The Welcome Project Brochure 2007

The Welcome Project is a diverse group of URI students, faculty, and staff organized to examine and address the climate for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning (GLBT) individuals on the URI campuses and beyond. The purpose of the Welcome Project is to affirm the dignity of all members of the URI community regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity/ expression, as well as to promote a safe, comfortable, and inclusive environment for all. The Welcome Project strives to identify and eliminate various forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, and works toward developing a tradition of visibility and respect for GLBT people within our community. This is the 2007 edit of the brochure. The Welcome Project; GLBT Center; “All individuals have the right to take pride in who they are - to live, to work, and to learn in a comfortable atmosphere without fear of rejection or punishment of any kind.” The Welcome Project; Andrew Winters, Assistant to the Vice-President of Student Affairs, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Programs and Services Phone: (401) 874-2894 E-Mail: [email protected]; Roxanne Gomes, Assistant Director, URI Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity & Diversity Carlotti Administration Building Phone: (401) 874-4929 E-Mail: [email protected]; Kiev-Tuen Atreides, Assistant Director URI GLBT Center Phone: (401) 874-0014 E-Mail: [email protected]; URI Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Center; The GLBT Center, located in Adams Hall, strives to create a welcoming and safe environment for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Prioritizing around dimensions of education, support, and advocacy, the Center works directly with students, faculty, staff, and community members to provide meaningful programs and services. “The University community respects the dignity of each individual, valuing the diversity among us. We demand of ourselves uncompromising integrity, with imagination and pride evident in every aspect of our work.” - President Robert L. Carothers; “The University of Rhode Island prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, color, creed, national origin, handicap, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or discrimination against disabled and Vietnam era veterans in the recruitment, admission, or treatment of students; the recruitment, hiring, or treatment of faculty and staff; and the operation of its activities and programs.” University of Rhode Island Anti-discrimination Policy; The Welcome Project is a diverse group of URI students, faculty, and staff organized to examine and address the climate for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning (GLBT) individuals on the URI campuses and beyond. The purpose of the Welcome Project is to affirm the dignity of all members of the URI community regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity/ expression, as well as to promote a safe, comfortable, and inclusive environment for all. The Welcome Project strives to identify and eliminate various forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, and works toward developing a tradition of visibility and respect for GLBT people within our community

Staying hot to fight the heat-high body temperatures accompany a diurnal endothermic lifestyle in the tropics

Much of our knowledge of the thermoregulation of endotherms has been obtained from species inhabiting cold and temperate climates, our knowledge of the thermoregulatory physiology of tropical endotherms is scarce. We studied the thermoregulatory physiology of a small, tropical mammal, the large treeshrew (Tupaia tana, Order Scandentia) by recording the body temperatures of free-ranging individuals, and by measuring the resting metabolic rates of wild individuals held temporarily in captivity. The amplitude of daily body temperature (~4 °C) was higher in treeshrews than in many homeothermic eutherian mammals; a consequence of high active-phase body temperatures (~40 °C), and relatively low rest-phase body temperatures (~36 °C). We hypothesized that high body temperatures enable T. tana to maintain a suitable gradient between ambient and body temperature to allow for passive heat dissipation, important in high-humidity environments where opportunities for evaporative cooling are rare. Whether this thermoregulatory phenotype is unique to Scandentians, or whether other warm climate diurnal small mammals share similar thermoregulatory characteristics, is currently unknown

12th Annual Symposium on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Issues Brochure

