Gender and the Green Economy

The Green Economy is supposed to be sustainable but is it? Being sustainable would entail being equitable. Feminist scholarship shows that the mainstream economy is thoroughly organized by gender, is inequitable, and facilitated by the marginalization of reproductive labor or care work. Ecofeminist theory broadens feminist analysis by situating human social relations in the broader context of our relationship with the environment. In this dissertation I begin from the standpoint of women to explore the degree to which gender inequality is organizing the green economy in the U.S. I argue that a key mechanism reproducing gender inequality is the privileging of green jobs in industries dominated by men and the marginalization and devaluation of environmental care work. I do this by analyzing the organization of the green labor market in the US and through observing the organization and implementation of a program to foster green economic development in an urban area in the Midwest. Understanding the gendered nature of the green economy is important for advancing knowledge about gender segregation and integration of labor markets, gender equality in employment, and gendered opportunities in growing green sector of the economy. This research contributes to scholarship on gender and work, the green economy, ecofeminism, and care work

Waiting Room Connections: The Role of Informal Support Groups in Addressing Caregiver Burden

Participation in a formal support group can be an effective way to reduce caregiver burden, providing caregivers with a way to share information and ideas, as well as connect with others who share similar experiences. Occasionally, informal support groups will develop spontaneously when caregivers are gathered together, such as waiting for their family members’ therapy appointments. Very little is known about the formation and benefits of informal supports groups, which may be valuable to caregivers in unique ways. This study used a qualitative phenomenological approach to investigate the lived experience of three client family members during their time in the waiting room of an on-campus, occupational therapy and physical therapy student clinic, in order to gain a better understanding of the experience of caregivers of stroke survivors and the role of informal support groups. Data were collected from caregivers of stroke survivors via one, 60-minute focus group. The themes that emerged regarding caregiver experience of life after stroke included 1) Daily Life and Future Plans Were Altered, Disrupted, or Lost, 2) Friends Wanted to Help But Rarely Understood, and 3) Caregivers’ Emotional Well-Being was Challenged after Stroke. Themes that emerged regarding the role of informal support groups included 4) Friendships Based on Shared Experiences, 5) Shared Information from Others in the Same Boat, and 6) Social Comparisons Can be Helpful or Discouraging. This information may be helpful to occupational therapists and other healthcare professionals by providing them with ways to facilitate formation of informal support groups and encouraging holistic care that considers not only the client but also the context and environment that impact the client’s well-being

Waiting Room Connections: The Role of Informal Support Groups in Addressing Caregiver Burden

Participation in a formal support group can be an effective way to reduce caregiver burden, providing caregivers with a way to share information and ideas, as well as connect with others who share similar experiences. Occasionally, informal support groups will develop spontaneously when caregivers are gathered together, such as waiting for their family members’ therapy appointments. Very little is known about the formation and benefits of informal supports groups, which may be valuable to caregivers in unique ways. This study used a qualitative phenomenological approach to investigate the lived experience of three client family members during their time in the waiting room of an on-campus, occupational therapy and physical therapy student clinic, in order to gain a better understanding of the experience of caregivers of stroke survivors and the role of informal support groups. Data were collected from caregivers of stroke survivors via one, 60-minute focus group. The themes that emerged regarding caregiver experience of life after stroke included 1) Daily Life and Future Plans Were Altered, Disrupted, or Lost, 2) Friends Wanted to Help But Rarely Understood, and 3) Caregivers’ Emotional Well-Being was Challenged after Stroke. Themes that emerged regarding the role of informal support groups included 4) Friendships Based on Shared Experiences, 5) Shared Information from Others in the Same Boat, and 6) Social Comparisons Can be Helpful or Discouraging. This information may be helpful to occupational therapists and other healthcare professionals by providing them with ways to facilitate formation of informal support groups and encouraging holistic care that considers not only the client but also the context and environment that impact the client’s well-being

Photon super-bunching from a generic tunnel junction

Generating correlated photon pairs at the nanoscale is a prerequisite to creating highly integrated optoelectronic circuits that perform quantum computing tasks based on heralded single-photons. Here we demonstrate fulfilling this requirement with a generic tip-surface metal junction. When the junction is luminescing under DC bias, inelastic tunneling events of single electrons produce a photon stream in the visible spectrum whose super-bunching index is 17 when measured with a 53 picosecond instrumental resolution limit. These photon bunches contain true photon pairs of plasmonic origin, distinct from accidental photon coincidences. The effect is electrically rather than optically driven - completely absent are pulsed lasers, down-conversions, and four-wave mixing schemes. This discovery has immediate and profound implications for quantum optics and cryptography, notwithstanding its fundamental importance to basic science and its ushering in of heralded photon experiments on the nanometer scale

Cinderella Girl

Contains advertisements and/or short musical examples of pieces being sold by publisher.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/7040/thumbnail.jp

Fierce but short-lived: how does economic crisis affect political participation?

The Great Recession that hit Europe in 2008 led to the loss of millions of jobs and soaring levels of unemployment. In a recent study, Anna Kern, Sofie Marien and Marc Hooghe investigate whether the recent crisis depresses or boosts levels of political participation in Europe. They find that economic growth is positively associated with elite challenging forms of political participation such as protests or boycotts when investigating a longer period (2002-2010) but that crises such as between 2008 and 2010 rising unemployment came along with rising levels of such acts of political participation

Single charge and exciton dynamics probed by molecular-scale-induced electroluminescence

Excitons and their constituent charge carriers play the central role in electroluminescence mechanisms determining the ultimate performance of organic optoelectronic devices. The involved processes and their dynamics are often studied with time-resolved techniques limited by spatial averaging that obscures the properties of individual electron-hole pairs. Here we overcome this limit and characterize single charge and exciton dynamics at the nanoscale by using time-resolved scanning tunnelling microscopy-induced luminescence (TR-STML) stimulated with nanosecond voltage pulses. We use isolated defects in C$_{60}$ thin films as a model system into which we inject single charges and investigate the formation dynamics of a single exciton. Tuneable hole and electron injection rates are obtained from a kinetic model that reproduces the measured electroluminescent transients. These findings demonstrate that TR-STML can track dynamics at the quantum limit of single charge injection and can be extended to other systems and materials important for nanophotonic devices