1,270 research outputs found
Size at Maturity of Female American Lobsters from an Estuarine and Coastal Population
The size at which female lobsters reach sexual maturity was determined for two populations that inhabit waters along the coast of New Hampshire. One group was captured in the Great Bay estuary, where water temperatures in the summer typically average between 17 C and 20 C. The other gorup of lobsters resided in coastal waters, near the Isles of Shoals, where the water temperature was much colder during the summer (11-15 C). Maturity was assessed using criteria that included the following: ovarian classification; abdominal width/carapce length (CL) ratio; and the size frequency distribution of berried females. All the techniques yielded similar results and consistently demonstrated that female lobsters in the estuary matured at a smaller size than those in colder coastal waters. The smallest mature females from Great Bay were 72 mm in CL, with 50% reaching sexual maturity by 83 mm CL and all becoming mature by 89 mm CL. The difference in the proportion of mature lobsters in the estuarine versus coastal populations was much greater in the smaler size classes than in the larger size claases, suggesting a mixing of the two populations, most likely due to females from Great Bay migrating into coastal waters
Images of Self: A Study of Feminine and Feminist Subjectivity in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Margaret Atwood and Adrienne Rich, 1950-1980
PhDThe thesis explores the poetry (and some prose) of Plath, Sexton,
Atwood and Rich in terms of the changing constructions of self-image
predicated upon the female role between approx. 1950-1980.1 am
particularly concerned with the question of how the discourses of
femininity and feminism contribute to the scope of the images of the
self which are presented.
The period was chosen because it involved significant upheaval and
change in terms of women's role and gender identity. The four poets'
work spans this period of change and appears to some extent generally
characteristic of its social, political and cultural contexts in America,
Britain and Canada. (Other poets' work, for example Rukeyser, Lorde,
Levertov, is included too. ) The poets were not chosen to illustrate a
pre-feminist vs. feminist opposition since a major concern is to explore
what I see to be the symbiotic relation between femininity and feminism
(as also between orthodoxy and heresy). However the thesis is organised
chronologically because periodisation is important for a consideration
of the poetry's social setting.
In wanting to connect the poetry with cultural and political
circumstances as much as possible I have taken Edward Said's assertion
of a text's position of 'being in the world', its potential as a cultural
product to help reshape reality, and its value as a 'powerful weapon of
both materialism and consciousness'. This is the starting point for the
study which is circular and cumulative in shape, fundamentally thematic,
though each chapter is a chronological exploration of the work of one
specific poet, beginning with Plath and completing with Rich. A
conclusion attempts to pull the strands of each together and consider
the implications raised.
The thesis has four general concerns which run through its particular
focus on each poet. The first involves the relations between cultural
practice and ideology; the second involves the ideology of gender
(through exploration of femininity and feminism); the third involves
authorial ideology (through the construction of self-image in relation to
femininity and feminism) while the fourth involves these concerns in
terms of the overall arena of women's struggle for meaning and selfdetermination
in cultural practice.
More specific elements of the study include collating and comparing
self-images and attempting to make connections or chart changes where
images such as witch, queen, handmaid, shamaness, goddess, earth mother,
whore, madwoman, etc., re-occur. Usage of myth (particularly Persephone).
the Gothic, 'and articulation of lesbian desire are also explored. The
emergence of a female 'hero' self-image, in opposition to 'victim', seems
to be a corollary of the impact
,
of feminism in Rich's poetry
particularly, but this tendency can be traced back through Plath. I
explore the celebration of nature and the power of essentialism in the
construction of heroic female images, particularly in the figure of the
mother flowing with milk at the centre of 'ecriture feminine'.
The concluding chapter suggests that femininity did not constitute
such a repressive constraint on self-image and writing practice for
women as perhaps might be supposed; and that feminism, while opening up
many empowering changes for women, has raised further disturbing and
unresolved questions about identity, and even helped, in some of its
aspects, to create a new 'orthodoxy' in which various aspects of
experience cannot easily be articulated. My example is Rich's later work
where it seems to admit itself limited by its own initially liberating
strategies and looks further on towards new 'heresies.
Human Lung Mast Cell Tryptase Isozymes: Separation and Examination of Structural and Functional Differences
Tryptases are trypsin-like enzymes found in mast cell granules. Although in vivo substrates have not been positively identified, tryptases cleave a limited number of potential physiological substrates in vitro, including high molecular weight kininogen (HMWK) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP). Purified human lung mast cell tryptase (HLT) apparently exists as a tetramer with an M\sb{\rm r} of 135-144 kDa by gel filtration, whereas SDS-PAGE yielded two bands of M\sb{\rm r} 29 Kda and 33 Kda. Tryptases are resistant to inhibition by most natural trypsin inhibitors and display some affinity for heparin. The existence of tryptase isozymes has been implied from the cloning of two tryptase cDNAs from human lung tissue, but distinct isozymes have not been isolated and characterized. This knowledge gap has been filled by isolating and characterizing two electrophoretically different forms of human lung mast cell tryptase, designated high-HLT (high molecular weight HLT) and low-HLT (low molecular weight HLT). These two forms of HLT have been separated by chromatography on a cellulose phosphate column, with the high M\sb{\rm r} form eluting with 10 M heparin and the low M\sb{\rm r} form subsequently eluting with 1 M NaCl. Using HMWK and VIP as substrates, these two forms of HLT were found to differ with regard to specificity and rate of cleavage. High-HLT initially cleaved HMWK at a single Arg residue, whereas low-HLT cleaved HMWK simultaneously at multiple sites. Both isozymes cleaved VIP at multiple sites, but differed with regard to the preferential site of cleavage. Low-HLT was, on an active site basis, 25 and 2 times more active than high-HLT on HMWK and VIP, respectively. In addition, gel filtration of the isozymes yielded M\sb{\rm r}s of 125 Kda for high-HLT and 28 kDa for low-HLT, indicating tetrameric and monomeric quaternary structures, respectively. Both isozymes were inhibited by human secretory leukocyte proteinase inhibitor (SLPI), but not by other trypsin inhibitors tested. This work provides the first evidence for the existence of distinct tryptase isozymes, with supposedly different in vivo functions, and identification of an inhibitor that may control tryptase activity in vivo
Helping the slow learner
The purpose of this study is to increase academic success through the formulation of additional learning experiences for those students we label slow learners. The design of this study is one of action research. Through the observation of material culture and interviews of classroom teachers and Pupil Assistance Committee chairpersons, a list of eligible students will be formulated, with weak academic areas detailed. Additional learning situations will then be established for each subject and set into place through the regular classroom teacher and other certified personnel. Through the course of the school year, records will be kept through spreadsheet format and on-going data analysis will take place to measure growth and/or deficit.