This post contains the 12th Annual Symposium on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Issues Brochure and the Ms Word doc it was created in. 12th Annual Symposium on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Issues Brochure; The University of Rhode Island 12th Annual Symposium on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Issues; Pathways to Equality, Facets of Freedom; Schedule at a Glance April 19-22, 2006; Acknowledgements Our Symposium is free and open to public thanks to the contributions and support of the following: The Office of The Vice President for Student Affairs, The University of Rhode Island GLBT Center, URI Memorial Union, URI Multicultural Center, URI Women\u27s Center, URI Library, URI Dept. of Housing and Residential Life, URI Health Services, URI Catering Services, URI Parking Services, URI News Bureau, AIDS Project RI, AIDS Quilt RI, Options News Magazine, URI Student Life, URI Career Services, Santiago, Inc., Hillel, Women\u27s Studies, Edge Publications, Providence, Gay? fine by me, Sarah Mecca; Symposium Organizing Committee : Kiev-Tuen Atreides, Bekki Davis, Al Lott, Joseph A Santiago, Aja Van Dyke, Andrew Winters.; Mission: The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Center at the University of Rhode Island strives to create a welcoming and safe environment for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Prioritizing around dimensions of education, support, and advocacy, the GLBT Center works directly with students, faculty, staff and community members to provide related programs and services.; WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 7:30PM, HARDGE FORUM, MULTICULTURAL CENTER “The Case of Professor Martha Deane: Sexuality and Power at Cold War UCLA” In 1952, Martha Deane, a tenured UCLA professor of physical education, was forced into early retirement: she was accused by a neighbor of having sexual relations with another woman in her own home. Professor Deane’s expulsion from the University of California at Los Angeles illustrates the intertwining of Cold War hysteria, sexual anxieties, and homophobia that characterized life in the United States in the early 1950s. This talk will examine Martha Deane’s story in a past period of political repression as a way of thinking about our own time.; Kathleen Weiler is a Professor in the Department of Education at Tufts University. Her research has focused on the social, historical and political context of education in relation to questions of gender. She has published a number of books, including ethnographic studies of classroom teaching, theoretical discussions of feminist theory and pedagogy, and historical studies of women educators in the American West. Her teaching includes philosophy of education, gender and education, and the history of education.; THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 10:00AM TO 3:30PM, GALANTI LOUNGE, UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 10:00-11:30 “Locating the Marriage Movement in a Wider Queer Context” Jenn Steinfeld, Marriage Equality RI 11:30-12:30 “Understanding Down Low Phenomena” Curtis Ferguson, II 12:30-1:30 “Breaking the Boxes: An Open Spirituality“ Mary Latela, author: [email protected] 1:30-2:30 “Battling Bisexual Erasure: A Personal Struggle Against Invisibility” Ron Suresha, writer/ editor 2:30-3:30 “Beyond the Pathos of One-dimensional Relating: Re-conceptualizing Enmeshment in Lesbian Couples” A. Cassandra Golding; THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 7:30PM, HARDGE FORUM, MULTICULTURAL CENTER Reading from “The Legend of Bushistotle: History’s Greatest Philosopher-Warrior-King,” a satirical parody of the Bush Administration by author Steven Hanley, who will also discuss obstacles he has faced as a gay writer trying to publish a book critical of Bush and the Catholic Church. For further information about Steven Hanley and his upcoming book visit: http://www.stevenhanley.com; FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 10:00AM-4:00PM, GALANTI LOUNGE, UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 10:00-11:00 “Pride and Punishment: Why Prisons are a Queer Issue” Daniel Bassichis, Vanessa Huang, Justice Now 11:00-12:00 “Evaluation of a Safe Spaces Program for LGBTQ College Students” R. Steven Schiavo 12:00-1:30 Discussion of the Gay? Fine By Me Project with founder Lucas Schaefer : www.finebyme.org 1:30-3:00 “Lifelines: Critical Benefits of Harm Reduction Clinics and Transition Resources for Transgender and Transsexual Youth” Gavriel Ansara 3:00-4:00 “Is it Time to End ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’?” Peter Cassels, Edge Publications www.edgeprovidence.com; FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 7:30PM, ROBERT E. WILL THEATRE FINE ARTS CENTER The URI Theatre Department presents Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize, Tony-Award winning play, “Angels in America (Part I, Millennium Approaches).” This performance is dedicated to the Rhode Island Project AIDS Benefit and the Annual URI GLBT Symposium. Tickets for this performance will be $16 general,$12 seniors, URI Faculty and Staff and $10 for students. Two dollars from each ticket will be donated to RI Project AIDS. A post-performance panel discussion will relate play themes to AIDS issues in Rhode Island.; Saturday, April 22, 12:00pm-4:30pm, Galanti Lounge, University Library “Queer Youth Issues.” Workshops and discussions presented by Youth Pride, Inc. (YPI) and the Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM). 5:00pm Rainbow Diversity House Dinner discussion and evening social activitie

