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Florida Frontiers Radio Program #586
No full textSEGMENTS | Storyteller and Poet Walt Belcher | Efforts to Drain the Everglades | Catherine W. Clark Alexande
Racism Against Latinx Communities in the United States: A Personal and Structural Examination
Get PDFAt What Cost? The Personal Stakes of Intellectual Freedom
Get PDFThis chapter explores the emotional, professional, and political costs faced by librarians advocating for LGBTQ+ inclusion and intellectual freedom within libraries. Through personal narrative and critical reflection, the authors introduce the concept of queer battle fatigue —a framework for understanding the cumulative psychological toll on LGBTQ+ individuals who are consistently placed in advocacy roles within predominantly cisheteronormative institutions. A case study of a drag storytime event at a university library illustrates the social backlash, institutional pressures, and moral injury experienced by organizers, demonstrating how well-intentioned programming can become flashpoints for political controversy. The authors highlight the intensifying hostility toward LGBTQ+ representation in libraries, exacerbated by legislative efforts, public scrutiny, and the erosion of job protections. They urge librarians to be strategic in their advocacy, emphasizing the importance of administrative support, community alliances, and self-preservation. The chapter ultimately calls for a balanced, informed approach to activism that acknowledges both the power and the personal cost of standing up for marginalized communities in the library profession
Episode 69: Wrapping up Season 8 and Looking ahead for Season 9
Get PDFListen to this short episode wrapping up our Spring 2025 season of Futures in Languages and looking ahead to our Fall 2025 season.
As mentioned in the episode, if you have a question about language learning or opportunities that can come from language learning, please send us a message at [email protected] with the subject title “Questions for Alumni.” Who knows, you might hear your question answered by a guest in a future podcast
Clustering Dataset Using K-Mean Clustering
Get PDFClustering is a fundamental technique in unsupervised machine learning, widely applied in various domains such as pattern recognition, data segmentation, and anomaly detection. This study evaluates the performance of the K-Means clustering algorithm on multiple benchmark datasets, including low-dimensional, high-dimensional, and imbalanced datasets. The clustering results are assessed using four key evaluation metrics: Mean Squared Error (MSE), Adjusted Rand Index (ARI), Normalized Mutual Information (NMI), and Silhouette Score. Experimental results demonstrate that K-Means performs effectively on datasets with well-separated clusters, particularly in high-dimensional spaces, where it achieves near-perfect clustering accuracy. However, its performance deteriorates in datasets with overlapping clusters and varying cluster densities, highlighting its sensitivity to initialization and cluster structure
The Aerodynamics of Bird Perching: Understanding Wing and Body Interactions In Pigeon Flight
Get PDFDuring landing, birds often execute a perching maneuver. The perching maneuver refers to the complex series of actions that birds, and pigeons in particular, will perform when landing. They will typically decelerate by pitching their body to a high angle of attack and spreading their wings. It is believed to help achieve better control and reach optimal lift and drag coefficients. This study seeks to better understand the vortex interactions between the main and tail wings during this maneuver. However, it is still an unexplored phenomenon. Thus, two bird models were conceived to analyze it, one with and one without the tail wing. We tested these two models at a Re = 7500. Synchronous pitching and deceleration motions were performed on the model, mimicking the perching maneuver. Two different accelerations and pitching rates were considered. We used Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and force sensor data to compare the velocity field and the forces generated by the model. Due to the vortex interactions between the shed vortices of the main and tail wings, the tail plays a vital role in lift and drag production during the perching maneuver
The Impact Of Religiosity On Political Knowledge Among Youth Voters
Get PDFAs political engagement trends among young voters have continued to shift in the United States\u27 political atmosphere, understanding the cognitive factors that influence these decisions is becoming increasingly important. Political efficacy, or the feeling that individual political action can impact the political process, impacting their civic duties, has long been regarded as a key determinant of an individual\u27s political engagement. This study investigates how young voters\u27 understanding of prominent political arguments relates to their sense of political efficacy, with a specific lens on individual religiosity.
Through an examination of this relationship between religiosity and overall comprehension of political arguments, this research aims to identify whether religious narratives within political affairs enhance or hinder understanding and efficacy among young voters.