At the conclusion of this study, it was found that slow learners\u27 academic achievement could be raised when compared with those scores achieved the previous school year. This was produced through increases in remediation services, additional instructional programs, and pertinent intervention strategies. It is with these results in mind that the intern plans to establish annual assessment of all slow learners from year-to-year to ensure continued academic growth and success
Biased Attention: Do Vision Transformers Amplify Gender Bias More than Convolutional Neural Networks?
Deep neural networks used in computer vision have been shown to exhibit many
social biases such as gender bias. Vision Transformers (ViTs) have become
increasingly popular in computer vision applications, outperforming
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in many tasks such as image
classification. However, given that research on mitigating bias in computer
vision has primarily focused on CNNs, it is important to evaluate the effect of
a different network architecture on the potential for bias amplification. In
this paper we therefore introduce a novel metric to measure bias in
architectures, Accuracy Difference. We examine bias amplification when models
belonging to these two architectures are used as a part of large multimodal
models, evaluating the different image encoders of Contrastive Language Image
Pretraining which is an important model used in many generative models such as
DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. Our experiments demonstrate that architecture can
play a role in amplifying social biases due to the different techniques
employed by the models for feature extraction and embedding as well as their
different learning properties. This research found that ViTs amplified gender
bias to a greater extent than CNN
Gender Bias in Multimodal Models: A Transnational Feminist Approach Considering Geographical Region and Culture
Deep learning based visual-linguistic multimodal models such as Contrastive
Language Image Pre-training (CLIP) have become increasingly popular recently
and are used within text-to-image generative models such as DALL-E and Stable
Diffusion. However, gender and other social biases have been uncovered in these
models, and this has the potential to be amplified and perpetuated through AI
systems. In this paper, we present a methodology for auditing multimodal models
that consider gender, informed by concepts from transnational feminism,
including regional and cultural dimensions. Focusing on CLIP, we found evidence
of significant gender bias with varying patterns across global regions. Harmful
stereotypical associations were also uncovered related to visual cultural cues
and labels such as terrorism. Levels of gender bias uncovered within CLIP for
different regions aligned with global indices of societal gender equality, with
those from the Global South reflecting the highest levels of gender bias.Comment: Selected for publication at the Aequitas 2023: Workshop on Fairness
and Bias in AI | co-located with ECAI 2023, Krak\'ow, Polan
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Meta-analysis of the Cepheid Xpert® CT/NG assay for extragenital detection of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) infections.
Background Most studies evaluating extragenital testing performance for Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) detection by the Xpert® CT/NG show high per cent agreement with comparison assays; however, the precision around positive per cent agreement is low and thus the values that have been reported are not highly informative. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted and data from five studies were combined to better assess positive per cent agreement.MethodsThe literature indexed on PubMed.gov was searched. Included studies were those that were an evaluation of the Xpert CT/NG assay with rectal and/or pharyngeal specimen types compared with another nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT), the Aptima transcription mediated amplification assay. A full Bayesian method was used for bivariate fixed-effect meta-analysis of positive and negative per cent agreement and pooled estimates (and 95% confidence intervals (CI)) were presented for each.ResultsThe pooled positive and negative per cent agreement for detection of CT in rectal specimens was 89.72% (95% CI: 84.97%, 93.64%) and 99.23% (95% CI: 98.74%, 99.60%), and in pharyngeal specimens, they were 89.96% (95% CI: 66.38%, 99.72%) and 99.62% (95% CI: 98.95%, 99.95%) respectively. For NG detection in rectal specimens, the pooled positive and negative per cent agreement was 92.75% (95% CI: 87.91%, 96.46%) and 99.75% (95% CI: 99.46%, 99.93%), and in pharyngeal specimens, they were 92.51% (95% CI: 85.84%, 97.18%) and 98.56% (95% CI: 97.69%, 99.23%) respectively.ConclusionsIt was found that the Xpert CT/NG assay performed similarly to the Aptima transcription mediated amplification assay for the detection of CT and NG in extragenital specimens. The Xpert assay has the benefit of providing faster results at the point-of-care, thus reducing the turnaround time for results, potentially enabling same-day treatment
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