Seroepidemiological study of leptospirosis among the indigenous communities living in the periphery of Crocker Range Park Sabah, Malaysia

Leptospirosis has been known to affect both man and animal worldwide resulting in morbidity and mortality. Infection in domestic animals and wildlife can lead to economic loss and pose a potential spread to the communities. Man contacted the disease by direct contact with infected blood, tissues, organs or urine of infected hosts. Transmission can also occur by direct penetration of the leptospira organism through the conjunctiva or surface epithelium

Extended Cave Drip Water Time Series Captures the 2015–2016 El Niño in Northern Borneo

Time series of cave drip water oxygen isotopes (δ18O) provide site‐specific assessments of the contributions of climate and karst processes to stalagmite δ18O records employed for hydroclimate reconstructions. We present ~12‐year‐long time series of biweekly cave drip water δ18O variations from three sites as well as a daily resolved local rainfall δ18O record from Gunung Mulu National Park in northern Borneo. Drip water δ18O variations closely match rainfall δ18O variations averaged over the preceding 3–18 months. We observe coherent interannual drip water δ18O variability of ~3‰ to 5‰ related to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with sustained positive rainfall and drip water δ18O anomalies observed during the 2015/2016 El Niño. Evidence of nonlinear behavior at one of three drip water monitoring sites implies a time‐varying contribution from a longer‐term reservoir. Our results suggest that well‐replicated, high‐resolution stalagmite δ18O reconstructions from Mulu could characterize past ENSO‐related variability in regional hydroclimate.Plain Language SummaryCave stalagmites allow for the reconstruction of past regional rainfall variability over the last hundreds of thousands of years with robust age control. Such reconstructions rely on the fact that differences in the isotopic composition of rainwater set by regional rainfall patterns is preserved as the rainwater travels through cave bedrock to feed the cave drip waters forming stalagmites. Long‐term monitoring of rainwater and cave drip water isotopes ground truth the climate to stalagmite relationship across modern‐day changes in regional rainfall. Twelve years of monitoring data presented in this study identify individual El Niño–Southern Oscillation events in rainfall and cave drip water isotopic composition, providing a strong foundation for stalagmite‐based climate reconstructions from this site.Key PointsThree 12‐year‐long cave drip water δ18O time series capture El Niño and La Niña events in northern BorneoEstimates of karst residence times range from 3 to 18 months, with a secondary contribution from a longer‐term reservoir at one drip siteDrip water nonstationarity implies multiple stalagmites are required to reconstruct El Niño–Southern Oscillation variability over timePeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154266/1/grl60264-sup-0002-2019GL086363-SI.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154266/2/grl60264_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154266/3/grl60264.pd

Varied Response of Western Pacific Hydrology to Climate Forcings over the Last Glacial Period

Atmospheric deep convection in the west Pacific plays a key role in the global heat and moisture budgets, yet its response to orbital and abrupt climate change events is poorly resolved. Here, we present four absolutely dated, overlapping stalagmite oxygen isotopic records from northern Borneo that span most of the last glacial cycle. The records suggest that northern Borneo’s hydroclimate shifted in phase with precessional forcing but was only weakly affected by glacial-interglacial changes in global climate boundary conditions. Regional convection likely decreased during Heinrich events, but other Northern Hemisphere abrupt climate change events are notably absent. The new records suggest that the deep tropical Pacific hydroclimate variability may have played an important role in shaping the global response to the largest abrupt climate change events

Transformation of ENSO-related rainwater to dripwater δ^(18)O variability by vadose water mixing