Ultimately, the results indicate that an individual\u27s religiosity does not significantly impact their understanding of political arguments. From this, it can be interpreted further that religiosity does not inherently increase one\u27s political efficacy. This suggests that research should continue to examine the intersection of religiosity and one\u27s understanding of political affairs, particularly on cultural issues. Determining factors that influence political efficacy is crucial, given that political efficacy is a key determinant of political participation
Exploring the Effects of Looping on First and Second Grade English Language Learners (ELLs) Students\u27 Reading and Science Achievement
Get PDFThe purpose of this study is to compare the reading and science achievement of first grade ELL students who looped with their teacher to second grade with the reading and science achievement of first grade ELL students who had a different teacher in second grade. Looping is an educational practice that allows teachers to stay with their class for two or more years, it was hypothesized that it would have a positive effect on ELL students’ reading and science achievement. Using a comparative methodology, the study tracked the end-of-year scores of the ELL students in their Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) Star Early Literacy Reading and unit science scores based on if they had looped with their teacher from first to second grade. The data collected from Elementary School A, a public school in a large central Florida school district, ensuring that the students remained anonymous. Despite the small sample size and the study’s limitation to one looping year, findings suggest that looping may provide ELL students with a supportive environment to have academic growth. While there was not as much increase found in the ELL students’ reading achievement, there was a positive difference observed in the science achievement data. These results convey a need to further research with larger populations and over extended periods of time to fully understand the potential benefits that looping has on ELL students
Methods Of Variability Reduction In Ramjet Fuel Injection Using Fluid-Structure Interactions
Get PDFThe Liquid Jet in Crossflow (LJIC) method of fuel injection in ramjet engines is widely used and well-studied. However, they experience variation in their behavior at different altitudes and flight speeds due to the varied flow conditions following the inlet. This variation becomes more noticeable at high-temperature and high-speed airflow conditions. The optimized and consistent breakup of liquid fuel is a key component in ramjet engine design as there is a minimum surface area requirement of the droplets for combustion to occur. Local equivalence ratios also have a significant influence on the effectiveness of combustion. As such, researchers at the Propulsion and Energy Research Laboratory (PERL) have been developing injection methods to combat this. The design methodology for these injectors is to position a structure, called a pintile, above the injection orifice such that the liquid jet begins column breakup at the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI). This reduces the influence of aerodynamic forces on the breakup process of the LJIC. /= / \u3e/= / \u3eThe present work studies the effects of two pintiles on reducing the variation of the windward trajectory and penetration height due to the change in momentum flux ratio and crossflow temperature. The two pintiles considered are triangular faced with a varied vertex angle (60-degree and 120-degree) at the FSI and are compared with a baseline case where a canonical LJIC is used. The mean image over one second of operation was found through binarization and cell detection image processing methods. /= / \u3e/= / \u3eThe results of the experiment show that the inclusion of the pintiles standardizes the change in trajectory based on momentum flux ratio. Also, the change in trajectory based on temperature is shown to be reduced from that of the baseline case with the pintiles tested. While both pintiles showed positive results, the 120-degree pintile outperformed the 60-degree noticeably. To gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of pintile designs, more triangular-faced pintiles should be tested with more face angles, momentum flux ratios, and crossflow temperatures
Barriers to Healthcare Utilization Among Undergraduate Students: A Gender Identity Perspective
Get PDFThe transition to college can be a crucial period of one’s life as one gains new and increased responsibilities, including managing their own healthcare. Although campus health services are available, undergraduate students have been found to often underutilize these resources due to barriers such as financial instability, lack of insurance, and identity-based disparities. While examining the current literature on this topic,there is a gap in exploring how the role of gender identity interacts with these barriers. This study addresses this gap by analyzing secondary data from the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA). Results revealed that transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) students reported the highest rates of medical and mental health service use, yet also faced the greatest levels of food insecurity. Utilization of medical and dental services declined with increasing food insecurity across all gender groups, while mental health service use rose—particularly among TGNC students. Insurance coverage was associated with higher utilization across all service types, but disparities remained for uninsured students, especially in dental care. Mantel–Haenszel tests confirmed the persistent predictive value of insurance status, though Breslow–Day tests showed that this relationship did not significantly vary across gender identities. These results suggest that while TGNC students demonstrate high overall service utilization, they remain vulnerable to the compounding effects of financial hardship. The intersection of economic stressors and gender-based marginalization can exacerbate healthcare disparities. Targeted interventions—such as expanding financial assistance and ensuring culturally competent services—can help address these disparities and promote more equitable health outcomes for undergraduate students