectopic pregnancy. Other factors with significant association included, age more than 25 years, Upper Socioeconomic Class, previous ectopic pregnancy and history of IUCD use for more than 5 years.Conclusions: The increased number of Chlamydia infection and its increased risk for developing irreversible sequels such as ectopic pregnancy, it is pertinent to vigilantly diagnose, treat and prevent vaginal infection and pelvic inflammatory disease

Feeding Habits of Short-eared Owls Overwintering in Southern Illinois

Pellets from short-eared owls (Asio flammeus) were collected during March 1990 and January-March 1992 from a former strip-mine area in southern Illinois (USA) and analyzed for prey remains. Microtines comprised 85.8% of 141 skull remains in 1990, and 85.0% of 147 skull remains in 1992. Results were similar to previous studies in Illinois and elsewhere

gMark: Schema-Driven Generation of Graphs and Queries

Massive graph data sets are pervasive in contemporary application domains. Hence, graph database systems are becoming increasingly important. In the experimental study of these systems, it is vital that the research community has shared solutions for the generation of database instances and query workloads having predictable and controllable properties. In this paper, we present the design and engineering principles of gMark, a domain- and query language-independent graph instance and query workload generator. A core contribution of gMark is its ability to target and control the diversity of properties of both the generated instances and the generated workloads coupled to these instances. Further novelties include support for regular path queries, a fundamental graph query paradigm, and schema-driven selectivity estimation of queries, a key feature in controlling workload chokepoints. We illustrate the flexibility and practical usability of gMark by showcasing the framework's capabilities in generating high quality graphs and workloads, and its ability to encode user-defined schemas across a variety of application domains.Comment: Accepted in November 2016. URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7762945/. in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 201

Regional variety preferences by teachers in USA

[EN] Spanish teachers in the USA are responsible for showing students what Spanish looks and sounds like (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro &amp; Mandell, 2001) and therefore act as role-models for their students in terms of their attitudes towards different varieties of Spanish. They must choose which features from which varieties to teach their students (Burns, 2018). Spanish teachers in the UK found Caribbean Spanish difficult to comprehend (Bárkányi &amp; Fuerte Gutiérrez, 2019) and Spanish teachers in the USA preferred Peninsular Spanish over other varieties (Martínez-Franco, 2019), similar to Spanish teachers in Australia (Ortiz-Jiménez, 2019). The current study investigates (dis)preferences towards different regional varieties of Spanish by 63 primary, secondary and postsecondary teachers of Spanish in the USA. The findings indicate preferences split among four macro-varieties and a dispreference for Caribbean Spanish, highlighting the importance of comprehension and exposure to varieties regardless of prior explicit training on the topic.[ES] Los profesores de español en Estados Unidos son los responsables de mostrar a los alumnos cómo es y cómo suena el español (Ballman, Liskin-Gasparro &amp; Mandell, 2001) y, por lo tanto, actúan como modelos para sus alumnos en cuanto a sus actitudes hacia las diferentes variedades del español. Deben elegir qué rasgos de qué variedades enseñar a sus alumnos (Burns, 2018). Los profesores de español en el Reino Unido encontraron el español caribeño difícil de comprender (Bárkányi &amp; Fuerte Gutiérrez, 2019) y los profesores de español en los Estados Unidos prefirieron el español peninsular sobre otras variedades (Martínez-Franco, 2019), similar a los profesores de español en Australia (Ortiz-Jiménez, 2019). El presente estudio investiga las (des)preferencias hacia distintas variedades regionales del español por parte de 63 profesores de español de primaria, secundaria y postsecundaria en Estados Unidos. Los resultados indican preferencias divididas entre cuatro macrovariedades y una despreferencia por el español caribeño, destacando la importancia de la comprensión y la exposición a las variedades independientemente de la formación explícita previa sobre el tema.George, A.; Hoffman-González, A. (2023). Regional variety preferences by teachers in USA. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas. 18:89-101. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2023.18221891011

Increasing engagement: adding industry and real-life contexts to your labs and workshops

BACKGROUND There is a push to increase the connection of teaching and learning materials to the real world (aka context-based learning or CBL) (Pilot &amp; Bulte, 2006), increasing engagement by having the student work on real world examples as opposed to a theoretical focus. The original desired theories are present but within the lesson, rather than the sole focus (Gilbert, 2006). If the context within the lessons is industry focused, CBL can also improve workforce readiness as students are more familiar with workplace issues, processes, and communication styles. Connection to industry can be achieved through existing or purposely developed relationships between industry and higher education, or through using those external contexts without participation of a partner.   WORKSHOP We will provide training on how we approach both the industry focused (partnered and unpartnered) as well as the real-life focused version of CBL in the laboratory and workshops, respectively. As part of the two-hour session, we will first unpack several examples undertaken by the facilitators. During the final hour, we will help people brainstorm CBL ideas for their classes, up to and including helping them plan how to find industry linked resources or contacts into industry for help in developing the lessons.   REFERENCES Gilbert, J. K. (2006). On the Nature of “Context” in Chemical Education. International Journal of Science Education, 28(9), 957-976. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690600702470 Pilot, A., &amp; Bulte, A. M. W. (2006). Why Do You “Need to Know”? Context‐based education. International Journal of Science Education, 28(9), 953-956. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950069060070246

Business Intelligence and Analytics: An Exploration of Academic Interest Compared to Google Search Volume

Chen, Chiang and Storey [2013] provide a framework that identifies the evolution, applications, and emerging research areas of Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) in terms of their key characteristics and capabilities. This bibliometric study of critical BI&A publications, researchers, and research topics based on more than a decade of related academic and industry publications. It uses the Chen, Chiang and Storey [2013] framework for academic publishing in business intelligence and analytics to see if it follows the same trend as Google search volume data. In addition, it explores what can google search terms and volume tell us. Google Trends is used as an online search data tool that allows the user to see how often specific keywords, subjects and phrases have been queried over a specific period of time. The results are displayed in a graph that Google calls a Search Volume Index graph. Data in the graph can be exported into a .csv file, which can be opened in Excel and imported into other statistical applications. This research-in-progress finds that Google searches may be indicative of particular attitudes or behaviors that would otherwise not be easy to measure, therefore keywords can give general insight into particular attitudes or behaviors