Speleothem oxygen isotopes (δ^(18)O) are often used to reconstruct past rainfall δ^(18)O variability, and thereby hydroclimate changes, in many regions of the world. However, poor constraints on the karst hydrological processes that transform rainfall signals into cave dripwater add significant uncertainty to interpretations of speleothem-based reconstructions. Here we present several 6.5 year, biweekly dripwater δ^(18)O time series from northern Borneo and compare them to local rainfall δ^(18)O variability. We demonstrate that vadose water mixing is the primary rainfall-to-dripwater transformation process at our site, where dripwater δ^(18)O reflects amount-weighted rainfall δ^(18)O integrated over the previous 3–10 months. We document large interannual dripwater δ^(18)O variability related to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with amplitudes inversely correlated to dripwater residence times. According to a simple stalagmite forward model, asymmetrical ENSO extremes produce significant offsets in stalagmite δ^(18)O time series given different dripwater residence times. Our study highlights the utility of generating multiyear, paired time series of rainfall and dripwater δ^(18)O to aid interpretations of stalagmite δ^(18)O reconstructions

Small Tropical Mammals Can Take the Heat: High Upper Limits of Thermoneutrality in a Bornean Treeshrew

Tropical ectotherms are generally believed to be more vulnerable to global heating than temperate species. Currently, however, we have insufficient knowledge of the thermoregulatory physiology of equatorial tropical mammals, particularly of small diurnal mammals, to enable similar predictions. In this study, we measured the resting metabolic rates (via oxygen consumption) of wild-caught lesser treeshrews (Tupaia minor, order Scandentia) over a range of ambient temperatures. We predicted that, similar to other treeshrews, T. minor would exhibit more flexibility in body temperature regulation and a wider thermoneutral zone compared with other small mammals because these thermoregulatory traits provide both energy and water savings at high ambient temperatures. Basal metabolic rate was on average 1.03±0.10 mL O2 h−1 g−1, which is within the range predicted for a 65-g mammal. We calculated the lower critical temperature of the thermoneutral zone at 31.0°C (95% confidence interval: 29.3°–32.7°C), but using metabolic rates alone, we could not determine the upper critical temperature at ambient temperatures as high as 36°C. The thermoregulatory characteristics of lesser treeshrews provide a means of saving energy and water at temperatures well in excess of their current environmental temperatures. Our research highlights the knowledge gaps in our understanding of the energetics of mammals living in high-temperature environments, specifically in the equatorial tropics, and questions the purported lack of variance in the upper critical temperatures of the thermoneutral zone in mammals, emphasizing the importance of further research in the tropics

Trace metal and carbon isotopic variations in cave dripwater and stalagmite geochemistry from northern Borneo

We investigate stalagmite trace metal ratios and carbon isotopic composition (δ^(13)C) as potential paleoclimate proxies by comparing cave dripwaters, stalagmites, and bedrock composition from Gunung Mulu and Gunung Buda National Parks in northern Borneo, a tropical rainforest karst site. Three year long, biweekly time series of dripwater Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, and δ^(13)C from several drips at our site are not correlated with rainfall variability, indicative of a relatively weak relationship between hydroclimate and dripwater geochemistry at our site. However, combining all of the dripwater geochemical data gathered over four field trips to our site (N > 300 samples), we find that drips with highly variable Mg[Sr]/Ca have relatively invariable δ^(18)O values close to the mean. We hypothesize that increased residence times translate into reduced variance in dripwater δ^(18)O through mixing in the epikarst as well as increased Mg[Sr]/Ca values through increased calcite precipitation in the epikarst. Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, and δ^(13)C time series from three overlapping stalagmites that grew over the last 27 kyrs are characterized by strong centennial-scale variations, and bear little resemblance to previously published, well-reproduced δ^(18)O time series from the same stalagmites. The only shared signal among the three stalagmites' geochemical time series is a relative decrease of 1‰ in δ^(13)C from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene, consistent with a transition from savannah (C4) to rainforest (C3) conditions documented in nearby records. Taken together, our study indicates that stalagmite Mg[Sr]/Ca ratios are poor indicators of hydroclimate conditions at our site, while stalagmite δ^(13)C exhibits some reproducible signals on glacial-interglacial timescales